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President Joe Biden and President Prabowo Subianto met Tuesday at the White House, marking the 75th anniversary of U.S.-Indonesia relations, part of a multination visit by the newly inaugurated leader of Southeast Asia’s largest economy.
“I will work very hard to strengthen Indonesia and United States relationship,” said Prabowo, who goes by his first name.
Biden said he looks forward to deepening the Comprehensive Strategic Partnership, the highest level among nontreaty allies, which the two countries signed in 2023. “That includes deepening our security cooperation,” he said before their meeting.
In brief remarks to the press, Biden twice raised an issue of concern for Washington: freedom of navigation in the South China Sea. He said he wanted to strengthen the U.S. partnership with Indonesia, “by advancing [a] free and open Indo-Pacific.”
“We’ll discuss, also, global challenges, including in Gaza and the South China Sea,” he said.
China’s nine-dash line
The White House meeting came days after Prabowo’s meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping in Beijing, where Indonesia and China signed a series of agreements valued at about $10 billion and focusing on infrastructure, green energy, digital technology and agriculture.
“In the present situation, geopolitical and geoeconomic, Indonesia and China have become very close partners in many, many fields,” Prabowo said.
One of the deals is to jointly develop fisheries, and oil and gas exploration in waters around Indonesia’s Natuna Islands where China’s “nine-dash line” marking its expansive claims in the South China Sea overlaps with Indonesia’s Exclusive Economic Zone.
Critics say the agreement risks implicitly validating China’s territorial claims in the South China Sea, which, according to the United Nations, has no basis in international law.
VOA asked the White House whether Biden was specifically referring to this deal in his meeting with Prabowo.
“We continue to encourage Indonesia to work with their legal experts to make sure any agreement they make with the PRC [People’s Republic of China] is in accordance with international law, especially the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea,” said White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre.
Beijing claims the major shipping route almost entirely, infringing into the EEZs of Indonesia, Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei and the Philippines. All but Indonesia formally dispute the Chinese claim while Taiwan makes a claim to the sea similar to Beijing’s.
“It’s a big deal for Indonesia,” as a non-claimant country in the South China Sea dispute that supports the concept of a “free and open Indo-Pacific,” said Klaus Heinrich Raditio, author on South China Sea issues and lecturer at Indonesia’s Driyarkara School of Philosophy. “People will question our position,” he told VOA.
The Indonesian Foreign Ministry clarified Sunday that it remains firm in rejecting China’s nine-dash line.
Beijing’s claim, Jakarta said, “does not comply” with the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea and “therefore has no bearing” on Indonesia’s sovereignty and jurisdiction over the North Natuna Sea.
Jakarta’s agreement with Beijing highlights a “new phase of building the China-Indonesia community with a shared future,” according to the joint statement.
This reference supports “China’s vision of a new global order that is anti-Western hegemony,” Raditio said.
It’s unclear whether this language was an intentional signaling of a geopolitical shift or merely an overlook from a new administration eager to bolster ties with great powers. The Indonesian Embassy in Washington has not responded to VOA’s queries.
“Most likely, it is a bureaucratic mistake,” Raditio said. “We put too much attention on economic cooperation. How many investments that we can attract from China? We kind of sideline other important issues.”
Prabowo’s outreach to Trump
Just as important to Jakarta as the White House meeting is Prabowo’s outreach to U.S. President-elect Donald Trump. Jakarta is gearing up for Trump’s new administration that begins in January.
“Wherever you are, I’m willing to fly to congratulate you personally, sir,” Prabowo said in a call to Trump that was posted Monday on his social media.
The Trump team has not responded to VOA’s queries on the conversation.
U.S. foreign policy under Trump “may become more transactional and more focused on elements related to U.S.-China, competition,” said Andreyka Natalegawa, associate fellow for the Southeast Asia Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
“The downside risk of this as it relates to Southeast Asian countries, is that it may limit some of the decision-making space they have in their diplomatic affairs,” Natalegawa said.
Prabowo has voiced ambitions to raise Indonesia’s international profile and has made early foreign policy moves, including a surprise decision to join Southeast Asia’s largest economy to the BRICS bloc.
BRICS, which stands for Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, is a growing group of emerging economies seen as a counterweight to the West. In October, BRICS added Indonesia as one of the group’s 13 new “partner countries.”
The move could be a shift away from the position taken by Prabowo’s predecessor, Joko Widodo, who took in massive amounts of infrastructure investments from Beijing but remained mostly nonaligned geopolitically.
The White House visit marks a milestone for Prabowo, who was barred from entering the U.S. under the Clinton, Bush and Obama administrations over his role in abducting activists of the 1998 “Reformasi” movement that ousted President Suharto, Prabowo’s then father-in-law.
The Trump administration lifted the visa ban for then-Defense Minister Prabowo, for his visit in 2020.
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