US Indo-Pacific Partners’ Approach to Ukraine Fractured (voanews.com)
March 04, 2022 11:08 PM Patsy Widakuswara
WHITE HOUSE — While U.S. President Joe Biden has played a key role in galvanizing Western nations’ condemnation of Moscow’s aggression against Ukraine, his administration is finding it harder to build a global coalition in the Indo-Pacific to isolate Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Key regional partners such as Australia, Japan, South Korea, Singapore and Taiwan have announced significant financial sanctions and export controls against Moscow, but others have resisted Western pressure to even condemn the invasion.
Most notable among these is India. While it is a strong U.S. partner in containing China in the Indo-Pacific, New Delhi relies heavily on Russian defense purchases and abstained from the United Nations General Assembly resolution demanding that Russia “immediately, completely and unconditionally withdraw all of its military forces from the territory of Ukraine within its internationally recognized borders.”
India also abstained on a U.N. Security Council vote that Russia vetoed.
India’s reluctance
Biden convened an emergency virtual Quad meeting on Thursday, a day after India’s abstention from General Assembly vote. The Quad, an informal grouping of the U.S., India, Australia and Japan, was established mainly to address regional concerns about China’s rise.
