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At a recent ANZ seminar in Melbourne,
Australia, president director of McKinsey & Company Indonesia, Arif
Budiman, said Indonesia was the most stable among the world’s major
economies. McKinsey predicts that Indonesia, currently the world’s
16th-largest economy by gross domestic product (GDP), will become the
seventh-largest by 2030.
Many scholars,
lawmakers, private companies and the media have billed Indonesia as
“emerging”, “a rising middle power”, “the next member of the BRICS [Brazil,
Russia, India, China and South Africa]” and other such titles. An
interesting question is how the (perceived) rise of Indonesia will, and
should, impact upon its foreign policy posture.
At the
beginning of the 21st century the world order has been shaped by a changing
balance of global economic power, signaled by the rise of “emerging
powers”, which were previously perceived just as “developing countries”.
As one of the
emerging powers, Indonesia has strong modalities to play an important role
in addressing global issues.
Amid the global
financial crisis the World Bank projects Indonesia’s economy to grow by 6.6
percent in 2013, better that of other emerging powers. The International
Monetary Fund (IMF) has cut its growth prediction for Brazil from 4.6
percent to 4 percent, while Moody’s Analytics predicts India’s GDP growth
rate to be at a level of 6 percent.
Diplomatically,
Indonesia has also gained a prominent position in the global arena in
recent years by becoming a member of the G20 and co-chairing the UN
High-Level Panel on the Post 2015 Development Agenda. Indonesia is clearly
more than just “a fractured belt of comets orbiting China”, as incorrectly
suggested by Parag Khana (2009, 291).
Having said
that, the nature and style of Indonesian foreign policy differs from other
emerging powers. The BRICS are more assertive and tend to become
revisionists of the global status quo. Brazil, India and South Africa, for
instance, consistently ask for permanent seats in the UN Security Council.
In the area of
development cooperation, most emerging powers already have Official
Development Assistance (ODA) bodies. India inaugurated the Development
Partnership Administration (DPA) last year, while Brazil and South Africa
have set up similar bodies a few years ago. BRICS nations also agreed a
plan to set up a “development bank” at last year’s BRICS Summit in New
Delhi. The bank will become sort of an antithesis of a traditional donor
scheme, which is dominated by Organization for Economic Cooperation and
Development (OECD) nations.
Indonesia, on
the other hand, does not have an ODA body yet and in the short run, it will
not follow the BRICS’ path to expand its strategic influence by providing
aid to less-developed nations. Indonesia, of course, has its own
consideration and situation to act differently from the BRICS. From a
domestic point of view, Indonesia has interminable development problems,
such as a high poverty rate, increasing income inequality and rampant
corruption that could constrain an assertive foreign policy.
Nonetheless,
why do India, South Africa and even China — which are subject to the same,
or perhaps even more serious, domestic pressures — confidently pursue more
aggressive, coercive foreign policies?
Foreign policy
construction is greatly influenced by the complex combination of state
capacity, the dynamics of domestic politics, values and identity. In
relations with its Southeast Asian neighbors, for instance, Indonesia’s
assertiveness is not constrained fully by a lack of absolute advantage over
other nations — unlike Brazil, India and Russia, which are far more
dominant than their peers in their respective regions.
More
importantly, despite some interventionist proposals in ASEAN, such as the
establishment of the ASEAN Intergovernmental Commission on Human Rights
(AICHR), Indonesia chooses to respect regional consensus norms that
prioritize peace and stability as basis for common prosperity in the
region, a stance that is different from India’s arms races with Pakistan or
China’s firm behavior toward its neighbors on territorial disputes.
For the
emerging Indonesia, the existing guidelines of its foreign policy, which
places an importance on ASEAN and acts as a “constructive builder” amid
global uncertainty, are still much preferable than unilateralism or a “go
it alone” policy. In the next couple of years, those postulates will be
increasingly carried out in tandem with ideas of deepening bilateral
cooperation with selected “strategic partners”.
Although there
is no need to leave its commitments to ASEAN and redirect its concrete
contributions to a broad range of global issues, Indonesia has to
restrengthen its regional leadership in Southeast Asia as a basis to serve
its rise in the region. It should go beyond the normal assumption that
Indonesia is a primus inter pares (first among equals).
Indonesia needs
to focus on developing a more substantive, rather than abstract, leadership
in the region. For this reason, significantly enhancing its bilateral
relations with other Southeast Asian nations is pivotal.
Business
players should be encouraged and facilitated to expand economic activities
in other Southeast
Asian nations.
For years,
Indonesia devoted much political and diplomatic energy to help resolve
conflicts in Cambodia, Vietnam and Myanmar, but it has not brought many
economic benefits from those countries once the conflicts ended.
Indonesia’s investment in Myanmar, for instance, is much less than the
investment of Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand, despite Indonesia’s
diplomatic engagement and initiative that contributed to Naypydaw’s
political reform. There is no direct Jakarta-Phnom Penh flight although
Indonesia built up some outstanding diplomatic credentials in Cambodia
during the 1980s-1990s crisis.
Indonesia
should also send more people, especially students, with the government’s
funding, to learn about the cultures and languages of other Southeast Asian
countries and get to know these countries. This effort is crucial to
tighten long-term emotional and intellectual linkages between Indonesians
and their Southeast Asian fellows.
For strategic
purposes, Indonesia also needs to establish more institutes/ centers that
are dedicated to Southeast Asian studies. Institutes or centers related to
international affairs could potentially encourage people to develop
outward-looking mindsets that are critical to bridge gaps between foreign
policy and domestic
aspirations.
The new status
as an emerging middle power provides Indonesia more foreign policy
alternatives. Reevaluating Southeast Asia as a strategic and more
substantive asset could be the most beneficial option. ●
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