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ustralia and Indonesia signed a landmark security agreement on Friday, deepening defense cooperation in what Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese described as a “watershed moment” in relations between the two neighbors.

The deal was signed in Jakarta during a meeting between Albanese and Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto, marking a significant expansion of security and defense collaboration between the two Indo-Pacific nations.

“It represents a major extension of our security and defense cooperation and demonstrates that our relationship is as strong as it has ever been,” Albanese said ahead of the visit.

The agreement with Indonesia is part of a broader push by Canberra to strengthen ties across the Pacific region. Since taking office in 2022, Australia’s center-left government has signed multiple defense, police, and aid agreements aimed at reinforcing its regional influence and counterbalancing China’s growing presence.

Expert view: Indonesia in a different category

This effort has intensified under US President Donald Trump, whose administration has encouraged allies to shoulder more responsibility in deterring Beijing’s expanding military power.

Late last year, Australia concluded a security pact with Papua New Guinea, and in January Albanese signed a new aid and support agreement during a visit to East Timor.

“The government can be very pleased with the agreements it signed across the Pacific,” said Sam Roggeveen, director of the security program at the Lowy Institute.

However, he noted that Indonesia stands apart.

“Indonesia is in a different category because of its size and also because of this historic commitment to non-alignment,” Roggeveen said, referring to Jakarta’s long-standing effort to balance relations between major powers.

Diplomacy and the South China Sea

The new pact builds on earlier agreements, including a 1990s security deal signed by former Australian prime minister Paul Keating and Indonesian leader Suharto, as well as the 2006 Lombok Treaty, which laid foundations for defense cooperation.

Relations between Canberra and Jakarta have evolved from Cold War-era tensions to more stable and cooperative ties in recent years, as Indonesia continues to pursue a balanced foreign policy between Western nations and the developing world.

Roggeveen said Indonesia’s rising economic and demographic power is likely to make it a major regional force, potentially surpassing Australia economically.

Canberra, he added, is signaling that Indonesia is as vital to Australia’s security as the United States.

“Indonesia’s interests and China’s ambitions in Southeast Asia are going to clash more directly over time,” Roggeveen said, pointing to existing tensions in the South China Sea.

As China’s maritime reach expands, the new agreement may help Indonesia strengthen its defense capabilities while preserving its strategic independence.

(Source: South China Morning Post)

The elections held in India and Indonesia this year have attracted considerable attention from scholars and practitioners, particularly in the context of security issues linking the regions to regional and international politics in the Indo-Pacific. The two countries are among the most important political actors in the region that are expected to be able to exert decisive influence, especially amid the prevailing rivalry between the United States and China.

The victories of Narendra Modi in India and Prabowo Subianto in Indonesia are not only indicative of domestic development priorities. They also reflect a new international behavior that can be interpreted as a reorientation of policy in the face of the urgency of engagement, stability and security in the Indo-Pacific region.

Questions about government conduct on this issue are not new. Historically, the geography of India and Indonesia on the Indo-Pacific map has been the most strategic, not only in terms of population and economic growth, but also in terms of relations with global powers. The parliamentary majorities formed by the newly elected president in Indonesia and prime minister in India and, lastly, the military capacity, have put these two countries in the limelight.

For all their potential power, the question remains whether Indonesia’s newly elected president and India’s newly elected prime minister will play an effective role in the global politics of the Indo-Pacific. Will the national leadership achieved by Prabowo Subianto and Narendra Modi transcend a union commitment to the projection of security and stability in the Indo-Pacific?

Mapping of the Indo-Pacific Concept

The Indo-Pacific extends from regions in the Indian Ocean to the Pacific Ocean. It precisely encompasses in the tropical land of the Indian Ocean which includes India, Sri Lanka, African nations on the western side of the Indian Ocean and Yemen up the northern side of the Indian Ocean. At the other end, lies central-western part of Pacific Ocean which includes Australia, Japan and South Korea. Between the Indian Ocean and the Pacific Ocean are all the ASEAN member states and their water zones, as well as the currently disputed South China Sea.

The Indo-Pacific concept emerged at the beginning of this century through strategists’ projections. Prioritizing economic cooperation and security between states, the growth spurt accelerated in the second decade. In the 2010s, the effects are being felt by all member countries across the region. It is now common knowledge that the introduction of the Indo-Pacific concept is directly linked to the strategic economic and security strategies of China, which is seeking a global role as a great power.

