Prabowo Subianto begins his first foreign tour as Indonesia's president with a visit to top trading partner China, highlighting Beijing's importance to Southeast Asia's largest economy.
Prabowo, who took office three weeks ago, will visit Beijing from Friday to Sunday and hold talks with Chinese President Xi Jinping at the start of a five-country trip that will also include the United States and the Kingdom -United.
Prabowo has not yet outlined his diplomatic priorities or strategy, but has made clear that he wants Indonesia to play a more active role in international affairs. China was also his first overseas stop after winning Indonesia's presidential election in February.
Muhammad Zulfikar Rakhmat, director of the China-Indonesia office at the Center for Economic and Legal Studies, said Prabowo was being pragmatic in prioritizing Beijing.
This visit indicates that China will be an important partner for Prabowo, particularly in enabling him to fulfill his economic promises, he said.
Prabowo has pledged to increase annual economic growth from 5 to 8 percent, a goal that economists say will require increased foreign direct investment.
China, Indonesia's second largest source of FDI, was instrumental in helping Prabowo's predecessor Joko Widodo achieve his economic goals by investing heavily in flagship projects and economically important sectors such as metals, mines and infrastructure.
Chinese companies have pumped billions of dollars into Indonesia's nickel industry as Jakarta sought to expand its reserves of the metal critical to steelmaking and electric vehicle batteries. Beijing also financed an Indonesia-first $7.3 billion high-speed rail line between Jakarta and Bandung as part of its global Belt and Road infrastructure initiative worth of 1,000 billion dollars.
Prabowo has pledged to uphold Indonesia's long-standing policy of international neutrality and analysts said he was seeking to balance his China visit by immediately following it with a trip to the United States, where he is expected to meet the president Joe Biden and possibly the president-elect. Donald Trump.
Prabowo will then travel to Peru for a meeting of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum, to Brazil for a G20 summit and finally to the United Kingdom, where he will meet Prime Minister Keir Starmer.
We must negotiate, explore the existing potential and resolve crucial and strategic issues with these countries, which are part of very important economic blocs. This is crucial for the survival of our economy, Prabowo said in a statement this week.
The president did not say whether one of the issues he planned to discuss would be China's increased assertiveness in the South China Sea, where Beijing's broad territorial claims appear to overlap with Indonesia's exclusive economic zone .
Last month, Indonesia's coast guard said it chased Chinese coast guard vessels from waters under Jakarta's jurisdiction, where they were disrupting resource survey work.
Prabowo has previously called for a peaceful resolution of disputes in the South China Sea.
Prabowo, who has said he wants to be friends with all countries, wants the world's fourth most populous nation to play a more influential role in global affairs than under Widodo, who focused more on the country.
In the first three weeks of his presidency, Indonesia announced it would join the Brics group of large emerging economies, which includes China and Russia, and launched its first joint exercises with the Russian military.
As defense minister in the Widodos government, Prabowo last year proposed a demilitarized zone and a UN referendum to end the conflict between Ukraine and Russia, a plan rejected by kyiv. This year, Prabowo said Indonesia was ready to send peacekeeping forces to Gaza.
Indonesia under Prabowo will be more willing to work with everyone. Not just with Russia or China, but also with the United States, France and others, said Evan Laksmana, a senior fellow at the International Institute for Strategic Studies.
Prabowo himself will be the head of Indonesian diplomacy. What we will see is a more concrete and active personal touch to foreign policy and international engagement.
