The weakest link: How the US is testing Indonesia’s nonalignment

Résumé détaillé

By trading costly concessions for scant returns with Washington while deepening ties with Beijing and Moscow, Prabowo risks turning Indonesia’s storied bebas aktif foreign policy from genuine nonalignment into unilateral accommodation.

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By trading costly concessions for scant returns with Washington while deepening ties with Beijing and Moscow, Prabowo risks turning Indonesia’s storied bebas aktif foreign policy from genuine nonalignment into unilateral accommodation.

or decades, Indonesia has wrapped its foreign policy in the bebas aktif (free and active) doctrine. Jakarta likes to project the image of an independent middle power: equidistant from competing great powers, unwilling to take sides and determined to chart its own course. Under President Prabowo Subianto, however, that posture increasingly looks less like strategic balancing and more like strategic accommodation.

Despite months of signaling, Prabowo has yet to secure a full bilateral state visit to the White House. His interactions with Trump have remained peripheral: brief exchanges on the sidelines of summits, United Nations gatherings and ceremonial events such as the launch of the US-led Board of Peace (BoP). Repeated encounters without a substantive breakthrough raise questions about Indonesia’s place in Washington’s priorities.

The symbolism has been equally uncomfortable. A hot mic reportedly caught Prabowo asking about meeting one of Trump’s sons, and photographs from the BoP launch event showed him carrying folders for the US leader. Whatever the practical explanations, the images sat uneasily with Indonesia’s cultivated identity as a confident, nonaligned power, and no clear quid pro quo from Washington accompanied them.

Meanwhile, Prabowo has found greater receptiveness elsewhere. His visits to China have yielded trade, infrastructure and maritime agreements that reinforce Beijing’s position as Indonesia’s most consequential economic partner, while direct engagement with Russian President Vladimir Putin signals Jakarta’s comfort in a multipolar…

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