By Vibhanshu Shekhar
A new proposal exposes the inconsistency in Jakarta’s worldview.
Recently, Rizal Sukma, a noted Indonesian expert and foreign policy advisor to the current government led by President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo, proposed the idea of an Asian Fulcrum of Four. According to Rizal, four Asian powers – China, India, Indonesia and Japan – would seek to build and shape a pan Indo-Pacific (or Pacindo).
This is very similar to the idea of an Asian coalition of five put forth fifteen years ago by Indonesia’s then-president, Abdurrahman Wahid. Wahid had suggested a coalition comprised of China, India, Indonesia, Japan and Singapore. The group would not be a security pact, but an arrangement to facilitate political, economic and cultural cooperation that would allow three big countries to rise with the assistance of Japan and Singapore.
Rizal’s idea of Asia’s own G-4 rests on five assumptions. First, it is predicated on the idea of Asian solidarity and an Asian Century that may have received new momentum from the recently concluded Afro-Asian conference in Indonesia in April 2015. Leaders of nearly 100 countries from Asia and Africa gathered in Indonesia to celebrate seven decades of Afro-Asian solidarity.
Second, it seeks to build on the Indonesian experience as a regional architect. This is Jakarta’s key competency, as evidenced by its role in the growth and mushrooming of ASEAN-led initiatives for cooperation. Moreover, Indonesia is arguably positioned relative to the other three Asian powers. It has signed strategic partnerships with all these powers and sought to multi-align with them on the basis of parity and equidistant engagement.
Third, it places the responsibility of order-building in the region in the hands of four major players within it, rather than parties from without. Indeed, the essence of the idea is that Asia’s key actors should jointly take charge of constructing regional order, rather than leave it up to external forces.
Fourth, it builds on recent attempts among major Asian leaders to sustain dialogue and communication. Rizal notes that major powers are taking steps to address issues among them, including the U.S. and China, India and China, Japan and South Korea and Japan and China.
Finally, it plays on the fear of deterioration in great power relations between the United States and China under what is called the “Thucydides Trap.”
Read the full story at The Diplomat