Please don't say "no one."
From City Journal, February 9:
Once a peripheral power, Indonesia, which will elect a new president on February 14, is now a regional fulcrum the U.S. cannot afford to ignore.
When the first president of an independent Indonesia—the charismatic Sukarno—convened the nascent non-aligned movement in Bandung in 1955, the host country had a population of 80 million and was among the world’s poorest. The Indonesian archipelago was peripheral geographically, economically, and strategically, and Sukarno’s autarkic bent ensured that it would remain so. Today, Indonesia, as it did then, finds itself between great powers competing for regional sway. Yet it is peripheral no more.
Indonesia is now the world’s fourth-largest country, with a population of 270 million, and is classified as middle-income by the International Monetary Fund. Moreover, it straddles the world’s most critical shipping chokepoint, the Strait of Malacca, linking the Indian Ocean and the South China Sea, and it holds the largest reserves of a key twenty-first-century resource, nickel. Though Sukarno’s successor, the anti-communist Suharto, turned Indonesia toward America in the second half of the Cold War, its Sukarno-era foreign policy outlook—bebas dan aktif (independent and active)—has returned, with Indonesia avoiding outright alignment with either the U.S. or China.
On February 14, Indonesians will go to the polls to elect a new president, the country’s fourth since instituting reforms after Suharto’s 1998 fall. The man Indonesians pick will replace the term-limited Joko Widodo—known universally as Jokowi—whom they elected in 2014 and 2019.
Upon Jokowi’s first inauguration, it was easy to imagine that Indonesia would form a closer bond with the United States. Then-president Barack Obama, who had lived in Indonesia as a child, had just initiated his “pivot to Asia,” which included the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade agreement. By 2016, however, Americans had elected Donald Trump, who pulled out of the TPP, claiming that it sold out the middle class. Jokowi’s presidency was to prove disappointing, with its democratic backsliding and rejection of global market capitalism.
All the while, Indonesia’s global significance has continued to grow. Today, its economy is the world’s seventh largest. Indonesia is a pivotal target partner for both the U.S. and China—a strategic swing state, in other words—owing to its demography, economy, and geographic position as the region’s southern girdle. Jokowi, who calls Indonesia the “global maritime fulcrum,” has proved a receptive partner for China’s regional economic overtures. Indeed, he has adopted an economic philosophy reminiscent of China’s in its own earlier stage of development, emphasizing resource wealth, commissioning infrastructure megaprojects, and prioritizing indigenous manufacturing. Most notable is Indonesia’s ban on nickel-ore exports, by which it hopes to ascend the commodity value chain by forcing domestic refining.
Indonesia’s turn away from global markets has resulted in a dense network of Chinese enterprises within Indonesia’s borders. While few Western or Japanese firms have opted to refine nickel within Indonesia, Chinese ventures abound. Indonesia is also a leading beneficiary of China’s Belt and Road Initiative, which funded the now open Jakarta-Bandung high-speed railway. In 2023, Chinese Premier Li Qiang announced more than $20 billion of additional infrastructure investments by Chinese firms in Indonesia—a final feather in Jokowi’s cap.
Despite the tightening economic linkages, Indonesia is by no means a Chinese ally. As is the case around the South China Sea basin, China has repeatedly violated Indonesia’s maritime rights in its quest for resource dominance, irritating Jakarta. In 2022, the ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute, Southwest Asia’s leading think tank, concluded that more Indonesians are worried about China’s rise than are enthused by it. Consistent with bebas dan aktif, Indonesian scholar Bama Andika Putra stresses that Jokowi “had no intention of being embroiled in Sino-US competition.”....
....MUCH MORE
And from Bloomberg about an hour ago:
Indonesia Stocks to Gain as a Prabowo Win Removes Election Risk
