In his speech at the forum on Wednesday, President Jokowi told China, as the lender, as wel as borrowing countries, that Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) projects "must be based on the principle of equal and mutually beneficial partnership, and equipped with careful planning." 

President Jokowi was reflecting on Indonesia's experience in building the Whoosh high-speed railway (HSR), which is part of the BRI. Jokowi underscored the necessity for the "Use of a transparent funding system, absorption of local workers and utilization of domestic products."

"And avoid making the fiscal condition more difficult," the President said.

During their bilateral meeting, President Jokowi and President Xi jointly inaugurated the operation of the HSR, which began operations early this month.

China won the tender for the project in September 2015, and expected to finish the US$ 6.07 billion project by 2019. The project, however, was delayed four years, and the cost overrun ballooned by at least 20 percent. 

China Daily quoted President Xi in response to the completion of the flagship project, asking "the two sides to leverage their successful experience, ensure the railway's high-quality operation and develop an economic corridor centered around the rail line."

Except for his soft criticism of China, Jokowi failed to take advantage of his meeting with Xi to tell the leader of the world’s second largest economy that China should not repeat the mistakes Japan committed in its early years as a lender.

To a certain extent, we can compare China’s extension of loans to developing nations with Japan's aggressiveness in providing overseas development assistance, investment and industrial products into Southeast Asian countries, especially Indonesia, in the 1960s and 70s.

When Japanese Prime Minister Kakuei Tanaka visited Jakarta, anti-Japanese riots welcomed him on Jan. 15, 1974. The unrest, known as the Malari, short for Malapetaka 15 Januari (The Jan. 15 Disaster), was a response to Japan's economic domination. Similar protests also occurred in Manila and Bangkok but on a much smaller scale.

The Jakarta riots shocked the former colonial master, which quickly learned not to repeat such blunders. Japan drastically changed its approach toward Indonesia after the Malari incident.

However, Japan’s role as a major lender remained unchanged; it even became Indonesia's largest debtor for decades. Now Japan remains a source of loans and investment for Indonesia, although not as much as in the past.

In a close collaboration with the United States through the World Bank and Japan's control of the Asian Development Bank (ADB), which started in 1966, Tokyo played a leading role in Indonesia's economic development until the Asian financial crisis devastated Indonesia and forced Soeharto to end his 32-year dictatorship.  

President Xi vowed on Wednesday to learn from the mistakes China had committed as a new but aggressive global lender in the last 10 years.

The Chinese leader also showed off the tremendous impacts of Chinese-funded infrastructure projects in accelerating development in the loan recipient countries. 

"What has been achieved in the past 10 years demonstrates that the Belt and Road cooperation is on the right side of history. It represents the advancing of our times and the right path forward," Xi emphasized.

"Debt trap" threats, however, have haunted China's BRI projects across Asia and Africa since President Xi launched the economic and investment diplomacy in 2013. Beijing was accused of injecting billions of dollars into infrastructure projects in developing countries, including Indonesia, in a bid to control strategic access, such as a port in Sri Lanka, if the borrowers defaulted on their debts.

However, critics often ignore the fact that in the event of a default, it is not only the borrowers who are impacted by the failures but also the lenders. China reportedly has lost billions of dollars, which is alarming for the Chinese economy, because of the debt defaults. That’s why, in his speech, President Xi hinted at a continued funding of mega infrastructure projects overseas, albeit with more prudence. He said China would not extend loans without prior comprehensive feasibility studies and consultation with the loan recipients.

When Soeharto took over from Sukarno in 1966, he immediately went to the World Bank, and the ADB. The World Bank initiated the establishment of the Inter-Government Group on Indonesia (IGGI), with the Netherlands leading the consortium.

Until 1992, the IGGI played a dominant role in Indonesia’s economic development. Bilaterally, Japan was Indonesia’s biggest lender. In July of that year, Soeharto demanded that the World Bank dissolve the IGGI because he was so outraged by what he perceived as the "colonial behavior" of then IGGI chairman Jan Pronk.

The IGGI was replaced by the Consultative Group for Indonesia (CGI), which did not include the Netherlands. The World Bank directly managed the new consortium.

In 2007, then President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono bade farewell to the CGI.

China Daily reported that President Xi announced eight major steps China will take to support the joint pursuit of high-quality Belt and Road cooperation, including efforts to build a multidimensional Belt and Road connectivity network, support an open economy, promote green development and advance scientific and technological innovation.

According to Reuters, Xi is pushing to make the BRI smaller and greener and to move from big-ticket projects like dams to high-tech ones such as digital finance and e-commerce platforms. The BRI will also focus more on issues like peace, climate change, energy crises and artificial intelligence (AI), among other areas, according to a Chinese government white paper released last week.

Unfortunately, President Jokowi did not bring up Indonesia's experience as a recipient of Japanese loans in the past. Like China, Japan required its borrowers to follow its wishes at least in the 1960s and 70s. President Xi may need a new perspective, different from that of Japan.

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The writer is a senior editor at The Jakarta Post.