CHINA & INDONESIA FURTHER BILATERAL TALKS ON INVESTMENTS, ENERGY, & MILITARY COOPERATION

Written by Michael Thervil

CHINA & INDONESIA FURTHER BILATERAL TALKS ON INVESTMENTS, ENERGY, & MILITARY COOPERATION | PHOTO BY TATAN SYUFLANA -AP

[CHINA INDONESIA BILATERAL TALKS] While the world appears to be hyper-focused on the American war of choice against Iran and the Strait of Hormuz, the top diplomats from both China and Indonesia met today in bilateral to further discuss how they can mutually benefit from strategically developing and sharing food and energy security as well as how to bolster military cooperation between each other.  Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi was quoted saying “We will jointly oppose unilateral bullying and power politics. We must also remain vigilant against attempts in the region to challenge the outcomes of victory in World War II and turn back the wheel of history. We should safeguard international fairness and justice, as well as the legitimate rights and interests of developing countries.”

While joint food, energy, and military security was heavily talked about between the leaders of both countries, Indonesian Foreign Minister Sugiono and China's Foreign Minister Wang Yi also touched on how Artificial Intelligence could be better utilized to enhance communication, modernization, mineral security, and economic trade between both countries. Indonesian Foreign Minister Sugiono stated, “We also agreed to facilitate trade, including market exploration and the expansion of market access for Indonesia’s flagship commodities.” Indonesian commodities such as palm oil, nickel, coffee, cocoa, spices, rubber, copper, coal, natural gas, and ferroalloys were negotiated between the two leaders. Indonesia is expected to ramp up its exports of these items to China in the coming months

While these bilateral talks “send a clear signal to the world of solidarity and cooperation between our two major emerging-market countries” according to Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, countries like Japan, Philippines, and the state of Taiwan appear to be taking notice of the joint cooperative nature of China and Indonesia as China and Indonesia has been conducting joint naval drills east of Taiwan as early as Tuesday. It should be noted that Indonesia became one of China's largest economic trading partners since 2015 with a record $167 billion in bilateral trade agreements. China has also invested more than $3.9 billion within the first half of this year with an emphasis on nickel processing, the Jakarta-Bandung high speed railway, and battery manufacturing for electric vehicles.