Under the leadership of the U.S. administration, especially in the face of the U.S.’s multiple disagreements with China, which have noticeably increased after Xi Jinping’s presidency in 2013, a new military alliance structure has been introduced in the Indo-Pacific in the last decade, similar to the Anglo-Saxon geopolitical entity. Australia, the United Kingdom, the United States, and later Japan and India are the states united in a military alliance, as seen in the case of the U.S.-led QUAD and AUKUS, and predominantly determined by the Anglo-Saxon geopolitical worldview that triggered the return of the ‘West’ to global security expansions from the Asia-Pacific to the Indo-Pacific outlook.

The electoral victories in India and Indonesia have once again raised the question of whether the countries’ fate in the growing Indo-Pacific rivalry is destined to be a historical repetition, or whether both countries will intensify their economic and military engagement in the Indo-Pacific by aligning themselves with one of the power orbits.

The Strategic Reefs of India and Indonesia

So what is the position of India and Indonesia in the emerging security and economic imagination of the Indo-Pacific? To answer this question, one must recognize the existing reefs that serve the natural rationale and strategy that guide directions in both countries’ foreign relations approach within the great power rivalry in the Indo-Pacific.

India is strong but also fragile. This means that the basic social and political infrastructures of the country, which include very diverse societies divided by ethnicity, religion, caste and ideology, demand equal human rights and distribution of wealth within the political framework of the nation-state. Ideally, the hurdles to securing these demands could mean that the Indian central government could be prevented from becoming a strong actor in the international arena. This situation goes beyond the Hindu majority-Muslim minority dichotomy. It leads the country’s political elite to give priority to improving their position in domestic decision-making.

Given its inward-looking domestic politics, this does not mean that India has sidelined proactive engagement in international politics. The trigger for engagement is based solely on a realist approach, where it sees its nation’s security at stake. It was triggered by several cases. A long-standing border dispute with China in the Himalayan region is one example. Another is the maritime infrastructure projects that China is developing in connection with the Maritime Silk Road project from the west to the east of the Indian Ocean, i.e. from Myanmar to Djibouti, as well as the Pakistan-China border infrastructure at the Khunjerab Pass and the Gwadar-Kashgar crude oil pipelines, which are seen as having the potential to serve as a decisive pattern organ that would allow the weakening of India’s influence as a regional power.

Despite these signals, Narendra Modi’s response has been a barking tree. For example, in the recent open battle between China and India in the Himalayas, in which 20 Indian soldiers died, there were hardly any strong decisions taken by India, which was under the so-called strong leadership of Narendra Modi and a government dominated by Hindutva, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). On the other hand, there is another concern surrounding the recent statement made by the Indian authorities. The competition between India and China for minerals in the Indian Ocean, such as cobalt, which is now being eyed by China and Sri Lanka, has led India to claim that the Indian Ocean is the ‘Indian Sea’, which requires official confirmation of territorial sovereignty due to China’s denial. Looking at the two examples above, it is quite early to say that India has failed to portray itself as a content regional power, especially in the rising global rivalry in Indo-Pacific affairs.

The natural strategic reef that Indonesia is facing is similarly displayed through the disputes in the oceans involving the South China Sea, Natuna Island, economic ventures with China, and military strengthening partnership with the U.S. Although Prabowo Subianto will officially hold the seat of the presidency in November 2024, numerous media outlets and critics highlight his realist and constructivist approach, equipped with a strategy to gain a position in international politics, as a higher priority compared to that of his predecessor, who focused heavily on achieving domestic goals rather than international recognition. In the last two months alone, his visits to Malaysia, Singapore and the meeting with the US Secretary of State in Jordan have given the impression of his commitment to active participation in international affairs.

His realism and constructivist approach in considering international engagement comes from his military background as Defence Minister during Joko Widodo’s second term (2019-2024), his entire career in the army and war experience since the Soeharto era, his entry into national politics four times as a presidential candidate, and his role as spokesman of certain opposition circles in the country speak volumes about what Indonesia would serve to international states and communities. The dispute over China’s nine-dash line claim played a role in the victory of Prabowo, who was known as an efficient and responsive actor during China’s possible encroachment on Indonesia’s Natuna Islands. Prabowo, who was then Defence Minister, initiated an important military construction in Riau Province that provides an eagle view of the military engagement that could result from the South China Sea dispute.

However, as much as Prabowo may be a realist and constructivist, good economic relations with China and the U.S. in recent decades would prevent any lone ranger from strategizing a move. Like India, Indonesia would probably seek to balance and hedge its foreign policy in the Indo-Pacific, forcing the Prabowo administration to first strengthen and leverage cooperation with ASEAN (the Association of Southeast Asian Nations) and the United Nations before aligning with any of the Indo-Pacific power blocs.

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n a devastating development, West Sumatra, Indonesia, witnessed catastrophic flash floods and landslides, leaving a trail of destruction and loss in their wake. As torrential rains pounded the region, roads transformed into raging rivers, homes were swept away, and the landscape was marred by mud and debris. Tragically, lives were lost as bodies were recovered amidst the chaos.

