Sovereignty and the sea: President Joko Widodo's foreign policy challenges.

• Author: Connelly, Aaron L.

New Indonesian President Joko Widodo, who prefers to be known by the portmanteau Jokowi, (1) has declared that he will focus on domestic affairs, particularly improving the country's maritime infrastructure and reasserting the authority of the state, as part of a broad reform programme. In these areas, he could be a transformative president. However, an activist presidency in these areas, even if intended only as a domestic effort, will create unintended foreign policy challenges for Indonesia, because its economic and maritime interests are so closely intertwined with those of its neighbours. Moreover, Jokowi's focus on domestic policy will likely see him delegate management of foreign affairs, including responsibility for addressing these challenges, to several key advisers. Where consensus among these advisers does not emerge, Jokowi is unlikely to intervene to settle the debate and to clarify Indonesia's position, as his predecessor, President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, often did when confronted with similar challenges.

This article first outlines the role that President Yudhoyono played in the conduct of the country's foreign policy in order to illustrate the change in experience and focus that Jokowi represents. Second, it reviews Jokowi's statements on foreign affairs and argues that his views on Indonesia's external relations are almost entirely a function of his domestic reform agenda, which emphasizes state strength and maritime affairs. Third, it identifies the key people providing advice to Jokowi on foreign policy, and how they might influence his views. Finally, it explores how this context might affect the conduct of Indonesian foreign policy in Southeast Asia and the broader Asia-Pacific region, highlighting the dilemma of the Indonesian position in the South China Sea. I argue throughout that Jokowi's focus on maritime affairs and questions of state sovereignty could lead to greater tensions with neighbouring states and China; and that his inexperience in foreign affairs could allow these tensions to persist in a way they did not under his predecessor, thus diminishing Indonesia's regional leadership role.

Yudhoyono's Departure Leaves a Void

When President Yudhoyono vacated the State Palace in October 2014, he left a void in the country's foreign policymaking system. As president, Yudhoyono energetically pursued a vision of Indonesia's place in the world as a rising power, and of himself as a globe-trotting statesman respected and admired by his peers. In his pursuit of this vision, he took great care to cultivate opinion abroad, while minimizing the opportunity for institutional competition over foreign policy among his ministries at home.

The presidency was not Yudhoyono's first turn at foreign policy. Throughout his long army career, Yudhoyono demonstrated a keen interest in foreign affairs. Early in his presidency, as he strove to position himself as an international statesman and foreign policy intellectual, he adopted and promoted a foreign policy vision defined by the country's identity as a large Muslim majority democracy. (2) By the start of his second term, he had refined his view of Indonesia's place in the international system as a country with "a thousand friends and zero enemies" and an "all directions foreign policy". (3) He sought to improve ties with both the United States and China, but also made a show of diplomacy with Iran and North Korea. (4) He pursued warmer relations with neighbouring countries, including Australia, Singapore and Malaysia, resisting demands from the bureaucracy and legislature that he take a harder line in various disputes. (5)

In implementing his foreign policy agenda, Yudhoyono continued institutional reforms begun by his predecessor, Megawati Sukarnoputri, that consolidated foreign policymaking in the foreign ministry and the State Palace, thereby limiting institutional competition over foreign policy between various ministries. (6) To drive his foreign policy agenda, Yudhoyono transformed the sleepy foreign affairs unit in the State Palace--which housed only two diplomats, including an interpreter, under his predecessor--into an engine of diplomatic engagement under his confidante Dino Patti Djalal. (7) Dino was a professional diplomat who held the understated title of presidential spokesman for foreign affairs, but acted as the President's closest foreign policy adviser; his staff of handpicked young diplomats, backed by the President's imprimatur, exerted extraordinary influence. (8) Through them, the President exercised his interest in foreign affairs with a particular focus on summit diplomacy. (9)

