The leaders of Australia, India, Japan and the United States, which form the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue, or the so-called Quad, were opposed to all attempts to "change the status quo by force, particularly in the Indo-Pacific".

The posture came amid growing concerns about whether China could try to forcibly seize self-ruled Taiwan as the world continues to pressure Russia over its invasion of Ukraine.

Retno said the war in Ukraine had shown that a “deep trust deficit” was prevalent among countries in the world, stressing that signs of this trust deficit were already “among us in the Indo-Pacific”.

The foreign minister delivered these remarks at the ministerial session of the 12th Delhi Dialogue in New Delhi, where she also attended the Special ASEAN-India Foreign Ministers’ Meeting (SAIFMM) on Thursday and Friday.

While she agreed with the dialogue’s theme of “Building Bridges in the Indo-Pacific'', Retno said that doing so required mutual trust in the region, underlining that the lack of trust was a “virus” that obstructed cooperation and promoted the zero-sum game as a global paradigm.

She also warned that what happened in Ukraine could happen in the Indo-Pacific if the region was not careful.