Government officials were quick to attribute the calamity to heavy rainfall, yet environmental groups were equally swift to highlight the role of deforestation and environmental degradation in exacerbating the severity of the disasters. The Indonesian Forum for the Environment, an environmental rights group, underscored the ecological crisis as a contributing factor, cautioning against the continued neglect of environmental concerns.

Indonesia, a vast tropical archipelago boasting the world’s third-largest rainforest, has long been grappling with the consequences of deforestation and habitat destruction. Environmentalists have repeatedly sounded the alarm, pointing to the detrimental effects on biodiversity, ecosystems, and local communities dependent on forest resources.

Unsustainable land-use practices

The root of the issue lies in decades of unsustainable land-use practices driven by the pursuit of economic gains. Since 1950, vast swathes of Indonesian rainforest, equivalent to an area twice the size of Germany, have been lost to logging, fires, and development projects, including palm oil plantations and mining activities.

Moreover, Indonesia’s status as one of the largest global emitters of greenhouse gases underscores the environmental toll of its activities. Deforestation, coupled with fossil fuel emissions and peatland fires, has contributed significantly to the country’s carbon footprint and heightened vulnerability to climate change impacts.

Despite some progress, such as a temporary freeze on new permits for palm oil plantations in 2018, the pace of deforestation shows no signs of abating. New mining and infrastructure projects continue to encroach on forested areas, further exacerbating the environmental crisis.

Maintaining biodiversity

In the aftermath of the recent disasters, calls for action have grown louder. Experts emphasize the pivotal role of forests in mitigating the impacts of extreme weather events, highlighting their ability to regulate water flow, prevent soil erosion, and maintain biodiversity. However, these crucial ecosystem services are compromised as forests diminish in size and health.

Moving forward, concerted efforts are needed to address the underlying drivers of deforestation and environmental degradation. Sustainable land-use practices, strengthened environmental regulations, and community-led conservation initiatives offer promising avenues for mitigating the impacts of deforestation and safeguarding Indonesia’s natural heritage for future generations.

As the nation grapples with the aftermath of yet another environmental catastrophe, the imperative for action grows ever clearer. Only through collaborative and decisive measures can Indonesia confront the dual challenges of environmental degradation and climate change, ensuring a sustainable and resilient future for all.

Source: The Associated Press

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s the world is witnessing blatant atrocities against Palestinians in Gaza, it also bore witness to hundreds of displaced Rohingya children, women, and men being returned to sea just hours after disembarking from a boat in Aceh, Indonesia on December 27. It is widely known that the Rohingya are victims of genocide and ethnic cleansing in Myanmar. In a new escalation in 2017, 6,700 were killed while 740,000 were displaced.

The local population in Aceh is becoming increasingly weary of the burden of hosting refugees. According to media reports and records from the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) and the Indonesian Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA), Aceh has received more than 4,000 Rohingya since 2008. A surge in the number of arrivals was recorded during the pandemic in 2020-2022, reaching 1,155 people.

The influx of refugees from Myanmar to Indonesia has constantly increased in 2023. Since February 2023, MFA records show an increase of the number of refugees from Myanmar to Indonesia. The number has reached almost 2,000 refugees, as November and December 2023 marked the peak of arrivals with 1,534 Rohingya making their way to Indonesia. As of January 2024, there are already 170 new arrivals.

The Rohingya refugee influx over the past two months was not the only factor contributing to hundreds of students swarming the refugee shelter in the capital Banda Aceh on December 27. This led to the hasty military-backed expulsion of hundreds of Rohingya back to the sea. The complexity of the problem lies in the geopolitical buck-passing solutions that promote an anti-migrant atmosphere and narratives of refugees posing a national threat to Indonesia in the future. The problem is intensified by accumulated obscure government policies, the ineffectiveness of humanitarian organizations’ capacity programs, misinformation and propaganda on the internet, and the insecurities of higher-ups about the increasing cases of illegal human trafficking.

Coercion and mobilization

Many Acehnese condemned the action and suspected a systematic choreography. In a telephone conversation, local residents expressed their disappointment. “It has never been seen before (that) students’ anarchic protest would be able to convince the military to push the refugees back into the sea,” said a local resident in Banda Aceh who chose to keep his identity secret. “It seemed that only this morning they had the chance to put on green attire to chase the refugees out,” said another villager in an angry, cynical tone, indicating the use of university green attire to symbolize the force behind the act. Although the students have apologized, the damage has been done and the message of rejection has been sent.

