G20 Bali summit ends with a surprise consensus on Ukraine

Indonesia has pulled off a diplomatic coup in Bali by securing agreement among G20 leaders to a joint statement amid fears Russia’s war in Ukraine could tear apart the divided grouping.

Anthony Albanese and US President Joe Biden at a tree-planting ceremony in Bali on Wednesday. Picture: AFP

Indonesia has pulled off a diplomatic coup in Bali by securing agreement among G20 leaders to a joint statement amid fears Russia’s war in Ukraine could tear apart the divided grouping.

Leaders of the world’s 20 largest economies signed off on a joint declaration on Wednesday acknowledging the Ukraine war’s “adverse” effect on the global economy and focusing on ways to address escalating food and energy insecurity, inflation and climate change.

The consensus was reached despite concerns that months of diplomatic work had been up-ended by escalated Russian missile attacks on Ukraine and an errant missile strike on eastern Poland on Tuesday that killed two civilians.

Indonesian President Joko Widodo thanked God and the flexibility of G20 members for delivering the first G20 declaration achieved since Russia’s February invasion of Ukraine, which he said was the subject of “heated” debate. “I offer my highest appreciation to everyone here who has shown their flexibility so that the declaration could be agreed and adopted,” he said at the end of two days of talks. “In addition to our declaration, our presidency also produced concrete deliverables” including a pandemic fund, an $US81bn ($120bn) IMF pool to help countries in crisis and a $US20bn ($29.5bn) pledge to help Indonesia transition to clean energy.

In reality, however, it was the meetings taking place away from the G20 leaders’ table that were the most momentous, with US President Joe Biden reaching a detente with Chinese President Xi Jinping after months of rising tensions, and Australia, too, securing a diplomatic breakthrough.

Mr Xi has been the greatest beneficiary of the bitter divisions between the West and Russia, which remained defiant during the talks, as leaders sought his help to bring Moscow back to the negotiating table.

While the Chinese President skirted around Russian aggression during the summit, both ­Anthony Albanese and French President Emmanuel Macron urged him during bilateral talks to convince the Russian President of the need to avoid nuclear escalation and return to the negotiating table.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov remained defiant at the summit, even as he signed off on a final statement that blamed Moscow for the economic headwinds now threatening to plunge the world into recession. “Most members strongly condemned the war in Ukraine and stressed it is causing immense human suffering and exacerbating existing ­fragilities in the global economy – constraining growth, increasing inflation, disrupting supply chains, heightening energy and food insecurity, and elevating ­financial stability risks,” the statement reads.

Compromise wording – “other views and different assessments of the situation” – was said to have come at Mr Xi’s insistence, though the summit has exposed the increasingly tenuous loyalties of Russia’s friends and allies as the war in Ukraine heightens food and energy insecurity and fears of a nuclear war.

Lowy Institute power and ­diplomacy director Herve Lemahieu said the language in the communique was “about as good an outcome as we could have hoped for” and that the condemnation of war and nuclear rhetoric was stronger than expected.

The fact that Indonesia was able to get most G20 countries to sing from the same hymn sheet on geopolitics also cleared the way for the grouping to focus on economic issues, he added.

Having opened the summit on Tuesday with an appeal to all G20 leaders to find a way to end the Ukraine conflict or face a new cold war, the Indonesian President reiterated the message in its final hours on Wednesday. “Stop the war. I repeat, stop the war. A lot is at stake. War will only bring misery to the people, economic recovery will not happen if the situation are not improving,” he said. “As leaders we have the responsibility to ensure a conducive global situation to the future of the world.”

Mr Widodo has pushed hard all year for G20 nations to address the growing food and energy crisis caused by the invasion, which is forcing some of the world’s most vulnerable nations in Africa and Asia to the brink of famine.

Additional reporting: Dian Septiari