Reasons for Asian neutralism regarding the russian-Ukrainian war

Abstract

Abstract. The article analyses the reasons for the neutrality of ASEAN, Central Asia, India, and China regarding the russian-Ukrainian war. It explains the historically neutral foreign policy course of the ASEAN countries in view of the 1971 Kuala Lumpur Declaration on the creation of a zone of peace, freedom, and neutrality in Southeast Asia. The study examines the position of Asian countries during the votes on the following UN General Assembly resolutions: 2 March 2022, the resolution ES‑11/1 condemning the russian invasion of Ukraine and demanding the complete withdrawal of russian troops and the cancellation of the decision to recognise the self-proclaimed Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics; 12 October 2022, the resolution condemning illegal ‘referenda’ in the temporarily occupied territories of the Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia, and Kherson regions; 14 November 2022, the draft resolution entitled ‘Furtherance of remedy and reparation for aggression against Ukraine’. The authors put forward a set of recommendations for the specialists from the MFA of Ukraine on strengthening the coordination with the ASEAN member states, Central Asian countries, India, and China and expanding the Ukraine Defence Contact Group (the Ramstein coalition) to include those countries for the sake of defeating the russian invader. The article stresses that the russian-Ukrainian war is the largest war in Europe since World War II that goes beyond the scope of a bilateral conflict. The war has a fundamental impact on the security, military, political, economic, and other components of the globalsystem of international relations; it devastates the European security system and the entire global political and security order. Keywords: ASEAN, Central Asia, diplomacy, peace, neutrality, the United Nations (UN), Southeast Asia (SEA), russian-Ukrainian war, Ukraine, position.