An investigation by the state was launched a few days after the incident. It shows a series of efforts to systematically mobilize masses for expulsion, involving military personnel from Aceh. The students were promised a sum of 100-200 million rupiah ($6,500 to $13,000) for holding a demonstration against the Rohingya. No suspects have been named, other than the leader of the student demonstration. Scholars have suggested a pattern of top-down strategic anti-migration missions.

The use of coercion and money has exposed not only the accumulation of prejudices within the Acehnese people but also Indonesians at large. Strong changes were particularly clear in 2021 and 2022, where fear and hatred were manufactured through social media. Indonesians and Acehnese spread false information about the future plans of the Rohingya once their status improved. Such claims included, that those arriving in Aceh would steal land?, comparable to “Israel’s theft of Palestinian land”; that sharing the burden of state finances would displace the priority of the natives; that the Rohingya’ demand for a free and sustainable life with secure jobs and protection; the “lack of a culture of cleanness”  among the Rohingya; and allegations of involvement in rape cases, drug abuse, and “being ungrateful.”

The South China Morning Post interviewed the protesters whose response was in sync with the spread of false information online. The Ministry of Communication and Information and the NGO Masyarakat Anti Fitnah Indonesia or Anti-defamation Society verified that the above accusations are false and exaggerated.

Social media, including several unverified accounts on YouTube, have spread misinformation by defaming powerful elites in Indonesia as encouraging the expulsion. The fake news had been circulating on social media for months before the incident. The untimely and insensitive public statement by elite society members about Indonesia being a non-signatory to the 1951 United Nations Refugee Convention and therefore deserving leeway in the blame game was greatly influential.

On December 20, Foreign Ministry spokesman Lalu Muhammad Iqbal claimed that Indonesia’s non-signatory status exempted the country from any responsibility for the lives of the Rohingya. He also blamed the illegal human trafficking in Indonesian waters and demanded the signatory countries of the 1951 Convention take responsibility.

Although emphasizing the moral burden of the plight of the Rohingya, Iqbal’s statement led to condemnation from various parties and helped a hoax gain momentum as his statement partly played a role in the student march on December 27.

Triggered buck-passing

Looking at the geopolitical buck-passing attitude towards the Rohingya in recent years, perhaps part of Iqbal’s statement could be applauded or at least arise some empathy. His stance was triggered by the increasing phenomenon of illegal human trafficking and the high probability that Bangladesh organizes the remigration of Rohingya refugees out of its country to evade responsibility.

This assumption is corroborated by a recent investigation, published on December 15, based on the testimonies of several arrested suspects. It reveals that the Bangladesh Security Camp and its navy captain were involved in human trafficking. They lured the Rohingya with promises of a better life and a safe destination with a fee ranging from 3 to 15 million rupiah ($193 to $965) per person. The money was then used to purchase boat engines, fuel, and food supplies for the journey. The profit was shared between the ship’s captain and the boat crew in Bangladesh’s Cox Bazaar. Prior to departure, the refugees’ names were listed on a paper with country destinations that included Indonesia, Malaysia, and Thailand.

Due to Indonesia’s weak maritime security, most of the refugees landed and sheltered in Aceh. There several cases of runaways were reported and linked to trafficking to various areas with better economic prospects in Sumatra, such as Tanjung Balai in North Sumatra, Dumai, and Riau. The Indonesian traffickers demanded 5-10 million rupiah ($321 to $643) for each refugee. Since 2015, there have been 23 cases related to human trafficking. Coordinating Minister for Political, Legal, and Security Affairs of Indonesia Mahfud MD has stated that people from the country are involved in the illegal Rohingya human trafficking around Indonesia.

The situation of the Rohingya in undeniably a complex and multidimensional problem. However, Indonesia holds a moral responsibility to actively engage in humanitarian rescue efforts, to prevent further anti-refugee discourse in social media, and to improve its maritime security through non-traditional security measures.

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ndonesia, under its ASEAN Chairmanship in 2023, has spearheaded a crucial initiative to accelerate the negotiations for a Code of Conduct (COC) in the South China Sea, gaining unanimous agreement from all ASEAN member countries and China. The groundbreaking move was announced by Rolliansyah Soemirat, the Director for ASEAN Political and Security Cooperation, during a press conference in Jakarta on January 9, 2024.

In a bid to expedite the COC negotiations, Indonesia’s initiative introduces a set of comprehensive guidelines, marking a historic moment as the first-ever practical guidelines for the COC. These guidelines aim not only to hasten the negotiation process but also to provide substantive material ensuring the effectiveness and practicality of the COC.

Addressing the complexity of the COC elements, Rolliansyah emphasized the need for a breakthrough to expedite the negotiations successfully. The guidelines put forth by Indonesia encapsulate the aspirations of ASEAN and China to conclude the COC within three years, fostering an environment of intensive discussions on pending issues and proposing working methods to streamline the negotiation process.

