{"id":230,"date":"2024-11-04T01:07:16","date_gmt":"2024-11-04T01:07:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/krogragg.com\/?p=230"},"modified":"2024-11-04T01:07:16","modified_gmt":"2024-11-04T01:07:16","slug":"op-ed-china-comes-knocking-at-indonesias-front-door","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/krogragg.com\/?p=230","title":{"rendered":"Op-Ed: China Comes Knocking at Indonesia’s Front Door"},"content":{"rendered":"
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[By Euan Graham]<\/em><\/p>\n

China is testing Prabowo Subianto\u2019s new administration, with three successive\u00a0incursions\u00a0by China Coast Guard vessels into Indonesia\u2019s exclusive maritime jurisdiction\u2014the first occurring on the new president\u2019s inaugural day in office.<\/p>\n

Jakarta urgently needs to recalibrate its South China Sea diplomacy and to revisit its basic assumptions about China. China\u2019s move south should also be a wake-up call to Canberra that its pursuit of supposed bilateral \u2018stabilisation\u2019 with Beijing is irrelevant to China\u2019s strategic intentions.<\/p>\n

These incursions are more than a test of Prabowo\u2019s mettle. They are hard evidence that the economics-first, neutrality-based approach of Prabowo\u2019s predecessor, Joko Widodo, fundamentally failed to temper China\u2019s maritime expansionism in the southernmost reaches of the South China Sea. China is making it crystal clear to Prabowo that it still claims ownership over all waters and seabed resources within the dashed-line claim, including part of Indonesia\u2019s continental shelf and exclusive economic zone (EEZ) around the Natuna Islands.<\/p>\n

This is despite Jakarta\u2019s longstanding official position that it has no jurisdictional dispute with China, given the legally baseless nature of the Chinese ambit claim. However, under Prabowo, Indonesia\u2019s maritime authorities appear to be implementing greater transparency about China\u2019s activities near the Natuna Islands, quickly releasing video and audio of the Chinese Coast Guard\u2019s challenges to Indonesian vessels in the area.<\/p>\n

If Jakarta thought it had obtained a diplomatic modus vivendi with Beijing despite their differences in the South China Sea, China\u2019s leadership clearly has other ideas. One prominent Indonesian analyst has\u00a0argued\u00a0that Philippines-China relations\u00a0deteriorated\u00a0because Manila\u2019s diplomacy was out of kilter with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations\u2019 (ASEAN) holistic and non-confrontational approach towards Beijing. In fact, China\u2019s incursions near the Natuna Islands should prompt Jakarta to question its own diplomatic settings towards China, ASEAN and the South China Sea. By failing to support the Philippines diplomatically, the previous Indonesian administration only emboldened China\u2019s divide-and-conquer tactics, now seen on Indonesia\u2019s maritime doorstep.<\/p>\n

Under Widodo, Jakarta prioritised economic benefits in its relations with Beijing, contributing to China becoming Indonesia\u2019s largest source of inward investment. Indonesia remained party to the intractable negotiations between China and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations for a code of conduct in the South China Sea. But it did not invest real energy behind the effort, with the result that the process has drifted aimlessly from one ASEAN chairmanship to another, weakening the organisation\u2019s collective resolve.<\/p>\n

Indonesia must now belatedly put its full weight behind those negotiations, either to secure a meaningful outcome or terminate the talks if Beijing continues to stall. Jakarta should meanwhile muster\u00a0diplomatic support\u00a0within Southeast Asia for the Philippines, a fellow ASEAN founder member facing a clear external threat, as Indonesia did for Thailand in the 1980s. Southeast Asia\u2019s collective security must come ahead of any single member\u2019s economic benefit, in conformity with ASEAN\u2019s foundational spirit and\u00a0diplomatic purpose.<\/p>\n

China has unfortunately received the message that Southeast Asia can easily be splintered by working bilaterally and exploiting its greater leverage relative to any one of the countries. Malaysia\u2019s supplicatory position towards China under Prime Minister\u00a0Anwar Ibrahim\u00a0has only fanned Beijing\u2019s confidence that it can divide-and-rule ASEAN with ease.<\/p>\n

One of China\u2019s follow-up objectives is to persuade Indonesia that it should \u2018properly handle maritime issues\u2019, contingent on broader factors in their relationship. Jakarta should be alert to China\u2019s bad-faith intentions, including offers of dialogue, and double down instead on the code-of-conduct negotiations. In doing so, it would return to its traditional leading-from-behind role within ASEAN.<\/p>\n

Indonesia must vocally support the Philippines and\u00a0Vietnam\u00a0whenever they face Chinese aggression in the South China Sea. Jakarta should prioritise efforts to reach an EEZ boundary agreement with Vietnam, building on Indonesia\u2019s successful maritime boundary delimitation with the Philippines. This will make it harder for Beijing to exploit differences among the Southeast Asian littoral states. Prabowo\u2019s decision to send military assets to assist the Philippines as part of a four-nation\u00a0ASEAN disaster relief mission\u00a0was a commendable signal of solidarity and good will.<\/p>\n

China may justifiably feel that Southeast Asia is tipping its way overall, and that the Philippines appears isolated within ASEAN. But poking Indonesia is never an advisable strategy. By overbearingly doing so, China reveals its hubris.<\/p>\n

Prabowo\u00a0may be a mercurial figure, but he\u2019s unlikely to be a pushover. An axis of cooperation among Indonesia, the Philippines and Vietnam could still obstruct Beijing\u2019s path towards dominance in the South China Sea. But Jakarta must draw its own clear-eyed conclusions about China\u2019s strategic intent from first principles.<\/p>\n

Australia should take note. Beijing\u2019s direct challenge to Indonesia\u2019s maritime sovereign rights, despite years of favourable treatment by Widodo, calls into question the meaning of what Canberra is calling \u2018stabilisation\u2019 with China.<\/p>\n

Beijing\u2019s strategic behaviour continues to be deeply inimical to Australia\u2019s security within the immediate region. China is steadily marching south, while Australia\u2019s government seemingly obsesses over\u00a0lobsters\u00a0and\u00a0wine exports.<\/p>\n

Euan Graham\u00a0is a senior analyst with ASPI. This article appears courtesy of ASPI’s The Strategist, and may be found in its original form here<\/a>.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0 [By Euan Graham] China is testing Prabowo Subianto\u2019s new administration, with three successive\u00a0incursions\u00a0by China Coast Guard vessels into Indonesia\u2019s exclusive maritime jurisdiction\u2014the first occurring on the new president\u2019s inaugural day in office. Jakarta urgently needs to recalibrate its South China Sea diplomacy and to revisit its basic assumptions about China. China\u2019s move south should […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[59],"class_list":["post-230","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-maritime-executive","tag-maritime-executive"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/krogragg.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/230"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/krogragg.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/krogragg.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/krogragg.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/krogragg.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=230"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/krogragg.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/230\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/krogragg.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=230"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/krogragg.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=230"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/krogragg.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=230"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}