Does China Understand The Importance of Indonesia In the Indo Pacific Arena?
By Phar Kim Beng
Founder/Chair
Strategic Pan Indo-Pacific Arena
Strategicpipa.com
Twitter: @indo_pan
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China is a continental empire. It has a large hinterland. But one of its longest rivers come from Yang Tze River whose source of waters originate from the top of the Himalaya. Together with the Yellow River, however, up to 3/4 of the population of China are supported by these two rivers.
Unless China can have a full control of the Himalaya, by subjugating India, Nepal and Bhutan, in addition to any other countries that understand the sources of what Professor Brahma Chellaney called “Hydro Politics,” indeed, “even hydro hegemony,” China may remain vulnerable to the water levels from the Himalaya. This is why China has a hard line attitude on any conflict with India in the Himalayans.
Granted that up to 3/4 of the needs of the population of China are located next to the Yang Tse and Yellow River, China is sensitive to the need to be a maritime power too. That, in the main, implies China is a continental empire that has to reach out to the rest of the world, especially the South China Sea, reaching the North Natuna Sea that belongs to Indonesia, and the Straits of Malacca that are under the jurisdiction of Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia.
The vast seafront, and the maritime terrains, are massive. The three oceans, or, seas, are now officially inter-connected. Under the Association of Southeast Asia Outlook on Indo-Pacific (AOIP), a document was formalized to acknowledge Indian Ocean and South China Sea as a contiguous area. Together with the Straits of Malacca, the two oceans are connected.
Indonesia sits aside the Indian Ocean, the Straits of Malacca, the North Natuna Sea, and the parts of the West Pacific Sea. Indonesia, not surprisingly, is the sixth-largest maritime power in the world if not the largest maritime juggernaut in the Indo- Pacific area. It stretches from Aceh to Manado.
On its own, Indonesia is number six in size in terms of the Economic Economic Zones (EEZ), just behind France, United States, Australia, Russia, and the United Kingdom. The maritime time powers next to Indonesia are Canada and Japan respectively.
If China does not respect the wing and the geographical weight and strategic depth of Indonesia, Beijing would be committing a big blunder.
On its own, China is only number 33 in the league of those countries with exclusive economic zones (EEZ). Indonesia is number six, and in due course, plans to have a blue ocean strategy to match that of the power projection abilities of China in the South China Sea.
Indonesia, while reeling from the Indonesian exposure to SARS Cov II, which has led to tens of thousands of cases in COVID 19, Jakarta remains standing. There is no rush on the Indonesian rupiah.
If China wants to understand the growing importance of the Indo-Pacific areas, which extends to the 14 islands in the Pacific, adjacent to Australia and New Zealand, China must first acknowledge the role of Indonesia as the strategic gatekeeper of the Indo-Pacific Command, potentially with the backing of the “Quads,” formed of the United States, Australia, New Zealand, Japan and India.