A code of conduct reflecting international norms

“The COC is anticipated to be a code of conduct reflecting international norms, principles, and rules aligned with international law, particularly UNCLOS. The ultimate goal is to establish a stable, safe, and peaceful South China Sea,” stated Rolliansyah.

During its ASEAN Chairmanship, Indonesia has achieved significant progress in the COC negotiations, reaching the second reading or discussions on the second round. This positive development is considered a crucial momentum towards the accelerated agreement on the code of ethics.

Indonesia previously hosted COC negotiations between ASEAN and China in March, setting the stage for ongoing discussions. As part of its commitment to the COC process, Indonesia plans to host the next round of negotiations at the end of 2024, contributing further to the acceleration of this significant diplomatic effort.

Promoting practical maritime cooperation

In addition to the COC negotiations, Indonesia affirms its commitment to promoting practical maritime cooperation between ASEAN and China in the South China Sea. The objective is to enhance mutual trust, thereby supporting and preserving peace, security, and stability in the region.

The international community has welcomed Indonesia’s proactive stance on expediting the South China Sea COC negotiations. The successful agreement on guidelines reflects the collaborative efforts of ASEAN member states and China, emphasizing the importance of regional cooperation in addressing complex geopolitical challenges.

As Indonesia takes the lead in fostering dialogue and cooperation, the eyes of the international community remain on the South China Sea, where overlapping territorial claims have long been a source of tension. Indonesia’s role as a mediator and facilitator in the COC negotiations underscores its commitment to regional stability and adherence to international norms.

Sources: The Indonesian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Reuters

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ounded in 1926, Nahdlatul Ulama (NU) is one of Indonesia’s oldest and largest Muslim organizations, with members spread across the country and overseas. According to data published in 2021, the total number of NU members worldwide has reached 95 million.

Over the decades, the socio-political role of the NU has changed from being known as the defender of the traditional religio-economic network to the defender of pluralism, inclusion and progress. The latter is particularly strengthened under the pluralistic leadership of President Jokowi and the closer ties of the Religious Ministry to NU, which has promoted more influential national structures and an expansive stage of internationalism, as evidenced by the G20 Summit in Bali in November 2022.

The global highlight of NU has not only invited admiration at national and international levels, but also further scrutiny through a number of critics and deeper observations that characterized NU in various adjectives. Questions related to genuine metamorphosis resulting from internal reflections or artificial voice to fit into global narratives are among the most expressed. A wealth of research on the NU and its political elite’s dual identity links remains at the core of the debate.

A centenary decree proclaimed on 7 February 2023 in Sidoarjo, West Java, has put NU in a brighter light. At least as far as social media and the internet are concerned. Not only is it massively discussed and debated by global Muslim and non-Muslim audiences alike, but NU has also successfully internationalized the image of moderate and progressive Indonesian Islam. Not everyone is happy with the image-building, however, as some Muslims would argue that it is not only un-Islamic but also prone to politicization.

Alternatively, the more optimistic scholarly observers believe that the decree would provide a new framework for a movement that would help mainstream the abolition of the concept of the caliphate and the redefinition of Islamic law against its legal tradition in order to protect Islam from the extremism of fanatics. James M. Dorsey’s opinion piece, Reforming Islamic Jurisprudence Shapes the Battle to Define Moderate Islam, highlights this point as the decree states that the NU wants to “replace the concept of the caliphate with notions of the nation-state and the United Nations”, which Dorsey sees as a ground-breaking movement as it “does not exist in Islamic legal tradition.”

NU echoes global moderate Muslims 

The reforms meant by NU are also not a verbal scriptural reform towards the al Nash, including those in the traditional legal tradition. It echoes the voice of numerous Muslim scholars around the world in recent decades on the reform of fiqh jurisprudence (fiqih peradaban/ civilized fiqh) in the ontological sense. The connection between Indonesia and the wider Muslim world in this case lies in the progress of the debate on whether relevant fiqh rules should be imposed on societies living in post-colonial industrial development, with or without a sense of belonging to a nation-state, and whether the politics of governance can be further incorporated into the bill of state policy-making.

Unlike Muslims in European countries and partly in the Middle East, where the debate and discourse on fiqh has been highly dynamic and has moved from the era of toxic nationalism to the era of equality for all, Indonesia is still fairly divided along class and interest group lines, where the discourse on these issues remains vulnerable to politicization by middle and upper class bureaucrats, professionals and politicians.

