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China knocks on door as RI prepares vaccine rollout
Chinese State Counsellor Wang Yi is expected to meet with Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi on Tuesday, before paying a courtesy visit to President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo.
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hina’s top diplomat Wang Yi is stopping over in Indonesia on his tour of Southeast Asia this week, which coincides with the start of the nation’s COVID-19 vaccination roll-out that will feature a newly approved Chinese-made vaccine.
The visit is expected to relieve recurrent tensions between the two countries.
Indonesian officials confirmed that Wang Yi’s visit would take place on Tuesday and Wednesday, and that he was expected to meet Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi, Coordinating Maritime Affairs and Investment Minister Luhut Pandjaitan and President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo.
The President is on course to become the first non-Chinese leader to be inoculated on Wednesday with Sinovac Biotech’s CoronaVac vaccine, which obtained emergency use authorization from the Food and Drug Monitoring Agency (BPOM) on Monday.
With the long-awaited approval, Indonesia can finally go ahead with its planned mass vaccination program, having obtained approval from the Indonesian Ulema Council (MUI) on the vaccine’s halal status last week.
Jokowi’s vaccination will set off a months-long immunization drive that begins with around 1.3 million health workers.
The government has already received 3 million doses of the ready-to-use vaccine made in China and has distributed them to regions across the country. It has secured vaccine pre-orders from other foreign producers as well.
Foreign policy scholar Dewi Fortuna Anwar said that China had been very proactive and effective in its vaccine diplomacy to generate goodwill in response to resentment caused by the discovery of the coronavirus in Wuhan in late 2019.
With CoronaVac’s emergency approval in Indonesia, it is the first and only vaccine currently available, which she believes shows the extent of Indonesia’s trust in China.
“It’s a sign not only from the government writ large, but in this case BPOM and other technical bodies in Indonesia believe that the Chinese vaccine is feasible, and I think this is indeed a diplomatic asset for China,” Dewi said.
Despite losing out to Western nations in the race to become the first country to come up with an approved COVID-19 vaccine, China has ensured that its products remain a viable alternative for the world to consider.
However, even though the vaccine offers Indonesia a glimmer of hope, relations with China remain complex and multidimensional.
“Will vaccines change the perception of China in the South China Sea, or the perception that ASEAN products can’t compete with the influx of China’s cheaply manufactured products? Of course not,” she said.
However, Foreign Ministry spokesman Teuku Faizasyah was quick to dismiss a connection between the visit and the official start of Indonesia’s vaccination program, saying that Wang Yi was in the country to discuss bilateral affairs.
“These are separate processes; the vaccination process is internal to Indonesia. As for the plans for Foreign Minister Wang Yi's visit, they have been in discussion for some time, with a schedule matching that of other Southeast Asian countries,” he told The Jakarta Post on Monday.
The minister is scheduled to visit Myanmar, Indonesia, Brunei and the Philippines between Monday and Saturday, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying has said, as quoted by state media outlet CGTN.
While Wang Yi’s visit, which makes up for an aborted plan for the Chinese state counsellor to celebrate 70 years of Indonesian-Chinese diplomatic relations last year, can be written off as coincidental, observers have noted that the optics of having its official present clearly favor Beijing.
Separately, Chief of State Protocol Andy Rachmianto said that Minister Retno expected to address the safety of Indonesian seafarers working on Chinese fishing vessels, which has caused outrage following the discovery of crewmen being abused and exploited.
"This may not be an important issue [for China] but for us it is very important," he said in a virtual briefing on Monday, noting China’s status as a strategic partner.
Andy underlined the fact that because China had interests with Indonesia in investment and the South China Sea, the onus was on China to listen to Indonesian concerns.
Wang Yi’s visit comes at a time that has been problematic for Indonesian-Chinese relations.
For the past few years, Indonesia has been embroiled in multiple maritime skirmishes with Chinese fishing vessels encroaching on waters under Jakarta’s jurisdiction.
More recently, the discovery of an unmanned underwater vehicle (UUV) in the waters off South Sulawesi has sparked questions about espionage and national security.
Indonesian authorities have largely refrained from pointing fingers due to a lack of incriminating proof of the drone’s ownership, even though there are reports claiming the vehicle was likely manufactured by China. Beijing has remained silent on the issue.
Navy chief of staff Adm. Yudo Margono previously said that the UUV was probably deployed for research purposes, but added that further investigation was required to determine its country of origin.
The South China Morning Post reported that lettering on the UUV read “Shenyang Institute of Automation Chinese Academy of Sciences”, a claim which Navy spokesman Cdre. Julius Widjojono has denied.
Curie Maharani of BINUS University said there was a likelihood that the vehicle was made in China, and was assumed to belong to a group of 12 sea gliders deployed by Chinese survey vessels in the eastern part of the Indian Ocean in 2019.
“But even if it is a Chinese product, we can’t yet determine the intent behind its deployment; whether it was [designed] to enter Indonesian waters,” she said.
