After paying a courtesy call on President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo after touching down in Jakarta on Monday, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken met his Indonesian counterpart Retno LP Marsudi for their second bilateral meeting on Tuesday, emphasizing his country’s “strong commitment” to the strategic partnership with Indonesia.

The two sides agreed to establish a regular 2+2 senior officials dialogue on foreign affairs and defense and signed a new deal on education cooperation, as well as renewing existing deals on maritime cooperation and the US Peace Corps program in Indonesia.

However, the biggest expected gains remained elusive, as Jakarta sought assurances from Washington that it would deliver on a much-awaited comprehensive economic cooperation framework for the wider Indo-Pacific region.

Blinken also shifted the blame on the continued vacancy of the US ambassadorship to ASEAN – a demand of the bloc since former US president Donald Trump unseated the last envoy in 2016 – to the US Senate.

As Southeast Asia’s largest economy that is strategically situated in the crux of the Indian and Pacific oceans, Indonesia has been pushing to promote an open and inclusive regional order in the Indo-Pacific, unlike which Washington had been using to justify efforts to contain China in their overarching superpower rivalry.

With the 2019 adoption of the ASEAN Outlook on the Indo-Pacific, Jakarta has called for more cooperation on issues most salient to countries from the region, including maritime cooperation and connectivity.

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