“We refuse to be a pawn in a new cold war,” says Joko Widodo, the president of Indonesia. Jokowi, as he is known, is speaking in an interview at the presidential palace in Jakarta. It is a surprisingly tough message from a leader known for his conciliatory style.
Next week the Indonesian president will host what feels like the first global summit of a second cold war — the G20 leaders’ meeting in Bali. This will be the first G20 summit to take place since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February. It is also the first since the surge in US-China tensions that followed the visit by Nancy Pelosi, the speaker of the US House of Representatives, to Taiwan in August.
Widodo has been president of Indonesia, the world’s fourth most populous nation, since 2014. But he presents a stark contrast to strongman leaders such as Xi Jinping or Vladimir Putin. Dressed simply in a white shirt, black trousers and Indonesian-made trainers, he says his main aim at the G20 is to encourage dialogue. “We’re very worried about escalating tensions between the major powers.”
