Indonesia’s Relations with China: Productive and Pragmatic, but not yet a Strategic Partnership

This article looks into the recent development of Indonesia’s relations with China. Notable progress can be seen in political and security relations, despite the fact that this dimension was at the core of their contentions during the 1970s and caused a freeze in diplomatic relations until the early 1990s. Economic relations, on the other hand, have long been the backbone of relations even before normalisation, but after Reformasi, economic relations have gradually been depicted as a new kind of threat even as they flourish. A unique factor contributing to this relationship is the distinctive role of Chinese Indonesians. This article also considers participation in multilateral diplomacy as an important aspect and strategy that affect bilateral relations. Under democracy, Indonesia is able to formulate a more productive and pragmatic China policy. However, since productive and pragmatic relations are not sufficiently strategic, Indonesia needs to formulate a long-term strategy to engage China and substantiate the so-called strategic partnership.