Moving beyond rapprochement in Sino-RI ties

The banners buoyant, the economic statistics encouraging — opulent testimony to 60 years of diplomatic relations between the world’s first and fourth most populous nations.

Beyond upbeat commentaries of Tuesday’s commemoration, causal aspects still inhibit Sino-Indonesia relations from their full potential.

The introspective question on this anniversary is not whether relations between the two countries are at a high (because they certainly now are, despite the 23 years of estrangement!), but why haven’t they elevated to a higher plane since the resumption of diplomatic ties in 1990?

There has been no shortage in the show of high-level goodwill since August 1990. Four Indonesian presidents visited China since then — Soeharto, Abdurrahman Wahid, Megawati Soekarnoputri and Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono — while five Chinese presidents or premiers — Yang Shangkun, Jiang Zemin, Li Peng, Zhu Rongji and Hu Jintao — have landed on Indonesian shores.

The latter visits by Hu and Yudhoyono in 2005 marked the start of a Strategic Partnership declaration between the two countries.

The show of admiration resumes when Prime Minister Wen Jiabao arrives in Jakarta in 10 days time, his visit reciprocated (we expect) by Yudhoyono later this year as part of his visit to the World Expo in Shanghai. (This would be Yudhoyono’s third visit to China.)

Such is the tide of Indonesian official guests in Beijing these days that diplomats at the Indonesian Embassy commute to the airport up to 1,800 times a year to facilitate their delegations.

One of the primary challenges of the bilateral relationship is that it is either overly romanticized in the past, causing obsolete understanding, or because of unrealistic perceptions may no longer conform to present realities.

Scholars on both sides too often base this history on the ancients: The fabled 15th century voyages of Cheng Ho, or five centuries later when Sriwijaya’s King Chulamani sought a Chinese emperor’s aid in his war against Dharmawangsa — both important antiquated footnotes, but neither explains modernity.

Contemporary Indonesian society began in 1998 when the country’s sociopolitical foundations underwent seismic change, including the rights of ethnic Chinese Indonesians.

In the same manner, modern China must be seen from the prism of Deng Xiaoping’s Gaige Kaifang reforms of the 1980s, rather than the disasters of Mao Zedong’s Great Leap Forwards and Cultural Revolution of the 1960s.

Without a realignment of perceptions, obsolete views govern: In this case, that China is a nation of godless communists; and that Indonesia institutionally persecutes its ethnic Chinese.

An interesting contrast can be drawn between Sino-Indonesia relations and those with another superpower — the United States.

There have often been jarring disputes between Washington and Jakarta, but it hasn’t affected the bedrock of ties based on people-to-people relations.

The opposite seems to have occurred between China and Indonesia. Ties between Beijing and Jakarta are consistently cordial without many contentious disputes; the grassroots linkages, on the other hand, haven’t been strong enough to propel a more contemporary vista of our mutual domestic circumstances.

One reason has been the limited direct experience of personal exchanges such as those of students. Four years ago there were five times more Indonesians studying in the US and places like Australia than in China. Only now are the numbers comparable, with more than 8,000 Indonesian students in China.

The lack of bilateral media exchanges, a strategic sector directly shaping public opinion, is another encumbering factor. This is an area unlikely to cultivate by itself without government efforts to bridge the wariness, especially by the Indonesian media, towards the perceived incompatibility of respective political ideologies.

Another drawback has been the way China has been perceived through the security lens of 1970s’ and 1980s’ military thinking. It’s no secret that relations were frozen for so long (despite the willingness of the Indonesian Foreign Ministry to advance ties further) because of communist-military phobia — a legacy with remnants today, despite advances in various declarations on the South China Sea and China acceding to ASEAN’s Treaty of Amity and Cooperation in 2003.

Building trust is a work in progress, but until the forums in place begin to yield tangible people-oriented results there will always be a lingering fear that big brother China will one day become China the big bully.

These sentiments are reasons why it may be so easy to boil fears of China, such as the public scolding of the ASEAN-China Free Trade Area.

The future of relations is not with grand officialdoms, but projected in the simple views of a 22-year-old Indonesian at Beijing’s Renmin University. As published in this newspaper a week ago, the young student said there were too many Indonesians studying business in Australia and the US.

“China is growing faster, Mandarin is the next big thing. Soon, Indonesians will interact a lot with Chinese.

Mastering Mandarin will help me build a successful career,” he said.

A worthy contribution from Indonesia’s best ambassador in the Sino-Indonesian relationship.