Indonesia’s Jokowi Comes to the US Looking for Investment

Indonesian President Joko Widodo (Jokowi) was in Washington DC recently for his first-ever presidential visit to the United States. What can the two countries do now to build on the momentum for cooperation gained on the trip?

Indonesian President Joko Widodo (Jokowi) was in Washington DC recently for his first-ever presidential visit to the United States. What can the two countries do now to build on the momentum for cooperation gained on the trip?

Indonesia has a ‘comprehensive strategic partnership’ with China, but a merely ‘comprehensive partnership’ with the United States. Jokowi’s visit did yield a constructive joint statement and a memorandum of understanding on maritime security cooperation between Indonesia and the United States. The agreement included provisions for US assistance to raise Indonesia’s capacity to manage its maritime domain.

Considering China’s ambitions for the South China Sea and the dent in Indonesia’s Exclusive Economic Zone east of Natuna caused by China’s ‘nine-dash line’, the memorandum has strategic significance. In recognition, there should be joint acknowledgement of the ‘comprehensive’ relationship between the United States and Indonesia as being a ‘strategic’ partnership as well.

One can also hope that they meet the main purpose of the trip — increasing US investment in Indonesia. Preferably, assurances and evidence that Jokowi’s administration is committed to economic reforms would accomplish this outcome, including taking robust steps against corruption. In the context of such reforms, US officials should discuss with their Indonesian counterparts the nature and status of the Trans-Pacific Partnership. During his visit, Jokowi announced that ‘Indonesia intends to join the TPP’. Words matter, but intentions do not guarantee actions. To encourage Indonesian support for the pact, the US should assure Indonesia that China is welcome to join if and when it can accept the agreement’s rules.

Jokowi cancelled business-focused meetings in Silicon Valley to deal with the haze issue back home. However, the economic opportunities that technology cooperation with the US could open are distinctive and important for Indonesia. Indonesia should follow through on such business cooperation to help to counter the invidiously perceived specialisation of roles whereby Indonesia makes security with the United States but makes money with China.

The US should also assure Indonesia that recent ‘freedom of navigation operations’ by US warships in the South China Sea are not aimed at containing China but are meant to maintain the principles of international maritime law. Washington and Jakarta should explore the ways in which those operations could complement Jokowi’s plan to make Indonesia a ‘global maritime fulcrum’. In this context, the US could invite all interested countries, including China, to join the US in cruising the South China Sea on behalf of navigational freedom. China will likely refuse, but others may not.

On 5 November, the Malaysia’s defence minister joined his American counterpart on a visit to the aircraft carrier USS Roosevelt in the South China Sea. The Indonesian defence minister is unlikely to follow suit. However, that should not prevent Jokowi’s and Obama’s staffs from brainstorming creative and constructive solutions to the dangerous imbroglio that Southeast Asia’s maritime heart has become.

One clear benefit of Jokowi’s visit is the evidence he was able to gain in Washington that crises in the Middle East has not sidelined the American ‘rebalance’ toward Southeast Asia, or by the domestic focus on the US presidential campaign. The challenge is instead how to manage, within that larger frame, a ‘rebalance’ toward Indonesia. Indonesia under Jokowi has not developed a proactive diplomatic profile to match the country’s position as by far the largest Southeast Asian state. The US could and should encourage such a role.

Looking forward, one can hope that the two countries will soon establish an annual or bi-annual dialogue that will bring together officials and civil-society actors from both countries on a regular basis. Such interactions can serve to reduce bilateral misunderstandings, encourage candour and help to yield productive amity between Indonesia and the United States — the largest democracies, respectively, in Southeast Asia and the Americas.

Unexpected turbulence in the aftermath of Jokowi’s visit underscored the need for broad bilateral consultations. An Indonesian television journalist named Canny Watae claimed that Obama had disrespected Jokowi by not according him the honour of a full military salute similar to what China’s President Xi Jinping had received upon arriving in the US in September. Watae apparently did not understand the difference between Jokowi’s ‘official visit’ and Xi’s ‘state visit’, a nicety that was mostly ignored when the charge of disrespect went viral in Indonesian cyberspace.

More serious was the storm of online criticism in Indonesia that greeted an article by Indonesia expert Professor Michael Buehler, which questioned the propriety of a US$80,000 public-relations contract that sought to heighten the impact of Jokowi’s visit. Buehler used the contract to highlight rivalries within Jokowi’s ‘inner circle’ and to question the coherence of the Indonesian president’s ‘foreign policy agenda’. The online backlash prompted a number of scholars to pen a petition defending Buehler and academic freedom.

In their joint statement at the end of Jokowi’s visit, the two presidents welcomed the future broadening of official US–Indonesian relations to include the engagement of civil-society organisations and actors on both sides. Scheduling regular opportunities for such interaction is hardly a panacea. However, it can help to reduce the chances of misunderstanding between two democratic states that need to be able to interact openly and frankly for mutual benefit. That should be a priority next step in ongoing joint efforts by both countries to deepen and broaden their relations.

Next steps in US–Indonesian relations is republished with permission from East Asia Forum