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| Image: Flickr User - Eduardo M. C. |
By Prashanth Parameswaran
Move likely to raise further questions about his administration’s commitment to regional multilateralism.
Indonesian president Joko “Jokowi” Widodo will skip a key summit in the Philippines next week in a move that will raise further questions among some about his administration’s commitment to regional multilateralism.
According to Ari Dwipayana, a member of the presidential communications team, Vice-President Jusuf Kalla is scheduled to take Jokowi’s place in the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in Manila from November 17 to 20, where confirmed state leaders in attendance include U.S. President Barack Obama and Chinese President Xi Jinping.
Sources at the State Palace told The Jakarta Post that given the fact that Jokowi had to attend to several urgent domestic matters that require his immediate attention, the president felt uncomfortable spending more than 10 days abroad to attend a host of multilateral meetings, including the G-20 summit in Turkey, APEC in the Philippines, and the ASEAN summit and East Asia Summit in Malaysia.
Irrespective of the stated rationale, the move will undoubtedly fuel anxieties about Indonesia’s waning commitment to regional multilateralism under Jokowi’s so-called people-oriented, results-driven foreign policy. Last November, following his first trip abroad for a series of the same multilateral meetings – in that case, APEC in Beijing, the ASEAN Summit in Myanmar and the G-20 in Australia – Jokowi had said that he would not invest much time in diplomatic relationships that were not beneficial. That statement had raised eyebrows since Asian multilateralism has always been as much about being present as it has been about the substance therein, a point even the United States had come to appreciate under the Obama administration.
Read the full story at The Diplomat