JAKARTA – China has never done this before, not with Russia, not with Pakistan, not with any country. The ministerial format Beijing unveiled on Thursday in Jakarta – a joint foreign and defense dialogue bringing together both countries’ foreign ministers and both defense ministers at a single table – is the first mechanism of its kind China has established anywhere in the world. Beijing chose Indonesia for the debut.
The meeting convened Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi and Defense Minister Admiral Dong Jun alongside their Indonesian counterparts, Foreign Minister Sugiono and Defense Minister Sjafrie Sjamsoeddin. Wang Yi left the meeting and told reporters it was “the first ministerial-level ‘2+2’ mechanism China has established globally.” The format – identical in structure to the 2+2 security dialogues Washington maintains with Japan, Australia, and India – has historically been the United States’ way of formalizing its most trusted treaty relationships.
The substance announced alongside the diplomatic architecture was equally pointed. Indonesia proposed “broader and more intensive” joint military drills between the two countries’ armed forces. China agreed. The two sides reached agreements on technology transfer and defense industry cooperation, which would give Indonesia access to Chinese military hardware and manufacturing knowledge it currently draws from the United States and Europe. Dong Jun said China was “ready to work with Indonesia to further tap the potential for defense cooperation.” Sjamsoeddin committed to “strengthen strategic communication with China, enhance exchanges between the two militaries.”
None of the meeting’s official readouts specified which Chinese military technologies might transfer under the new framework. China’s defense industry produces drones, precision guidance systems, anti-ship missiles, and surveillance infrastructure – categories that American officials have worked to keep out of the inventories of states they regard as partners. Whether Jakarta has agreed to acquire any of those capabilities, or whether the cooperation will remain limited to joint exercises, is not yet known.
What is known is where the exercises will take place. China and Indonesia have announced a joint naval drill in waters east of Taiwan. Taiwan’s government condemned the exercise as “dangerous.” The location matters: the waters east of Taiwan are the Pacific approach to the island that US strategic planning has long assumed it could hold more easily than the Taiwan Strait itself – the flank most relevant to any scenario involving Chinese military pressure on Taipei.
The meeting covered more than military cooperation. Wang Yi and Dong Jun joined their Indonesian counterparts for discussions on counter-terrorism, maritime security, cybersecurity, and the South China Sea. The Chinese side pressed for coordination on multilateral platforms including the United Nations, APEC, and BRICS, where Indonesia became a full member last year. The two sides agreed on joint positions regarding Middle East cease-fire diplomacy.
Indonesia enters this new mechanism from a specific historical position. Jakarta has been a founding pillar of ASEAN’s non-aligned tradition since the bloc’s creation in 1967. It participates in US-led Garuda Shield exercises. It has bought American F-16s, South Korean submarines, and European military hardware. Its explicit doctrine – free and active foreign policy – holds that Indonesia will not anchor itself to any single power. What Sjamsoeddin would call practical multivectorism is what Washington might frame differently.
The Iran war’s drain on US military assets in Asia has accelerated the timing of these decisions. The Indo-Pacific is without a carrier strike group for the first time in years. South Korea faces North Korean missile barrages while American forward presence contracts. The question for every ASEAN member is whether the American commitment that underpinned regional security for three decades is temporarily stretched or permanently different. Jakarta appears to have concluded that hedging now costs less than waiting to find out.
The choice of Indonesia as China’s 2+2 partner is itself significant. Indonesia is the world’s largest Muslim-majority nation, the fourth most populous country on Earth, and Southeast Asia’s largest economy. A 2+2 with Indonesia is a claim on ASEAN’s center of gravity, not its margins. Wang Yi’s framing – “the first ministerial-level ‘2+2’ mechanism China has established globally” – was a statement directed as much at Washington as at Jakarta.
Taiwan has no diplomatic relations with Indonesia to send a formal protest through. Its foreign ministry used the word “dangerous” without specifying which dimension it was addressing: the drill itself, the precedent for PLA naval freedom of movement in Pacific waters adjacent to Taiwan, or the broader signal the exercises send about Indonesian alignment. Taipei has not elaborated. Jakarta has not responded.
Related Posts
