Over the past decade, the Indo-Pacific – defined as the region between the Indian Ocean and the Pacific Ocean, with Southeast Asia in its midst – has become a central stage for the US-China rivalry. 

As the largest economy in ASEAN, Indonesia has been pushing for the regional organization to take a stronger geopolitical stance amid the rise of China.

At an event organized by the Jakarta-based Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) on Wednesday to celebrate the think tank’s 50^th anniversary, Prabowo said Indonesia had inherited an independent, active and nonaligned foreign policy.

This nonaligned stance was tested when the Donald Trump administration asked Indonesia to allow US surveillance planes targeting China to refuel and be serviced in the country, a proposal Indonesia rejected. 

Under President Joe Biden, the US continues to consider China the biggest challenge to the “stable and open” international system. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the country’s approach to China would be “competitive when it should be, collaborative when it can be and adversarial when it must be”.

In Southeast Asian forums, the US has raised “deep concern” over the rapid growth of China’s nuclear arsenal and has called on Beijing to cease its “provocative behavior” in the South China Sea.