How Indonesia's Prabowo Subianto strikes a careful balance in the US-China rivalry: report

JAKARTA, Indonesia: After Prabowo Subianto became Indonesia's president in October, people quickly began to question how his leadership, given his background as a former special forces general, would affect regional security over the of the next five years of his presidency, Al Jazeera reported.

Several analysts believe that Prabowo Subianto's approach to foreign policy will be very different from that of his predecessor, Joko Widodo (known as “Jokowi”).

According to Al Jazeera, Jokowi has mainly focused on boosting the Indonesian economy by attracting foreign investment to Indonesia and building export markets rather than defense spending and international business.

As tensions and competition between China and the United States rise in the Asia-Pacific region, it remains to be seen how far 73-year-old Indonesian President Prabowo will take Indonesia in a new direction of foreign policy.

“Unlike Jokowi, who largely delegated foreign affairs and security issues, Prabowo, through his defense minister, will generate more opportunities with the Pentagon,” said Natalie Sambhi, Indonesia expert and director executive of Verve Research.

“That said, we have early signs that Indonesia is seeking to deepen its relationship with China, including by resuming military exercises. We have five years to see if the complexity and frequency of military exercises with the [Chinese] The People’s Liberation Army is evolving in a way that rivals the intensity of the US military,” Sambhi added.

According to the report, Prabowo's early choice of state visits provided insight into his strategic thinking about Indonesia's place in a region where military competition is rapidly evolving.

After visiting Australia in August and Russia in September as Indonesia's president-elect, Prabowo visited China in November, when he was elected president. Shortly thereafter, he traveled to Washington, D.C., where he met with President Joe Biden, closing his visit with a phone call to United States President-elect Donald Trump.

At the end of November, Prabowo visited the United Kingdom and met with British Prime Minister Keir Starmer and King Charles.

Zachary Abuza, a professor of Southeast Asian politics and security at the National War College in Washington, D.C., highlighted Subianto's choice of countries to visit – Russia and China – before heading to the United States. United States, and said that “the decision to visit Russia and China before the United States certainly sounded the alarm about what they are going to do with the bilateral relationship.”

But the order of countries Prabowo chose to visit might also have been more a matter of logistics and timing than a symbolic indication of strategic intent, as a visit to the United States would have been complicated while the country was in full presidential election. campaign in October and early November, Abuza added.

Abuza also noted that the new Indonesian president could strengthen ASEAN (the Association of Southeast Asian Nations), especially given the growing rivalry between Beijing and Washington in Southeast Asia, reported Al Jazeera.

What is certain, according to Abuza, is that “Prabowo will be a different character” when it comes to foreign policy and that the new Indonesian president could also mean a strengthened association of Southeast Asian nations. [ASEAN] amid the regional rivalry between Beijing and Washington.
Prabowo “understands that ASEAN is more effective with a stronger Indonesia at the helm,” Abuza said.

Additionally, Verve Research's Sambhi suggested that analysts will closely watch how Indonesia, under Prabowo's leadership, expands its regional security partnerships.

Verve Research's Sambhi said “analysts would likely examine how Indonesia under Prabowo could deepen and diversify its regional security partnerships away from the twin hubs of Washington and Beijing.”

Other security partners of Indonesia could include Australia, France, India, the Philippines, South Korea and Vietnam, Sambhi said.

“The more Indonesia collaborates with other middle and emerging powers in the Indo-Pacific, the better the region can mitigate the impact of the US-China rivalry,” she said. –

Subianto, Born in Jakarta in 1951, Prabowo began his military career in 1970 by enrolling at the Indonesian Military Academy, from which he graduated in 1974 before joining the Indonesian Special Forces Command (Kopassus).

Throughout his military career, he was accused of a series of human rights violations while on active duty, including accusations of abuses in East Timor and West Papua in Indonesia, as well as than involvement in the bloody race riots of 1998 during the fall of the president at the time. Soeharto – whose son-in-law he was once, as reported by Al Jazeera (ANI)