Most Indonesians have never heard of China’s signature foreign policy, the Belt and Road Initiative
president, Xi Jinping, launched the Belt and Road Initiative in 2013, Indonesia was seen as essential to its success. So much so that he went to Jakarta, its capital, to launch the maritime dimension of his world-girdling programme of infrastructure investments. But then a funny thing happened: very little. Nearby Cambodia has been overrun by Chinese involvement in its economy and politics.
The railway is also a lesson in the sometimes ugly sensibilities over the nearly 3m Indonesians of Chinese origin, which in turn shape Indonesia’s engagement with China. Chinese have been doing business in Indonesia for centuries, and today form a big part of the entrepreneurial class.
The railway was also criticised, caught in a broad surge of anti-Chinese sentiment. The government has drawn its own conclusions. All the other big projects backed by China are to be built far from the Javanese heartland where, one official explains, “a lot of the religious conservatives and Muslim hardliners are collected”.
Indonesia, then, mostly engages with China on its own terms—and a Chinese commitment for a training college to teach Indonesians about nickel processing is further proof of that. At times it will even be seen to stand up to China, as in a maritime spat last month in which the navy and coastguard expelled a Chinese fishing fleet from Indonesia’s exclusive economic zone.
This article appeared in the Asia section of the print edition under the headline "Belt and roadblock"
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