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Leveraging Indonesia’s economic prowess for the Pacific
Indonesia could start by considering giving unilateral trade preferences with specific requirements tied to Indonesia’s geopolitical goals, such as respect for Indonesia’s territorial integrity.
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Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi (front center) and ministers, senior officials and representatives from Pacific countries and intergovernmental organizations pose for a group photo during the Indonesia-Pacific Forum for Development High Level Dialogue on Wednesday in Nusa Dua, Bali. (JP/A. Muh. Ibnu Aqil)
Indonesia successfully hosted the Indonesia-Pacific Forum for Development in Bali last week. Pacific countries were the focus of the forum, which resulted in the Bali Message for Development Cooperation in the Pacific.
The message sent a strong signal that Indonesia would play an important role – but further details need to be ironed out to know exactly what needs to be done.
Indonesia could leverage its economic prowess to achieve geopolitical goals in the Pacific, mainly through unilateral trade preferences and sovereign wealth funds. The question is how.
First, let’s start to understand how important the Pacific is for Indonesia based on geopolitical reasons. The Pacific countries have been pushing international scrutiny over the human rights situation in West Papua. The latest occasion was during the 41st session of the Universal Periodic Review last month. Vanuatu and the Marshall Islands called for the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights and the Organization of African, Caribbean and Pacific States (ACP) to visit and assess the situation in West Papua.
There are also common challenges that both Indonesia and the Pacific face. Common nontraditional security threats include climate change, illegal, unregulated and unreported (IUU) fishing and plastic pollution, to name a few. More strategically, the Pacific region is and should become more prominent as a part of the broader Indo-Pacific outlook.
China has proactively built its regional presence by financing large infrastructure projects. The traditional powers led by the United States have renewed their focus on the region through new initiatives such as the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework and the Partners in the Blue Pacific, which many see as a direct challenge to China.
Indonesia, including ASEAN, is an integral part of balancing the equation, mainly through the ASEAN Outlook on Indo-Pacific.
