Southeast Asian governments are not of one mind when it comes to the appropriate response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. But they are mostly agreed on the facts and share similar concerns. The invasion has struck a chord in a region already worried about large revisionist powers seeking hegemony. Many in Southeast Asia read the news about Ukraine with a nervous eye to the north.
Singapore was the first and most vigorous in the region in condemning the invasion. The city-state has pledged to sanction Russian entities and co-sponsored a UNSC resolution condemning Moscow. In a statement to Parliament on February 28, Foreign Minister Vivian Balakrishnan declared,
This is an existential issue for us. Ukraine is much smaller than Russia, but it is much bigger than Singapore. A world order based on “might is right”, or where “the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must”, such a world order would be profoundly inimical to the security and survival of small states.
Most in the region seem to agree, if less quickly. Indonesia’s foreign ministry initially condemned the “violation of the territory and sovereignty” without mentioning Russia by name. The ASEAN foreign ministers issued a bland statement calling for peace without condemning Russia. But on March 2, Cambodia as ASEAN chair joined Singapore and dozens of others in cosponsoring a UN General Assembly resolution condemning the invasion. Laos and Vietnam abstained while the rest of Southeast Asia voted in favor of the resolution. Malaysia recently announced that it would prohibit a Russian oil tanker from docking at its ports due to U.S. and EU sanctions. Even in Vietnam, Russia’s closest partner in the region, the tightly controlled media has been allowed to report freely on the conflict and the public appears broadly sympathetic to Ukraine.
Myanmar is the only place in Southeast Asia where Russia has found explicit support. Myanmar’s ambassador to the United Nations, who was appointed by the former civilian government, voted in favor of the General Assembly resolution. But the military junta has defended Russia’s actions, saying Moscow is working to “consolidate its sovereignty.” This is unsurprising given Russia’s diplomatic support and continue arms sales to the junta.
Alongside the region’s outrage toward Moscow are concerns that the crisis could, yet again, distract the United States from its self-described priority theater in the Indo-Pacific. But the Biden administration has done a good job so far of showing it can walk and chew gum. The invasion did not derail release of the Indo-Pacific Strategy, the U.S.-ASEAN special summit planned for March 28-29, or the U.S. Navy’s most recent transit through the Taiwan Strait this past weekend. Those are exactly the signals most Southeast Asian partners are looking for at the moment.
The crisis in Ukraine will present second order complications for U.S. relationships with allies and partners in the Indo-Pacific. The most problematic may be the political difficulty of granting waivers for future purchases of Russian arms under the Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act (CAATSA). Most countries could be convinced to shop elsewhere. But Vietnam, like India, has a military overwhelmingly dependent on Russian-made systems; it has no choice but to continue importing Russian equipment for the foreseeable future. The United States will need to encourage Vietnam to find substitutes where it can but consider waivers where it must.