JAKARTA: President Joko Widodo’s planned visit to China on July 25–26, 2022, reflects the Association of Southeast Asian Nations’ (ASEAN’s) neutral stance on the China-US rivalry, a Chinese political observer, Tang Qifang, has said.
“Widodo’s visit to China shows the neutral and balanced stance of Southeast Asian countries represented by Indonesia on the China-US (rivalry),” he was quoted by local media as saying on Friday.
The visit is very important for bilateral relations between the two countries, more so because Widodo will be the first head of state in the world to visit China after the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing, he said.
On the sidelines of the Winter Olympics in Beijing in early February 2022, Chinese President Xi Jinping had received visits from several heads of state and government, including Russian President Vladimir Putin.
During his visit to China, Widodo is scheduled to meet President Xi and Prime Minister Li Keqiang in Beijing.
“Widodo’s visit is very crucial because the two heads of state could not visit each other for almost three years due to the COVID-19 (pandemic),” Tang, a researcher at the China Institute of International Studies, said.
The visit will not only push bilateral trade between China and Indonesia and between China and ASEAN but will also encourage the creation of global peace and stability, he added.
“Economic and trade cooperation will become a very important topic. The two sides will most likely make practical achievements since such cooperation is badly needed to recover the bilateral and regional economies,” he said.
Despite the strong momentum for China-Indonesia cooperation in keeping with the rising bilateral trade amidst the Covid-19 pandemic, Tang said he believes that Indonesia is still coming under pressure due to the international food price hike and domestic inflation.
Therefore, Indonesia is seeking to increase cooperation with China to maintain a positive trend and create more opportunities.
While China’s defense engagement with Indonesia still lags behind the US, it excels in investment and trade. China is the second largest investor in Indonesia after Singapore, with an investment value of $4.8 billion. Even last year, in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic, Chinese investment increased by 9 percent. China was also Indonesia’s largest trading partner in 2020 with a trade value of $71.4 billion, while trade with the U.S. came to just $27.2 billion.
As Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi pointed out during the inaugural meeting of the Dialogue Mechanism of High-Level Sino-Indonesian Dialogue in Guiyang in June, “China has been Indonesia’s largest trading partner for 10 consecutive years and remains Indonesia’s second largest source of investment.”
Taking into account the strategic position it enjoys in an era of U.S.-China competition, Indonesia needs to maximise the existing potential of its relations with both superpowers in order to safeguard its prosperity and sovereignty over the long term. Indonesia should improve military ties with China and investment with the United States.
Only be creating a greater balance in its relations with the two superpowers can Indonesia make “free and active” the reality of its foreign policy, rather than just the slogan.
