Simultaneously, Indonesia has experienced immense growth recently on the economic and technological fronts, with Indonesia’s relative mobile-first approach to internet access, coupled with corresponding government initiatives like the Gerakan Nasional 1,000 Start-up Digital (1,000 Digital Start-ups National Initiative) helping Indonesia achieve significant scale in closing the digital gap.

Despite a host of positive factors in support of holistic growth for the country, Indonesia must be careful in balancing the unprecedented access the technology provides the government with, in contrast to its implied authoritarian form of governance. On a similar note, there is a distinct need for President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo to balance his leadership of the G20 with the existing “fragility of Indonesian democracy,” with Indonesia’s push into the digital economy playing a significant role in this respect. 

While Indonesia supports human rights in its 1945 Constitution, the reality is that actually supporting human rights in practice has been less than positive. Dating back several decades, the United States State Department has highlighted topics like reduced freedom of expression, corruption and lack of government transparency as key areas that Indonesia must improve on. In particular, the provinces of Papua and West Papua have been a significant flashpoint for the Indonesian government in many areas, with Human Rights Watch continuing to highlight this conflict to this day.

Indonesia’s heavy-handed governance style has affected US-Indonesian relations, presenting an excellent example of the exacerbating effect that such violations of human rights can have on a specific country, in parallel with Indonesia’s G20 leadership. The road to robust US-Indonesian relations has been an extremely delicate one.

In the past, the US invoked a (since-lifted) ban on bilateral partnerships with the Army’s Special Forces, Kopassus, in the 1990s due to human rights abuses. The US has also publicly condemned Indonesia several times, notably in 1998 for its bloody handling of opposition protests, in 2015 for human rights violations in West Papua, and in 2016 for anti-LGBT statements.

While US-Indonesian relations currently seem to be trending positively, particularly with recent statements by US President Biden calling Indonesia a “vital strategic partner” amid both nations’ attendance at the UN Climate Conference in Glasgow (COP26), Indonesia’s past violations of human rights undoubtedly damaged diplomatic ties between the US and Indonesia during those specific periods.

However, more holistically, Indonesia’s use of authoritarian tools to suppress specific groups demonstrates a dangerous tendency to utilize those tactics when needed, a dangerous precedent given the newfound role of digital technology in the modern world today and Indonesia’s leadership of the G20.

The Indonesian government has pushed to bolster growth in its digital economy, with some projections estimating the digital economy will reach US$70 billion in 2022. Other technologies like artificial intelligence and medtech continue to make a huge splash in Indonesia’s digital economy. However, technologies like these can be harnessed by authoritarian actors for negative effects. Two examples highlighting this are Indonesia’s “virtual police” program and cyberattacks.

February 2021 saw the establishment of Indonesia’s virtual police squad, aimed at tracking social media posts with criminally offensive content. The legal authority for the virtual police come from the Electronic Information and Transactions Law, which in practice has been used to silence political dissidents, giving rise to fear of enhanced digital surveillance of Indonesian citizens. These dystopian fears seem increasingly realized given the Indonesian police’s announcement of badge awards to citizens who actively report others’ criminal acts on social media.

Additionally, in August 2020, at least four media organizations were targeted in cyberattacks, with these outlets previously posting articles critical of the government’s COVID-19 response. These attacks ranged from distributed denial off service (DDoS) attacks, to doxing, to the hacking of media servers, with some of these attacks directly removing said articles from publication. The coordinated nature of these attacks has only reinforced fears over censorship and future self-censorship in Indonesia’s digital and print media.

While the stated objectives of the G20 are predominately focused on economic growth, to include stability, sustainability and regulation, the G20 must also pay attention to domestic political regimes as part of its holistic look at ensuring international cooperation for the next generation. While Indonesia’s leadership of the G20 is certainly a positive factor and could encourage Indonesia to abandon its previously authoritarian tendencies, the fact remains that such a position may incentivize Indonesia to further regress democratically.

In a bid to present itself as a stable nation, Indonesia may regress to its old authoritarian form of governance to quell the unpredictable political ecosystem. The COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated some of these trends, to include the expanding role of the military in civilian life, strained relationships between nationalists and Islamic hard-liners, as well as the use of health-protocol rules to suppress political opposition. The introduction of digital assets to this equation can further enable Jokowi’s regime to enact authoritarian measures, a fact that must be considered for both Indonesia’s G20 partners and international ties alike.

The democratized access to digital resources is promising for Indonesia, with a burgeoning start-up community and growing technology ecosystem helping to prove this point. However, Indonesia’s checkered past with human rights, combined with access to new digital tools, present significant challenges to Indonesia’s G20 presidency.

While Indonesia has taken steps to address some of these concerns, balancing increasing digital growth and its authoritarian past will prove challenging for Indonesia’s legacy in its first G20 presidential term. Jokowi’s “small and tentative” steps to advance human rights will need to be increased significantly for Indonesia to assure its citizens, the G20, and the rest of the world, of its positive intentions in harnessing digital technology for the future.

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The writer is an MBA candidate at University of California Berkeley’s Haas School of Business.