Rising China’s test for also-rising Indonesia : time for Indonesia to punch its weight?

With consistent and probably sustainable growth rates around 5- 6 per cent, Indonesia is moving into an extended period of favourable demographics, with a lower dependency ratio than most Asian countries, including China (Basri, 2012, p. 30). As South East Asia's largest power, Indonesia is prima ante pares within the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). Indonesia is also prominent within the wider regional diplomatic architecture, including the Asia-Pacific Economic Community (APEC), ASEAN+3 (China, South Korea and Japan) and its extension: the East Asia Summit (EAS). Indonesia was the principal architect of the latter, an ASEAN+8 which added India, the USA, Russia, Australia and New Zealand (Tjhin, 2012, p. 311). A founder of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM), Indonesia enjoys considerable influence therein, also in the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) by virtue of being the world's largest Muslim nation by population. I argue here that Beijing's current aggressive pursuit of regional ambitions is generating serious instability in the Asia-Pacific, confronting Indonesia with profound security and foreign policy dilemmas. I suggest that Jakarta is obliged to implement major foreign policy shifts. I submit that Indonesia's changed status reinforces the case for these shifts and is shaping the form they take. The changes will prove difficult to implement, not least for domestic political reasons; this relates to my final argument here - that major Jakarta- Beijing friction is a highly likely development, and Chinese Indonesians could (again) become its unwitting victims.