Donald K. Emmerson

In October, Joko “Jokowi” Widodo, a former furniture exporter, was inaugurated as Indonesia’s first ever president from outside the Jakarta elite, following a historic election in the world’s fourth largest country. Since taking office, he’s worked to distinguish his administration from that of his predecessor, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono. One of the areas where this has been most evident has been in foreign policy, where Jokowi has been accused by some of prioritizing domestic concerns over Indonesia’s international relations.

Donald Emmerson, director of the Southeast Asia Forum (SEAF) at the Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center at Stanford University, spoke to The Diplomat about the direction of Jokowi’s foreign policy, Indonesia’s international position, and the nuances of Jakarta’s balancing of partnerships with the U.S. and China.

It’s been over a year since Jokowi’s inauguration. What is your general assessment of his foreign policy thus far?

Whatever president Joko Widodo is, he is not his predecessor, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono (SBY). Not long after Jokowi’s inauguration, a foreign policy staff person asked his new boss for guidance: What did the president want him to do? According to the staffer, Jokowi answered, “Whatever SBY did, don’t do it. And be bold!”

Jokowi soon shocked observers by implementing his own advice. He destroyed fishing boats from neighboring states caught poaching in Indonesian waters. He allowed the execution of foreigners convicted of running drugs. It was time, in his view, to stop trying to be friends with everyone at the expense of Indonesia’s own national interests.

Jokowi’s priority goals are domestic: reversing the deceleration of Indonesia’s economy and improving its the welfare of its people. He views foreign policy largely as a means to those ends. The question is whether and how he will balance his blunt nationalism with smart internationalism to ensure the cooperation of other countries, including those whose markets and money he needs to help grow his country’s economy. In order for that to happen to the benefit of poor Indonesians, he will need to resist the anti-reform agendas of protectionist politicians, including some in his own political party, who are deeply vested in the crony-capitalist status quo. As of the end of his first year in office, that struggle remains unwon.

A key foreign policy priority under the Jokowi administration has been advancing Indonesia as a maritime power by positioning it as a “global maritime fulcrum” between the Indian and Pacific Oceans. How significant is this within the context of Indonesia’s economy and security, and what do you think its prospects are?

The “global maritime fulcrum” is a Rorschach. For some in Indonesia it signals a domestic priority on infrastructure – the immediate need to refurbish and augment the ports, ships, and feeder roads required to carry safe and productive traffic in goods and people from one end of the archipelago to the other. Others are more inclined to read into the fulcrum concept a foreign-policy role for Indonesia as a hub country linking East Asia with South Asia and beyond. And these two visions are linked, for if the fulcrum is decrepit, its inter-ocean location cannot be leveraged into a future for Indonesia as a maritime nexus for international economic intercourse and growth. 

Megawati Sukarnoputri was Indonesia’s president from 2001 to 2004. She now heads Jokowi’s political party. Recently in Beijing, she mentioned the fulcrum idea to Chinese president Xi Jinping. Comparing it with China’s proposed 21st Century Maritime Silk Road, she implied that a complementary relationship between the road and the fulcrum could help develop Indonesia’s economy, especially its easternmost islands. Given her considerable influence over Jokowi’s administration – some say she’s his eminence grise – one can imagine the fulcrum in its domestic-infrastructural sense being outfitted, Beijing willing, by Chinese capital meant to reduce the relative isolation and poverty of eastern Indonesia.

Would Beijing be willing? China’s visionary road is expected to run far to the west of the far eastern end of Indonesia’s visionary fulcrum. But the mutable quality of both designs need not preclude some proximity and interaction between the two, especially if China thought that it could co-opt and enlist the fulcrum into becoming a lucrative waystation on the road.

One of the criticisms leveled at the Jokowi administration is its relative lack of interest in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) – where Indonesia has traditionally been seen by some as a leader – as Indonesia strengthens ties with other regions. To what extent do you think this criticism is valid?

The deadly, infamous, perennial “haze” from illegal burning in western Indonesia has been recorded in the skies above Singapore since 1972. In September 2015 a particularly nasty sequel again blanketed Indonesia’s ASEAN-member neighbors. The smoke-polluted air caused schools to close and outdoor events to be cancelled not only in Singapore and Malaysia but in Indonesia as well. Other ASEAN states also felt, once again, the smoke’s damaging effects. Indeed, reportedly it was because of the haze that Jokowi had to cancel his stopover in Silicon Valley during his recent visit to the United States and hurry home.

In March 2015 and again in September, Indonesian vice-president Jusuf Kalla told Indonesia’s ASEAN neighbors that instead of complaining they should thank Indonesia for annually giving them 11 months of smoke-free skies. Compounding his acidic condescension, Kalla refused to apologize for the disaster. Nor did he invoke the unenforceable ASEAN Agreement on Transboundary Haze Pollution that Indonesia had signed a dozen years earlier in 2002 but had not ratified until September 2014. Nor, to my knowledge, did Jokowi rebuke Kalla for his arrogant nonchalance. It is hard not to infer from these events a callous disregard for Indonesia’s neighbors and for ASEAN on the part of Jokowi’s administration.

But “his” administration is nothing if not diverse. Some joke, tongue less than half in cheek, that Indonesia has four president: Jokowi, Kalla, Megawati, and coordinating minister Luhut Pandjaitan. And the government still takes seriously Indonesia’s role inside ASEAN’s role inside Southeast Asia. Jakarta remains committed, for example, to ASEAN’s so far fruitless pursuit of a tension-reducing Code of Conduct (COC) on the South China Sea. Jokowi and his colleagues will not always defer to ASEAN, and they will pursue initiatives of their own devising, but they will not intentionally undermine the grouping or dismiss it outright.

As this issue of the magazine goes to press, Jokowi is paying a visit to the United States, which provided a good opportunity to advance U.S.-Indonesia relations. What are some of the things you would like to see ideally come out of the visit?

The American rebalance toward Southeast Asia has been imbalanced by an emphasis on security over economy. If the visit makes it more likely that Indonesia will consider joining the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), and if Jokowi’s meetings with American businesses yield investment opportunities, potentially that imbalance will be reduced. On the security side, I hope that bilateral conversations during the visit will encourage Indonesia to play a more proactive role in trying to alleviate tensions in the South China Sea, but not in a way that legitimates China’s massive and ambiguous claims there.