Drawing from a The Jakarta Post interview with the President (June 13), Jokowi has a preference for domestic over international affairs. The overarching theme of his first term was infrastructural development and bureaucratic reform, encapsulated nicely in his slogan “work, work, work”. Jokowi has shown to have dedicated himself to this mission with mixed yet laudable results. His decision to allocate more funds to development has allowed significant progress in many critical infrastructure projects, such as the Jakarta MRT, toll roads across the archipelago and electrification.

Now that Jokowi no longer has to worry about reelection, he should devote more effort and attention to foreign policy. In his first term, Jokowi made waves by pledging to make Indonesia a “global maritime fulcrum” (GMF), a hub connecting two strategic oceans. This was welcomed as a breath of fresh air by foreign policy observers; I once described it as a more extroverted foreign policy (The Diplomat, Dec. 17, 2016).

The GMF concept, however, has remained underdeveloped. For the most part, the Indonesian Ocean Policy, an authoritative document describing Indonesia’s maritime priorities, focuses less on enhancing Indonesia’s maritime profile. Many pillars are, instead, dedicated to boosting domestic maritime indicators, such as domestic connectivity and the economy.

Granted, without domestic capacity, there is little hope for a state to play a larger international role. However, reluctance to develop the GMF’s foreign linkages only serves to undermine its perceived extroverted tendencies.

Further development of the GMF has become imperative considering the shifting geopolitical context. Since 2007, the term “Indo-Pacific” has gained traction. The geopolitical construct, used to refer to the maritime and littoral areas of the Indian and West Pacific oceans, has since been embraced by both great and middle powers alike.

India, Japan, Australia and the United States — all of which constitute members of the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue — have proposed their respective Indo-Pacific visions, which basically share a similar “free and open” Indo-Pacific vision or strategy. The US perhaps holds the most assertive stance: forecasting “geopolitical competition between free and repressive visions of world order” in the Indo-Pacific.

The Indo-Pacific is a direct challenge to China’s Belt and Road Initiative, and Indonesia is caught in the middle. I outlined in this newspaper (July 27, 2018) China’s aggressive acquisition of ports across the Indian Ocean and the implications for Indonesia. What I overlooked, however, was China’s argumentative stance against the Indo-Pacific geopolitical construct. Chinese Defense Minister Wei Fenghe showcased this defiant tone in his speech at the 2019 Shangri-La Dialogue. He jabbed at continued US naval operations, questioning their intent, and affirmed China’s illegitimate militarization efforts in the South China Sea.

The geopolitical competition in the Indo-Pacific is indeed real. It is thus imperative for Indonesia to be an active contributor in constructing the Indo-Pacific.

Indonesia’s “Indo-Pacific Cooperation” concept (or simply, ‘Indo-Pacific Outlook’), however, remains a fledgling concept that cannot be operationalized any time soon. The outlook envisions a “peaceful, prosperous, and
inclusive” Indo-Pacific. It also envisions ASEAN as being the region’s fulcrum where intersecting Indo-Pacific visions may converge and coexist.

This stance further affirms that Indonesia adheres to its conciliatory and non-aligned foreign policy tradition. Indonesia is reluctant to portray itself as an Indo-Pacific power due in part to pragmatic distancing. Jokowi’s massive infrastructure programs are to a large extent dependent on Chinese foreign loans; likewise, Indonesia cannot afford to jeopardize its relations with the US. Thus, any Indo-Pacific notion coming out of Indonesia must be explicitly inclusive.

Since the start of 2019, Indonesia has waged a rather lackluster diplomatic campaign on the Indo-Pacific Outlook. China has embraced the outlook due to its inclusive tendencies. In March, the first high-level dialogue saw 18 East Asia Summit members gathering to discuss Indonesia’s Indo-Pacific Outlook. The talks were a start, but further effort is required. In the 34th ASEAN Summit this June 22 to 23, Indonesia will need to ramp up its efforts to unite other members if an ASEAN-led Indo-Pacific concept is to gain any significant momentum.

This will require significant diplomatic engagement by Jokowi. Unlike his predecessor Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, an eloquent internationalist, Jokowi is technocratic and keener on concrete results over abstract rhetoric. But for Indonesia’s Indo-Pacific Outlook to gain traction, he will need to be more involved in developing the outlook.

To leverage Indonesia’s position and relations in the Indo-Pacific, he needs to be present at these high-level meetings and engage in the informal backdoor diplomacy that has been Indonesia’s preferred mode of political communication in ASEAN and be more assertive in communicating with extra-regional partners. Most importantly, he will need to show that Indonesia cares about constructing a peaceful, prosperous and inclusive Indo-Pacific led by ASEAN.

If domestic development was the theme of Jokowi’s first term, perhaps regional leadership should be the defining theme of his second term. To live up to the role of “natural leader” of Southeast Asia and to make concrete strides toward realizing the GMF, Jokowi needs to shed his low profile and consider focusing his efforts on seriously lobbying other ASEAN members to make an ASEAN-led, or at least ASEAN-centric, Indo-Pacific vision possible.

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The writer lectures at the School of International Relations at President University, Cikarang, West Java.

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