{"id":60052,"date":"2020-10-28T16:05:20","date_gmt":"2020-10-28T05:05:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/?p=60052"},"modified":"2020-10-28T16:03:33","modified_gmt":"2020-10-28T05:03:33","slug":"indonesia-hedging-on-the-us-and-the-quad","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/indonesia-hedging-on-the-us-and-the-quad\/","title":{"rendered":"Indonesia hedging on the US and the Quad"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/figure>\n

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is scheduled to visit Jakarta tomorrow to meet with his Indonesian counterpart, Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi. With an itinerary including stops in India, Sri Lanka and the Maldives, it\u2019s clear that the goal of the visit<\/a> is to persuade Indonesia to align itself more closely to the US-led Quadrilateral Security Dialogue in confronting security threats from China.<\/p>\n

The US has been pulling out all stops to try to persuade Indonesia; witness its willingness to overlook Indonesian Defence Minister Prabowo Subianto\u2019s history of human rights controversies<\/a> in granting him a visa for a recent visit<\/a> after more than 20 years in the cold.<\/p>\n

From the Indonesian perspective, however, there are several problems with this goal.<\/p>\n

First, Indonesia has steadfastly maintained a position of neutrality, fearing it might be dragged into conflicts that it doesn\u2019t want. An independent and active foreign policy, which eschews formal military alliances, is a fundamental part of Indonesia\u2019s strategic culture<\/a>. Thus, Indonesia flatly rejected a recent US request<\/a> to host spy planes on the grounds that it would be against Indonesia\u2019s historic position of neutrality, which saw it become one of the founding members of the Non-Aligned Movement. Any deviation from these principles would be bound to cause domestic uproar, something President Joko Widodo can ill afford as he battles to contain the Covid-19 pandemic and resuscitate the economy.<\/p>\n

While the Quad bills itself as a dialogue, it is slowly evolving into a mechanism for military cooperation against the perceived threat from China. Even as elements in Indonesian society and the military are willing to consider support for the Quad<\/a> in the future, at this point the consensus is one of wait and see, and the outcome will depend significantly on whether China increases its aggressiveness in the South China Sea.<\/p>\n

Second, Indonesia has growing economic and investment links with China<\/a> that could be jeopardised by closer alignment with the US. China\u2019s trade boycotts<\/a> against Australia in response to Canberra\u2019s firm stance on suspected foreign interference and its call for an investigation into the origins of the Covid-19 pandemic have been duly noted in Jakarta. While it maintains a huge trade deficit<\/a> with China, Indonesia can\u2019t afford to pick a fight with Beijing because it needs Chinese investment, especially in infrastructure<\/a> and heavy industry, to jump-start the economy.<\/p>\n

Finally, and most importantly, there\u2019s a question mark over whether the US can be relied upon to continue its favourable approach towards Indonesia. Indonesian military officers are generally apprehensive about the idea of a US president from the Democratic Party, believing that a Democratic administration would put more emphasis on human rights, and be more prepared to intervene in Indonesia\u2019s domestic affairs, in contrast to a business-like Republican Party.<\/p>\n

They do not forget that it was the Clinton administration that pressured Indonesia to leave East Timor and imposed a military embargo that wrecked Indonesia\u2019s armament program for years. It was the Republican Bush administration that finally lifted the embargo. To be sure, President Barrack Obama, a Democrat, is seen positively in Indonesia due to his brief childhood connection to the country and his efforts to forge a stronger bilateral relationship as part of his Asia \u2018pivot\u2019. But Indonesia\u2019s military didn\u2019t miss the fact that the Arab Spring happened on Obama\u2019s watch, in which they saw the hidden hand of the US meddling in the domestic affairs of Arab states on the pretext of concern for human rights.<\/p>\n

In fact, Indonesia\u2019s defence white paper<\/a> specifically notes that the \u2018Arab Spring, political and security upheaval in Egypt, [and] civil wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya and Syria\u2019 are examples of major powers waging proxy wars. Not surprisingly, several high-ranking military officers I spoke to said they are hoping President Donald Trump will beat Joe Biden in the 3 November presidential election because that would mean the US would continue to act favourably towards the Indonesian military. A Biden victory might jeopardise that, putting the spotlight back on the question of human rights, especially human rights in the provinces of Papua and West Papua<\/a>, which remains a touchy issue for Indonesia.<\/p>\n

All this will force Indonesia to maintain its hedging game, welcoming the Trump administration\u2019s outreach, but remaining wary of any abrupt change in US policy that might be detrimental to Indonesia\u2019s interest.<\/p>\n

It seems very likely that Biden, should he defeat Trump, would want to continue his predecessor\u2019s outreach to Indonesia, considering that there is very strong bipartisan support in the US<\/a> on the need to take a hard line towards China. Indonesia, of course, will deal with whomever the American people chose to elect.\u00a0 But should Biden wish to court Indonesia\u2019s support, he would need to deal with some historic legacies that have left many here doubtful about the durability of US friendship.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is scheduled to visit Jakarta tomorrow to meet with his Indonesian counterpart, Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi. With an itinerary including stops in India, Sri Lanka and the Maldives, it\u2019s …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1073,"featured_media":60063,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[8,2328,31],"class_list":["post-60052","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general","tag-indonesia","tag-quad","tag-united-states"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nIndonesia hedging on the US and the Quad | The Strategist<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/indonesia-hedging-on-the-us-and-the-quad\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Indonesia hedging on the US and the Quad | The Strategist\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is scheduled to visit Jakarta tomorrow to meet with his Indonesian counterpart, Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi. 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