JAKARTA – Indonesia has the world’s fourth biggest population, boasts the globe’s largest Muslim democracy and sits at the heart of a key region geopolitically – and yet persistently punches below its weight on the global stage.
While national founder Sukarno helped create the Non-Aligned Movement and dictator Suharto was a pivotal Cold War actor, the nation at the heart of Southeast Asia has kept a lower profile since democratization in 1998.
“A thousand friends and zero enemies” has been the national refrain as political elites have focused on the domestic tasks of shaping a post-authoritarian political order and cranking up economic development.
New President-elect Prabowo Subianto, however, may herald a more active approach to Indonesia’s foreign affairs.
For the past decade, Indonesian foreign policy has run on a relatively successful autopilot. President Joko Widodo, aka Jokowi, had so little taste for foreign policy when he came to office in 2014 that after attending his first ASEAN summit he told his aides he intended to never waste his time like that again, and only changed his mind after prodding.
With rare exceptions like a spate of presidential diplomacy around the G20 hosted in Bali in 2022, Indonesia’s foreign affairs were in the hands of Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi, a career diplomat who kept to Indonesia’s traditional position of non-alignment between great powers while reinforcing regional ties.
Prabowo, insiders say, can be expected to take a much greater interest in foreign policy. Unlike Jokowi, Prabowo, 72, has spent much of his life abroad and is comfortable doing business in English.
Having doggedly pursued the presidency for decades, insiders say he is keen to leave a lasting legacy, an instinct that often makes leaders look to successes abroad. His age and rumored poor health will likely add a sense of urgency.
So, what will this mean for the region and the wider world? Prabowo, the nation’s current defense minister and a former special forces general, is known to have a firm preoccupation with Indonesia’s sovereignty, a short-fuse temper and a penchant for off-the-cuff comments.
At the same time, insiders argue he is ultimately a pragmatist. Geopolitical realities and a talented foreign ministry bureaucracy will probably keep him from straying too far from Indonesia’s usual policy of careful non-alignment and good ties with all – to which Prabowo has already rhetorically committed alongside fiery asides about the need for greater national strength.
Some point to the former president Abdurrahman Wahid, aka Gus Dur, whose often unconventional foreign policy instincts were contained and constrained by careful career diplomats.
On the central geopolitical issue of rising US-China tensions, Indonesia, like most ASEAN powers, has little interest in being drawn into a fight.
China is Indonesia’s second biggest source of investment and plays a pronounced role in key infrastructure projects and the strategic nickel industry. Despite tensions over China’s nine-dash line which overlaps with some of Indonesia’s territorial waters, there are strong incentives to keep ties on an even keel.
America’s economic engagement, on the other hand, is widely viewed as disappointing but the US is still valued as a security partner, weapons supply and broad counterweight to China. This is particularly important for Prabowo, who has long expressed his belief in the importance of military power and is looking to foreign partners to fuel an ambitious military modernization program.
So far, China has arguably played a defter hand in wooing Prabowo. That was seen in the highly unusual step of inviting Prabowo for an official visit to Beijing before he has been formally inaugurated as president.
The US, meanwhile, has reportedly left Prabowo feeling somewhat slighted. As ambassadors crowded to congratulate Prabowo on his electoral victory on February 14, the Americans notably waited until his victory was officially ratified over a month later.
Complications surrounding Prabowo’s ability to enter the US while serving as defense secretary, even after a visa ban linked to accusations of human rights abuses dating back to the 1990s was revoked, also reportedly piqued the ex-soldier.
Still, there’s little sign these sore feelings will greatly affect Prabowo’s foreign policy. Whatever his personal feelings during his tenure as defense minister, Prabowo steadily upgraded Indonesia’s security ties with the US, including by scaling up joint military exercises.
Indeed, there’s a certain expectation in Jakarta that Prabowo’s preoccupation with security might motivate him to put more distance from China than Jokowi, who visited the country eight times in 10 years as president.
In particular, Prabowo is expected to take a firmer line on Chinese intrusions into Indonesian territorial waters, though few envision him going as far as the Philippines, which has dramatically shifted its tone and action toward China under Ferdinand Marcos Jr’s US-aligned rule.
Indonesian foreign policy stalwarts seem to welcome this as a needed adjustment to Jokowi’s perceived passivity on the issue.
Prabowo’s apparent desire to play a more active role on the world stage might see him raise Indonesia’s voice on crises of the day. In 2023, at the Shangri-La Dialogue defense talk shop in Singapore, he shocked many, not least the Indonesian foreign ministry, by using his speech to propose a peace plan for Ukraine.
Returning to the conference this year, he reiterated his peace proposal while volunteering Indonesia’s participation in a hypothetical UN peacekeeping force for a post-conflict Gaza – although this time the foreign ministry seems to have been advised in advance.
Myanmar, where the coup-installed junta’s position looks increasingly precarious on the battlefield, could conceivably also attract his attention as the risk of regional blowback rises.
How much he could accomplish in any of these foreign policy areas remains unclear as the conflicts are intractable and Indonesia has no known leverage to affect developments in Gaza or Ukraine.
Myanmar, technically still part of ASEAN, may offer opportunities for Indonesia to act as a mediator between the rebels and military regime. Indonesia successfully played such a role in helping mediate peace in Cambodia in the late 1980s and early 1990s.
Any effective intervention in Myanmar or elsewhere would require close coordination with his foreign minister and the diplomatic bureaucracy. Crucially, Prabowo is expected to replace Retno as the nation’s top diplomat.
Since the Reformasi era, the minister has usually been a technocrat who has risen through the bureaucratic ranks and whose personality chimes with the president’s. However, there is already speculation that Prabowo could tap a career politician or other ally.
Roesan Roeslani, businessman and former ambassador to the US who played a key role in Prabowo’s presidential campaign; Fadli Zon, a member of Prabowo’s Gerindra party; Dino Pati Djalal, former deputy foreign minister and key foreign policy advisor under president Susilo Bambang Yudhyono; and Meutya Hafid, a Golkar party member and chair of the parliamentary foreign policy committee, have all been suggested as possibilities.
While all would be unconventional choices, most would likely be serviceable, though there may be doubts about their mastery of the bureaucracy.
The one exception is Fadli Zon, a combative politician known for his ties to Islamist groups, praise for Russian President Vladimir Putin and naked prejudice against Chinese Indonesians, whose appointment to the top spot would alarm all and sundry, home and abroad.
Who Prabowo eventually settles on, technocrat or otherwise, will perhaps be the best indication of the priorities of a man who, despite being a veteran of Indonesia’s politics, policymaking and military affairs, retains a streak of unpredictability and penchant for springing surprises.
Joseph Rachman is a Jakarta-based freelance journalist covering Indonesian and ASEAN news. Follow him on X at @rachman_joseph
Source link : https://asiatimes.com/2024/07/how-indonesias-prabowo-will-see-the-world/
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Publish date : 2024-07-02 15:12:54
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