The Indonesian perspective toward rising China

Abstract

President Joko Widodo (Jokowi)’s approach toward rising China was mainly an effort to balance the national interest in two ways. Economically, by adjusting the relations between China and Japan as the main source of financing and investment serving the national development in pursuit of prosperity for the nation. And politically, by maintaining a dynamic equilibrium to preserve peace and stability in the region as a prerequisite for a national sustainable development. Within this perspective, President Jokowi simultaneously set up frameworks for political diplomacy with a focus on commercial, trade, and financial diplomacy that was unprecedented. Never have been a precedent in world history where three global power-house of political, economic, and trade are in one region at the same time, presenting a new strategic environment in the Asia-Pacific region. The shift of world economic power from Japan to China as the number two and three respectively after the United States, change the pattern of the economic development through foreign direct investment to countries of the region. This change also brings new forms of aid and loans for development that is different from the previous practices introducing competition and requirements of interest which that provided by global economic and financial institutions. China’s initiative to establish the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) was a direct challenge to create a new balance of power, and prompted Indonesia to adjust the balance of national interest. The degree of interdependence in the fields of economics, politics, and commerce increasingly developed between Indonesia and China was not supported by the urban middle class in Indonesia perceiving the rise of China. The low awareness became the biggest obstacle to the vital interests of both countries and also to maintaining the balance of Indonesia’s national interest.