When his ministers and advisers' positions endangered Indonesia's international reputation or his friendship with foreign leaders, Yudhoyono often intervened in foreign and security policy, a prerogative that he exercised far less frequently in domestic affairs. For example, early in Yudhoyono's presidency he withdrew the appointment, made by his predecessor, of General Ryamizard Ryacudu to be head of the armed forces. Yudhoyono and Ryamizard had repeatedly clashed over the separatist conflict in Aceh, with the latter favouring a harder line and the President preferring a negotiated solution. (10) Yudhoyono also overruled his foreign minister, Marty Natalegawa, in sending Ambassador Nadjib Riphat Kesoema back to Canberra in May 2014, having withdrawn him six months earlier in the wake of the release of documents that alleged that Australia had eavesdropped on Indonesian officials. (11)

We should not overstate Yudhoyono's foreign policy record. His approach to diplomacy prioritized the promotion of the country's profile overseas rather than progress on the most challenging diplomatic issues. (12) Though Indonesia under Yudhoyono was widely perceived to have become a rising power and an important emerging market, many of these accolades came Indonesia's way due to its innate size and strong economic performance. Yudhoyono's foreign policy vision was often short on details, and like many of his domestic policies, avoided hard choices. (A vision of "a thousand friends and zero enemies" and an "all directions foreign policy" avoids hard choices by definition.)

Within Indonesia, Yudhoyono's high global profile increasingly became a domestic political liability in his second term. Critics argued that his desire to be seen as an international statesman led him to make policy decisions that sacrificed Indonesia's interests in favour of friendly relations with other world leaders. Commentators specifically criticized Yudhoyono's efforts to improve the poor conditions of Indonesian migrant workers overseas, which they said lacked vigor suitable to the scale of the problem, and his apparent reluctance to order the execution of foreign citizens sentenced to death by Indonesian courts. (13) When Yudhoyono's broader foreign policy record is taken into account, it becomes apparent that many of these latter criticisms were unfair. On many contentious issues, Yudhoyono refused to bow to international pressure, particularly when a failure to do so would have implied a violation of the country's sovereign prerogatives. (14) He could, however, be persuaded to take foreign sensitivities into account, and in the nationalist cauldron of Indonesian politics, that left him open to attack.

It is into this nationalist cauldron that Jokowi has now been cast. With far less interest or experience in foreign policy, Jokowi will be far less desirous or capable of delivering a conciliatory and clear foreign policy as his predecessor.

Face of the Village, International Brain

Jokowi represents a new model of political advancement in Indonesia. Unlike his six predecessors, Jokowi did not rise to the presidency through the military or the ranks of the political party system. Jokowi's rise began in 2005, when the successful entrepreneur was recruited by fellow business leaders to run for mayor of his hometown of Surakarta (or Solo) in Central Java. (15)

"For 24 years, I exported furniture", Jokowi told business leaders in Jakarta during his presidential campaign. "I may have the face of someone who comes from the village, but I have an international brain." (16) The business that Jokowi founded in 1988 prospered over time, and his travels often took him to Europe, the United States and countries across Southeast Asia. He learned halting English. He sent his sons to school in Singapore and Australia. But while Jokowi's success offered him a glimpse of the world beyond Indonesia, he was never a member of the cosmopolitan and cozy Jakarta business elite, with its strong political connections. Rather, it was his turn leading his hometown--with a population of 500,000--which set him on a path to the presidential palace.

As mayor of Surakarta, Jokowi slowly built consensus for his policies, winning over skeptical constituents and bureaucrats in order to build a public transportation system and enact a programme of slum clearance. In 2012, supported by tycoons and political leaders eager to harness the enthusiasm that Jokowi's success in Surakarta had engendered, he successfully challenged an old guard incumbent to become governor of the sprawling capital, Jakarta, a city of 10 million people. He immediately set about improving the city government, rolling out a city-wide healthcare scheme and finally starting work on a long-awaited urban rail system.

As soon as he was elected governor of Jakarta, the press began to speak of him as a potential presidential contender. He began his presidential election campaign in 2014 with strong backing in the polls. However, that lead was whittled away by his opponent, retired Lieutenant-General Prabowo Subianto. Prabowo's well-funded and well-organized campaign outpaced and outsmarted Jokowi at several turns. Nevertheless, Jokowi eventually prevailed. Exit polls later showed that Jokowi outperformed Prabowo in rural areas, where Prabowo's...