Analysts say Prabowo's busy diplomacy hides a tighter pull toward China

Prabowo Subianto has visited close to 30 countries since he took office, which by the usual measure looks like a strong foreign policy. Two analysts, Jessica C. Liao and Lucas Myers, argue in the Lowy Institute's Interpreter that all that movement covers a narrowing set of real choices: Indonesia is more active abroad than ever, they write, and less free. Their case starts with money. Two-way trade with China has passed US$160 billion, more than 30 per cent of everything Indonesia trades with the world, and Jakarta has started raising cash through "panda bonds", debt sold in Chinese yuan inside China's own market. With the 2025 budget deficit at 2.9 per cent of GDP, wide for a year with no pandemic, cheap Chinese credit is hard to turn down.

The sharpest example is the sea north of Natuna. Jokowi's government refused to sign any joint statement with Beijing that touched those disputed waters, and rejected China's nine-dash line, the U-shaped line Beijing draws over most of the South China Sea. Prabowo's government accepted wording about "overlapping claims" there. Indonesia has never agreed it is a party to that dispute, so the phrase gives up a position it defended for years. The authors call it a legal and rhetorical victory for China.

Jakarta is not leaning only one way. It signed a Major Defence Cooperation Partnership with the United States and a trade agreement with Washington in February. It also joined China's new World Artificial Intelligence Cooperation Organisation as a founding member, in a field Beijing treats as national security. The authors' worry is not any single deal but the pattern: Indonesia answers what is offered instead of deciding first what it wants. Their fix is unglamorous, to put career diplomats and clear rules back at the centre of decisions.

Why it matters

The Natuna wording is the part that can reach your life. Those waters hold gas fields and fishing grounds Indonesian boats work, and a government that has agreed there are "overlapping claims" has a weaker answer when Chinese coastguard ships arrive. If you export to China, the same dependence cuts both ways: the trade is big, which is exactly why Jakarta hesitates to push back. Watch whether the next joint statement with Beijing repeats that phrase, because that shows whether it was a slip or a settled position.