That is why when the ‘One Century NU’ decree states its priority for a new mission to replace the Khilafah, it actually echoes what has been expressed by other moderate Muslims around the world. It rejects the conflict and war that would result from a caliphate mentality and calls for individual leadership responsibility towards humanity, which in Islam is called caliphate. This is a grassroots definition of the caliph.

The reform of Islamic jurisprudence (fiqh) is not only aimed at thwarting extremism and terrorism, but also at fulfilling the core value of syariah, as revealed in the decree: “a new vision aimed at preventing the exploitation of identity, rejecting inter-group hate speech, enhancing solidarity and respecting different races, cultures and nations in the world, so that the world structure of justice and harmony would be based on the recognition of the equal rights and dignity of human beings. This would support the realization of the integral function of Syariah (Sharia law).

So, to talk about NU is to talk about its coherence with the moderate Muslim organizations and educational institutions in Europe and some Middle Eastern countries. Political Islam has provided irrelevance to limit its comparison, in a good way or vice versa, to the Muslim political problems of ISIS (DAESH) or the 9/11 attacks in the U.S., not to mention the Iranian Revolution.

Caliphate vs. Toxic Nationalism 

The caliphate has been constructed as the antithesis of the nation-state. Shouting the word caliphate means revolution against the nation-state. The root narratives in Indonesia were more than 150 years old when the Dutch choreographed the regulation of political Islam in the 1920s. One of the regulations was to suppress the networks of indigenous East Indians with their Ottoman and Middle Eastern counterparts. The regulations included articles that penalized any form of support for pan-Islamism. This is to protect the Dutch nation-state sovereignty that was inherited by the Indonesian aristocratic bureaucrats, politicians and military generals on the island of Java after the independence era.

This is generational rigidity, part of a toxic nationalism that could still be reflected in Indonesia’s national defence and security protocol. This is where Indonesia needs political moderation to be imposed on both sides, the state in its position of caliphate and the groups – many of which have been banned – that have embraced the state caliphate. Failure to do so would mean a brink of extremism where violence is at stake.

In the case of the caliphate, the NU seeks moderation where it rejects the attachment of geopolitical sentiment to the historical sovereignty of the caliphate and embraces the combination of the popular notion of the caliph. The nature of the peacemaker stood alongside the secular global world. Thus, the dual identity of NU reflects a strategic move signalling the sustainability of peacebuilding and peacekeeping in the democratic world.

Amid the Russia-Ukraine war in Europe, the United States has reaffirmed its commitment to counter China in the strategically vital Indo-Pacific region, by putting $2.2 billion on the table.

But in the end, what price are the regional and world powers willing to pay—not only in financial terms—to ensure a free and open South China Sea against the backdrop of China’s rising military maneuvering?

Bone of contention

The South China Sea, which encompasses 1.4 million square miles, is of tremendous economic and geostrategic importance. More than $3 trillion in trade is transported over it each year, and roughly one-third of the world’s maritime shipping moves through its waters. It also hosts a huge number of fisheries, indispensable for the food security of China, Southeast Asia, and beyond.

Yet, apart from the economic benefits, this large swath of war is on the top agenda of many countries due to its geopolitical significance. From a narrow perspective, only a few neighboring nations have domain over parts of the South China Sea due to their respective geographic position. This includes China, Taiwan, Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia, and Brunei. Nevertheless, many other countries such as Indonesia, Singapore, Cambodia, and Japan play a vital role in this maritime region, extending the circle of the partners involved.

Stirring opposition, China has claimed not only most of the waters of South China Sea for itself, but also competes for two groups of islands of strategic importance: the Spratly Islands and the Paracel Islands are contested by China and other neighboring countries.

No one wants to abandon their claims, given the richness in deposits of natural resources, and the potential to strengthen a country’s security and to open trade routes. This creates a source for a conflict which some have attempted to resolve by negotiation and legal challenges. So far, this has been in vain.

Empires’ loud talk

In the whole saga of this maritime dispute, the United States’ role cannot be ignored. The country evokes legal treaties such as the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) to affirm the claim that the South China Sea is international waters and accuses China of militarizing the area. In recent years, artificial islets have been built by China, and some of the reefs have been converted to military facilities, paving the way for the dominance of one power.

Frothy waters amid the controversies

Due to China’s economic prowess and consequently the dependency of its neighbors on bilateral trade, many regional countries have embraced appeasing politics. However, some cracks have started to appear very recently on the surface of these seemingly friendly relations.

Last year, China deployed three ships to the Philippines’ exclusive economic zone (EEZ), prompting a fast rebuke from Rodrigo Duterte, the country’s president. Also, Malaysia summoned China’s ambassador to protest against the activities of Chinese vessels in Kuala Lumpur’s EEZ.

