Indonesia - Questioning Indonesia's place in the world

A regular but prestigious conference on Indonesia will be held in Canberra, Australia, on September 30-October 1. The Indonesia Update Conference 2011 of the Australian National University will host "Indonesia's Place in the World".

A number of prominent academics, mostly from Australia and Indonesia, are scheduled to speak. The topics range from updates on politics and economics, Indonesia in regional and global economic and trade arrangements and "Indonesia's Rise", to considering Indonesia as a democratic Muslim power.

The title of the event itself is intriguing. Certainly, assumptions over Indonesia's place in the world will be varied. Optimists would argue that Indonesia has risen into a higher stage of the international arena, particularly after the elevation of Group of Twenty (G-20) interactions to summit level in 2008. Indonesia is one of the G-20's developing country members. Pessimists would say that the country is still quite far from being considered as influential within global political-economic spheres since it has to cope with the same set of problems commonly faced by developing countries.

Before embarking further on such arguments, it is worth recalling a previous conference titled "Where is Asia Headed?" held at the same university just few months ago. In this conference only China, India (and certainly) Australia were often mentioned by the panelists. These countries are considered as the drivers of politics and economy, not only in Asia but also in the global arena. They are even predicted to become the centers of world economic gravity in the future.

The question is: where is Indonesia? The country's leaders and politicians, government officials, diplomats, or anyone who belong to the "optimists group" would not be pleased with the reality of that conference. But realistically it should be acknowledged that Indonesia's international posture is not really that high. Expectations and reality are not that close. From the viewpoint of "power", Indonesia's capacity is not yet calculated as being significant.

In the realm of international relations, scholars tend to agree on three categorizations of states' power capacity: great power (GP), middle power (MP), and small power (SP). Though there are still debates on which countries belong to which category, there is a common understanding that the GP countries are the United States, China, United Kingdom, France and Russia. Besides their political and economic dominance of the global arena, these countries have special status in the United Nations Security Council with their permanent seats and veto rights.

Countries often categorized as middle power (MP) include Australia, Canada and Japan. The reasons for this categorization are the nations' advanced political-economic stature as well as their significant contribution to international cooperation and development. India and Brazil were recently considered as MP because of their rise in the global arena, particularly with the emerging notion of BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India and China). As for the remaining countries outside GP and MP, they are often categorized as an SP.

Back to our initial question: which is Indonesia's category? Certainly it cannot be categorized as a GP. But deeming Indonesia as an SP may not be entirely correct either. Indonesia should actually be categorized as a MP. A number of academics, such as Carsten Holbraad (Middle Powers in International Politics, 1984) and Jonathan H Ping (Middle Power Statecraft: Indonesia, Malaysia, and the Asia-Pacific, 2005) have already argued that Indonesia deserves to be categorized as an MP. Their arguments are based on statistical data and "statecraft and perceived power" methodologies.

Furthermore, the shift of global power from the Group of Eight (G8) to the G-20 is another strong point in favor of categorizing Indonesia as an MP. Due to the strategic elevation of G-20, from the levels of ministerial in 1999 to the head of states/governments in 2008, the G-20 has declared itself as the"premier forum for international economic cooperation". As a consequence, countries like South Africa, Brazil, and Indonesia are unofficially categorized as MPs (Seonjou Kang, "Middle Powers in Global Governance", in Tyler dan Hofmeister, Going Global: Australia, Brazil, Indonesia, South Korea and South Africa in International Affairs, 2011).

In other words, Indonesia definitely deserves to be acknowledged, or even perceive itself, as an MP. Indonesia also deserves to perform more aggressively in the international arena since its political-economic strength meets the "requirements" or expectations.

The question is, why in reality Indonesia is not considered that "high" as an MP, at least for the Asian region? This is likely because the country is too much occupied with internal challenges. Indonesia unquestionably has the potential given its abundant natural and human resources. The crux of the matter is on their management. To this end, fingers will be pointed at the politicians, government, and the judicial apparatus (the so-called "Trias Politica" in political science terms). The high rate of corruption and the lack of legal enforcement are deemed as the main source of problems that holds systemic causes. Most of the country's potential is being wiped out, or at least covered up, by these phenomena.

In this regard, what the country should further consider, is to first re-emphasize the direction on where it is actually headed. There is no doubt that the internal challenges are countless, but definitely the most daunting ones can be identified. For example: combating corruption, enforcing law, and reducing poverty. (Note: the World Bank states that the 2009 percentage number of Indonesian people who still live under the poverty line is 14.2%. It is such a staggering number as the annual economic growth merely achieves less than 7%).

But who shall take the initiative? The most likely answer is the government as it holds the legitimacy and authority that can exert essential roles in resetting the country's path. It is unlikely to come from the politicians at the House of Representatives or the judicial apparatus. From a number of surveys, the House and the judicial bodies are often considered as the most corrupt institutions in the country. Certainly the government itself is not free of corruption allegations, but at least it is the last hope for people as it has the governing mandate.

If the country's direction is re-emphasized, then the moves of government must focus on that direction. In other words, any political and technical issues within the government shall be managed within the corridor of combating corruption, legal enforcement and poverty alleviation. Even in the area of foreign policy, where the country's international posture is mostly crafted, the "machines" need to focus in the re-emphasized direction.

Third, when most of the things are already on track, slowly but surely Indonesia can project further its international profile. In this regard, it is worth underlining that the profile will follow the achievements, not vice versa. Arguably it is only after those achievements being reached that the country could fully subscribe to the prestigious club called the "middle power".

Yasmi Adriansyah

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