Indonesia's new president affirms commitment to non-alignment but fumbles his country's stance on the South China Sea.
Estey Chen | News Contributor
Just weeks after being sworn into office on October 20, Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto embarked upon a two-week international tour to China, the United States, Peru, Brazil, the United Kingdom, and the United Arab Emirates. Beginning November 8, Prabowo met senior leaders across the public and private sectors and oversaw the signing of $18.5 billion in investment agreements in the UK and UAE.
These commitments covered sectors including energy, defense, telecommunications, and agribusiness, all of which will be essential for Prabowo to deliver on his campaign promises of 8% GDP growth and mass poverty alleviation. However, news of these investments has been overshadowed by his team’s impromptu contradiction of Indonesia’s long-standing refusal to recognise China’s South China Sea territorial claims, raising concerns about the incoherence of Prabowo’s strategy and the inexperience of his cabinet of political appointees.
Prabowo began his trip in China, where he met with President Xi Jinping, Premier Li Qiang, and National People’s Congress Chair Zhao Leji. The parties signed multiple memoranda of understanding for cooperation and investment projects valued at $10 billion, focusing on manufacturing, infrastructure, and the burgeoning renewable energy sector. Other joint initiatives cover deeper supply chain integration, disaster resilience management cooperation, language learning scholarships, and military-to-military exchanges. Indonesia became more proactive in courting foreign investment for capital-intensive infrastructure projects under former president Joko Widodo (“Jokowi”), which Prabowo has vowed to continue as part of his push to achieve 8 percent GDP growth.
Despite these figures, Prabowo drew more attention for a November 9 joint statement that seemed to concede to China’s claims in the South China Sea. The statement, released in both English and Mandarin Chinese, reads that both parties “reached an important common understanding” to pursue maritime cooperation projects “in areas of overlapping claims” despite the Indonesian government’s longstanding position that it has no contested claims with China in the North Natuna Sea.
By acknowledging that China’s “nine-dash line” overlaps with Indonesia’s exclusive economic zone under the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), Prabowo’s delegation appeared to legitimise the legality of China’s claims in the oil- and gas-rich North Natuna Sea. Under former president Jokowi, Indonesia accelerated its economic diplomacy outreach for capital-intensive infrastructure and industrial projects—often turning to Chinese investors due to their looser environmental, social, and governance requirements. However, joint Chinese-Indonesian gas exploration in the North Natuna Sea would be unprecedented.
The Indonesian Ministry of Foreign Affairs released its own clarifying statement two days later, which states that Indonesia maintains its stance that China’s “nine-dash line” does not have any basis under international law or the UNCLOS agreement. Minister of Foreign Affairs Sugiono also clarified on December 2 that Indonesia has no plans to pursue maritime development projects with Chinese actors in the North Natuna Sea and only mentioned the possibility in the joint statement “to reduce tension.”
Other official Indonesian bodies have declined to comment, raising questions as to whether the contrasting statements are the result of legitimate internal policy disagreements or the inexperience of new Minister of Foreign Affairs Sugiono and his deputies. The subsequent clarifications from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs suggest that Prabowo lacks a coordinated foreign policy strategy, which could undermine the seriousness afforded to his administration in future negotiations.
The remainder of Prabowo’s trip was relatively uneventful, as he met with outgoing U.S. President Joe Biden to make routine affirmations of their shared commitment to deeper diplomatic, security, and economic cooperation. Marking the 75th anniversary of formal Indonesia-U.S. relations, the two sides reiterated existing agreements to pursue cooperation on strengthening Indonesia’s food resilience and digital innovation capacities, mobilise climate investments through the Just Energy Transition Partnership, and renew their bilateral and multilateral military exercises.
Proving elusive was a critical minerals agreement granting Indonesian nickel companies access to the 2022 U.S. Inflation Reduction Act’s electric vehicle tax credits. Such a deal may become more elusive under newly inaugurated President Donald Trump. Trump has expressed disdain for the climate policies of his Democrat predecessors and threatened to undo key legislation of the Biden administration, including the $390 billion in renewable-friendly subsidies offered by the Inflation Reduction Act.
Adding to the underwhelming tone of Prabowo’s U.S. visit was his inability to secure a face-to-face meeting with then-president-elect Trump. Instead, Prabowo settled for a phone call in which he offered to fly anywhere in the world to meet Trump and Trump complimented Prabowo’s English—to which the polyglot general replied, “all my [officer] training is American.”
Touching down in Peru and Brazil for the annual APEC and G20 summits, respectively, Prabowo announced more defense, economic, and development agreements. In Peru, Prabowo reaffirmed Indonesia’s desire to secure $600 billion in investment for “downstreaming”—an Indonesian policy amounting to natural resource protectionism—of 26 commodities and sought closer ties to New Zealand, Canada, Japan, and Vietnam.
In Brazil, Prabowo’s delegation signed a memorandum of understanding with Brazilian multinational aerospace company Embraer to foster cooperation on commercial aviation, wooed Brazilian businesspeople and government officials to cooperate on Indonesia’s free meals program, and spoke to French President Emmanuel Macron about Indonesia’s purchase of Rafale fighter jets and efforts to jointly produce submarines with France’s Naval Group. However, he was unable to leave either summit with explicit financial commitments.
Finally, Prabowo ended his tour in the United Kingdom and United Arab Emirates, adding $8.5 billion more in investments. In the UK, Prabowo met with Prime Minister Keir Starmer to discuss defense and cybersecurity cooperation and secured $7 billion in investment from a British Petroleum-led consortium to develop a natural gas field in Indonesia’s West Papua province, as well as Indonesia’s first carbon capture, utilization, and storage project to rely on enhanced gas recovery.
The Indonesian delegation also secured $1.5 billion from the CEO Roundtable Forum before heading to Abu Dhabi to meet with UAE Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan. There, the parties discussed doubling Indonesia-UAE bilateral trade from $4.6 billion in 2023 to $10 billion and support from the UAE for Indonesia to establish a sovereign wealth fund. This builds on Prabowo’s previously expressed desire to deepen Indonesia’s ties with the Middle East.
By embarking on a global tour so early in his presidency, Prabowo has signaled a desire to take a hands-on approach to foreign policy making. While former president Jokowi focused on building a domestic legacy and left foreign policy to the career diplomats in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Prabowo seeks to leverage his decades of international experience as a military general and senior cabinet member to personally cultivate a diverse array of defense, economic, and diplomatic partners.
However, the administration’s blunder in China suggests that navigating US-China strategic competition and employing this personal approach to diplomacy while maintaining Indonesia’s non-alignment will not be easy, especially given discrepancies in policy experience within his big-tent cabinet and Prabowo’s mercurial personality.