Vietnam and Taiwan that have experienced more ups-and-downs in dealing with China than anyone else are already on a buying spree of military equipment, searching to pro-actively improve their defense capabilities (without searching for excuses for doing so).

In the eyes of many analysts, Russia’s war in Ukraine turned the rules-based order upside down. The Russian Federation resorted to a military solution to respond to the self-perceived feeling of endangerment, and in order to return its so-called ancestral lands back to the motherland after they were allegedly wrongly gifted to Ukraine.

But the erosion of the rule of law did not start in 2022.

Previously, in 1994, Ukraine was given security assurances for abandoning its nuclear weapons by the signatories of the Budapest Memorandum on Security Assurances. Yet, the United Kingdom and the United States, subsequently joined by France and China, allowed Russia to annex Crimea exactly twenty years after the agreement.

Therefore, many point to the perishability of certain norms of international law due to the lack of their enforcement. Washington’s selective application of rules does not help its argument when evoking the need to uphold the law. However, it is without dispute that apart from deploying its armed forces, the U.S. has supported Ukraine in countering the aggressor and it remains to be seen who will be called the winner.

With American ships frequently passing through the South China Sea, not far from the Chinese ones, it is rightly feared that one small clash could lead to a full-scale war anytime as neither China nor other parties to the dispute want to deescalate easily.

It is worthwhile to bear in mind that diplomatic solutions have not been completely exhausted despite the rounds of diplomatic salvos between China and the U.S.

Joko Widodo is an Indonesian politician, businessman, and the 7th president of Indonesia. He previously served as the mayor of Surakarta from 2005 to 2012, and the governor of Jakarta from 2012 to 2014. He was elected president in July 2014 – the country’s first non-elite and non-military political leader.

Widodo is bound to the idea of change and reform in contemporary Indonesia. Although he has tried to transform the country into an Asian power, several crises, ranging from COVID-19 to some popular Islamist movements, have challenged his career. As the first English-language biography of Widodo published by Penguin Specials as a Lowy Institute Paper, Ben Bland’s Man of Contradictions shows how Widobo’s presidency mirrors a range of modern Indonesia’s paradoxes: democracy and totalitarianism, openness and protectionism, Islam and pluralism.

Although Widodo’s presidency has not yet come to an end, the author has delivered a great book. Bland, a Financial Times correspondent in Jakarta, has had unconditional access to the president, interviewed him on several occasions, and has gotten to know many of his officers and consultants. Apart from this, the author has lived in Indonesia among the ordinary people whose daily lives have been affected by Widodo’s domestic and international policies.

Bland professes that Man of Contradictions is not a “conventional biography.” His work follows what he considers the contradictions and paradoxes of Widodo, best exemplified in his manner and style. For the author, the unique manner of his leadership is an outcome of the hopes and dreams of the tens of millions of Indonesians who have voted for him.

The author has intentionally tried to prepare a book that is comprehensible to the general reader and does not become entangled with the conventional theories of policy-making and politics nor the challenging methods of biography writing. The book is an accessible source of understanding the highest-level political situation in the most populous Muslim country in the world.

Man of Contradictions familiarizes readers with Joko Widodo, the challenging leader of Southeast Asia, and at the same time, is a fresh and up-to-date political biography that opens a door to a political and social aspect of Indonesian history and society.

Ben Bland, Man of Contradictions: Joko Widodo and the Struggle to Remake Indonesia (Penguin, 2021) ISBN 978-1760897246, 164 pages.

Wary of China’s demographic preponderance, powerful economy and rapidly advancing modernizing air and naval power projection capabilities, the U.S. has concluded that the emerging Cold War-like confrontation with Beijing presents different challenges from its confrontation with the Soviet Union during the second half of the 20^th century, hence requiring differing policy prescriptions.

This backdrop has seen the U.S. increasing its diplomatic and security cooperation arrangements with its existing partners in the Indo-Pacific – in particular, Japan, the Republic of Korea, Singapore and Australia – along with rapid expansion of security cooperation arrangements with India. Notably, Japan, Australia and India are linked to the U.S. under the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue, or Quad, for short.

The U.S. has begun to seek more diplomatic and security partners in the western Pacific. Washington’s new partners include Indonesia. In October 2020, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo arrived in Jakarta to pledge U.S. cooperation with Indonesia to ensure regional maritime security. Growing U.S.-Indonesian cooperation has been carried over with the transition to the Biden Administration, with U.S. funding for the construction of a maritime training centre in Batam Island.

A two-fold perspective underscores the mutual interests and logic behind U.S.-Indonesia rapprochement. The first of these concerns the geostrategic setting of Sino-U.S. rivalry. The Indonesian islands are located close to the Sea Lines of Communication (SLOCs) that connect the Indian Ocean to the South China Sea; this is further underscored by the location of three key maritime chokepoints: the Malacca Straits; the Sunda Strait; and the Lombok Strait.

