Indonesia presidential election has high stakes for US and China – Winnipeg Free Press

JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) – When Indonesians vote for a new president Wednesday in one of the world's biggest elections, the stakes will be high for both the United States and China.

The Southeast Asian nation is an important economic and political battleground in a region where rival global powers have long clashed over Taiwan, human rights, US military deployments and Beijing's aggressive actions in disputed waters, including the South China Sea.

Outgoing President Joko Widodo's foreign policy avoids criticism of Beijing and Washington, while rejecting a deal with both powers. The delicate balancing act has won significant Chinese trade and investment in Indonesia, including a $7.3 billion high-speed rail project financed largely by China, while Jakarta has strengthened defense ties with the US and ramped up military exercises.

Analysts say the policy could continue if the front-runner, current defense minister Prabowo Subianto, who is the eldest son of vice-presidential candidate Widodo, wins.

“I don't think any of the basic structural features of defense and foreign policy will change,” said Evan Laxmana, a Southeast Asia security expert at the Institute for International Strategic Studies in Singapore.

Subianto maintains a policy of neutrality and has publicly praised the US and China. He cited America's historic role in pressuring the Netherlands to recognize Indonesian sovereignty in the 1940s at a forum at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Jakarta in November.

“This is part of history and we cannot forget this honor,” said Subianto, who also noted China's importance in Southeast Asia. “China is a great civilization. He contributed a lot and now he is very active and contributing a lot to our economy.”

Former education minister and Jakarta governor Anis Baswedan, the presidential candidate trailing Subianto in most independent polls, said he would replace Widodo's “transactional” foreign policy with one based on principles if he wins the election.

“When a country invades another country, we can say that it is against our basic values. Although we are friends, if rights are violated, we can reprimand them,” Baswedan told The Associated Press last month, without specifying which country he was referring to.

Baswedan said that human rights and environmental protection should be the basis of Indonesia's foreign policy. “If we don't have values, we have a cost-benefit ratio where we only support countries that are beneficial to us,” he said.

The US and China saw how the emergence of a new leader in the region would threaten their interests.

Rodrigo Duterte has become one of the most vocal critics of US security policies in Asia, developing close ties with Chinese leader Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin after winning the Philippines presidency in 2016 on an anti-crime platform.

Duterte threatened to expel US military personnel who came to the Philippines for military exercises. He later moved to scrap a defense deal with Washington that would have allowed thousands of Americans to enter the country for large-scale combat training, but ended that move when he asked the US to provide vaccines during the coronavirus pandemic.

Duterte's stormy term ended in 2016 and he was succeeded by Ferdinand Marcos Jr., who approved the expansion of the US military presence at Philippine military bases under a 2014 defense pact. Marcos said his decision was aimed at bolstering his country's territorial defense amid growing aggression by China's coast guard, navy and suspected militia forces in maritime areas claimed by the Philippines.

China protested the decision, saying it would provide US forces with bases in the northern Philippines that could undermine China's national security across the sea border across the Taiwan Strait.

Indonesia and the rest of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations belong to the Non-Aligned Movement, a Cold War-era bloc of mostly developing countries that seek not to formally align with or oppose any major global power.

Still, the rivalry between Washington and Beijing spanned the region.

Criticism of China's increasingly assertive actions in the disputed South China Sea has always been watered down in ASEAN, the 10-member regional bloc.

Members of states aligned with Beijing, particularly Cambodia and Laos, have resisted naming or trying to name China as an object of criticism in joint communiques after their annual summits, several regional diplomats have told The Associated Press on condition of anonymity for several years. because they had no authority to speak in public.

Last year, the Philippine government accused China's coast guard and suspected militia forces of using water cannons, military-grade lasers and dangerous maneuvers against Philippine coast guard patrol vessels, sparking minor skirmishes during a series of confrontations on the high seas in disputed waters. .

Under Indonesia's chairmanship, ASEAN did not specifically mention China but expressed general concern about aggressive behavior in the disputed waterway after summit meetings.

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Associated Press reporters Jim Gomez in Jakarta, Indonesia and David Rising in Bangkok, Thailand contributed to this report.