Editorial: Is Indonesia Turning Away From ASEAN Under Jokowi?

By Prashanth Parameswaran

Early signs point to a far more bilateral, domestic-oriented foreign policy

Barely two months after Indonesian president Joko “Jokowi” Widodo took office in a historic election, he has already stirred fears among some at home and abroad that his country, a traditional leader in Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), may be looking beyond the organization in its foreign policy just as the bloc prepares to further its regional integration agenda in 2015.

Statements from Jokowi and his advisers, along with early actions under his tenure, suggest a more bilateral, domestic-oriented foreign policy relative to his predecessor Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, with a diminished but still important role for ASEAN.

“We used to say ASEAN is the cornerstone of our foreign policy. Now we change it to acornerstone of our foreign policy,” Rizal Sukma, a foreign policy adviser to Jokowi and the excutive director of the Center for Strategic and International Studies think tank in Jakarta, told a public forum in Washington, D.C. recently.

Sukma said that Jokowi’s foreign policy would focus more on forging relationships with regions other than the Asia-Pacific. He said Jokowi’s new vision of Indonesia as a global maritime fulcrum in the Pacific and Indian Ocean region (or PACINDO) was much more extensive geographically than the “Indo-Pacific” idea (PDF) championed by Yudhoyono and his foreign minister Marty Natalegawa.

In line with Jokowi’s worldview, he said Jakarta will likely prioritize deepening relationships with India and the Gulf countries.

“The way you define the map defines how you behave internationally,” Sukma said at the day-long conference organized by the U.S.-Indonesia Society (USINO).

There are also signs that Indonesian foreign policy is becoming more domestic-oriented and bilateral under Jokowi. The president himself has insisted that he will not invest much time in diplomatic relationships that do not benefit Indonesia, a far cry from the days of Yudhoyono where Jakarta sought a “thousand friends, zero enemies.” 

Read the full story at The Diplomat