Japan's New Prime Minister Visits Indonesia: It's More Than Just a Bilateral Interest

Photo source: PM Suga's visit to Indonesia

Japan’s New Prime Minister, Yoshihide Suga undertook his overseas trip to Vietnam and Indonesia. He arrived in Jakarta on Tuesday, 20 October and stayed until Wednesday, 21 October. PM Suga was greeted directly by President Jokowi at Bogor Palace, West Java on Tuesday evening. 

PM Suga’s visit to Jakarta was more than just a bilateral relations context between the two countries, but in the sake of achieving peace in the wider region, the Indo-Pacific. PM Suga said that Indonesia is the key player in this region where it was dominating 40% of the population and GDP in ASEAN. Therefore, it was very reasonable that Indonesia is an absolute partner of Japan in realizing peace and prosperity in the Indo-Pacific region.

One week before Prime Minister Suga headed to Jakarta, he called the Indonesian President Jokowi to explain his two-day visit to Jakarta and during the telephone conversation, the prime minister, among others, briefed Jokowi about his Free and Open Indo-Pacific (FOIP) initiative, as well as ensured Jokowi that his government (Japan) “fully supports the ASEAN Outlook on the Indo-Pacific (AOIP)”, initiated by Foreign Minister Retno LP Marsudi and later adopted by the regional trading bloc.

Minutes of Bilateral Meeting Indonesia-Japan on Tuesday, 20 October 2020 :

• Japan offered Indonesia 50 Billion Yen (US$473.1 million) in loans to mitigate the economic impact of the Covid-19 Pandemic.
• Japan would like to encourage cooperation with Indonesian health assessment institutions by providing medical goods & equipment.
• Agreed to strengthen economic cooperation which also noted the expansion of investment by Japanese companies in Indonesia, as stated by President Jokowi
• The two leaders agreed on the importance of establishing a travel corridor for essential business and agreed to coordinate closely to resume travel as soon as possible for business objectives in the short term by relaxing self-isolation measures for 14 days after entering the destination country.
• Japan had proposed a two-plus-two meeting with Indonesia to discuss regional security by bringing the Foreign and Defense Ministers of the two countries together for talks on shared concerns. 
• Japan fully supports the ASEAN Outlook on the Indo-Pacific proposed by Indonesia for adoption, which has many fundamental similarities to the Free and Open Indo-Pacific vision, Suga said.

Japan's PM visit to Indonesia was more than just a bilateral interest, but he was trying to get the ASEAN countries' support to join their front against China, and Indonesia is the key player in the region. 

The newly-elected PM was very eager to accelerate the realization of his FOIP agenda and seems that Suga was confident that with the support of the United States and other major countries, it would be easier for him to persuade ASEAN members to join their front against China. Since Japan has its own territorial dispute with China in the water north of Taiwan.

Therefore, Suga sought to strengthen ties with Southeast Asia countries to counter China’s growing influence and build stronger economic and defense ties in the region, much in line with the previous PM of Japan, Abe’s vision of a “ Free and Open Indo-Pacific ( FOIP)”. Furthermore, Japan sees Vietnam and Indonesia as potential countries to support their front, as known that : 

• Vietnam was embroiled in a long-standing dispute with China over sovereignty claims in the south China Sea. 
• Indonesia was angered by Chinese coast guard intrusions into its exclusive economic zone of the Natuna Islands. Indonesia is actually not closely directly involved but has called for the rule of law to prevail. 

Moreover, four Indo-Pacific nations–Australia, India, Japan and the US have a problem with China.

In addition, we know that the minister of defense, Prabowo was invited by the US minister of defense to visit the Pentagon discussed bilateral defense cooperation between the two countries. It is the same level of relationship, minister to minister. Based on that pattern, we could assume that Suga represented the US alliance to respect its counterpart which is the President of Indonesia.  Both parties have an equal position level. We know that it seems impossible for Trump to come directly to Indonesia in this situation. Thus, they sent Prime Minister Suga as their representative of the US alliance to meet the President of Indonesia in regards to their front against China's influence.