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What does the 20th CCP National Congress mean for Indonesia?
Though it is the second-largest economy in the world, China remains – and will remain for a long time – a developing economy.
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People watch a screen showing Chinese President Xi Jinping speaking during the opening session of the 20th Chinese Communist Party Congress in Shanghai on Oct. 16. (AFP/Hector Retamal)
C
hina watchers around the globe just had a busy few days as they tuned in for the 20th National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Major international media outlets ran editorials on the gathering, too. Using words like “instrumental” and “formidable” to describe the second-biggest economy in the world, they declared, perhaps reluctantly, that China’s influence was no longer insignificant.
In a recent exclusive interview with CGTN, President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo said he hoped the 20th CCP National Congress could “make decisions that contribute not only to the people of China, but also to regional stability and world peace, and also contribute to regional and world prosperity”. He further said he thought “that’s what all countries want”.
What does the 20th CCP National Congress mean for Indonesia—and for that matter ASEAN as a whole—which is both an emerging market and China’s close neighbor, and whose largest trading partner is China? The key to the answer is one word: development.
China’s ambition in proactive engagement with global development issues has been evident and consistent for the past decade. From blueprinting the Silk Road Economic Belt in Kazakhstan in 2013, to proposing the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road in Indonesia’s House of Representatives later the same year, then to announcing the Global Development Initiative at the 76th Session of the United Nations General Assembly, Chinese leaders have been steadfastly calling for the international community to join China’s development initiatives.
And these initiatives are not just lofty ideals. Railroad tracks have been laid down in Indonesia and Laos; seaports are being renovated in Greece and Sri Lanka; the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank has become a reliable lender to developing economies, to name just a few.
The 20th CCP National Congress produces predictability and continuity. The report delivered by Xi Jinping to the 20th CCP National Congress assigned a special section on foreign policy, in which development was accentuated as one of the main approaches through which China would interact with the world.
In reaffirming China’s opening-up policy, the report wrote that the country was “prepared to invest more resources in global development cooperation”, “committed to narrowing the North-South gap and supporting and assisting other developing countries in accelerating development”.