Ensuring continued access to these chokepoints is a critical concern for China, given the extent to which Beijing is dependent on these SLOCs for its oil imports from the Middle East and East Africa, as well as its exports of consumer goods to Europe.

Beijing is fully aware that, in the event of heightened confrontation with the U.S., Washington is likely to seize the initiative to severe these SLOCs and thus starve China’s energy-dependent economy into submission

Beijing is fully aware that, in the event of heightened confrontation with the U.S., Washington is likely to seize the initiative to severe these SLOCs and thus starve China’s energy-dependent economy into submission. In particular, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is aware that its domestic legitimacy is dependent on ensuring employment for its populace; by extension, any development that undermines China’s economy bodes the prospect of civil unrest and discontent that would be aimed at the CCP.

The CCP’s sense of vulnerability over these SLOCs is further accentuated by its limited air-naval power projection capabilities. Although China has joined the club of great powers with aircraft carriers and stealth fighter aircraft, its ability to seriously challenge the U.S. and its Quad partners beyond the South China Sea remains limited. Apart from China’s artificial islands in the South China Sea – whose lack of strategic depth renders them vulnerable to a U.S.-led amphibious assault – the only air and naval bases that China has been able to acquire in the Indian Ocean region are in Djibouti, and in Great Coco Island, Myanmar.

Set against this, the prospect of an increased U.S. air-naval presence at the heart of Southeast Asia underscores to Beijing the vulnerability of its SLOCSs. The U.S. already enjoys access to Singapore’s air and naval bases, which are capable of hosting up to two U.S. aircraft carrier battle groups. Nonetheless, U.S. options for expanding its military footprint in Singapore are limited by the scarcity of land in the city-state.

U.S. options for expanding its military footprint in Singapore are limited by the scarcity of land in the city-state.

In contrast, sparsely-populated, under-developed Batam offers significant tracts of land that offer potential expansion of military infrastructure to host a scaled-up U.S. air-naval presence in Southeast Asia that would be capable of interdicting the SLOCs that China is dependent on, even as the PRC’s air-naval power projection capabilities remain well behind the U.S.

A second, further rationale to the Indonesia-U.S. rapprochement concerns the technical aspects of the efforts of the Indonesian National Armed Forces – the Tentara Nasional Indonesia (TNI) – to modernize in the face of growing Chinese assertiveness in claiming the waters and islets within the ‘Nine-Dash Line’, which abut Indonesia’s Natuna Island. China’s modernization of its air and naval power projection capabilities underscore Beijing’s increased capacity to present the Southeast Asian with the fait accompli of Chinese control of the South China Sea.

Set against this, the TNI’s readiness to respond is limited. The Indonesian Army has traditionally held pride of place in Jakarta’s procurement programs, thence leaving the country’s Air Force and Navy equipped with obsolete, poorly-maintained platforms, a weakness underscored by the loss of the submarine Nanggala during a training exercise in April 2021. In response to China’s air and naval modernization, the TNI has switched its procurement priorities accordingly, with contracts for the acquisition of Korea-built Boramae stealth fighters, Japanese-built Mogami-class and Italian-built FREMM-class stealth frigates.

Jakarta has also announced plans to acquire upgraded variants of the U.S.-built F-15-EX fighter. Such acquisitions come as a timely response to China’s increased assertiveness in the South China Sea that signals Jakarta’s resolve not to be intimidated by China. However, their belated procurement, coming after decades of the Indonesian Government’s neglect of its air and naval capabilities, underscores the prospect of a steep learning curve for Indonesia’s pilots and sailors.

These new platforms are among the latest designs of their type in the world, and whose effectiveness is bound by the information-based Revolution in Military Affairs (RMA). Mastery of these platforms as part of a ‘system of systems’ will not be merely a case of retraining personnel to operate more advanced aircraft and warships; rather, it will place more emphasis on the ability of personnel to rapidly process combat information from a wide array of sensors for accurate targeting under wartime conditions requires a fundamental shift in training, doctrine and manpower organization. Such a level of military modernization would effectively require a paradigm shift in Indonesia’s war-fighting doctrine, requiring the TNI to make the transition from a 1980s-styled military to a 21^st-century one at very short notice.

Within such a setting, the establishment of a U.S.-Indonesian maritime training centre offers both sides a win-win arrangement for their respective military interests vis-à-vis China. For Washington, the training centre provides the U.S. military with the foundation to establish an alliance with a demographically large, but technically backward, regional power in Southeast Asia.