By Joel Gehrke
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/author/joel-gehrke
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo will travel to Indonesia next week as U.S. and allied leaders seek to band with other democratic powers to curb China’s capacity to dominate the Indo-Pacific region.
“It’s in their best interest to ensure that their sovereignty is protected against the continued efforts to encroach upon their basic rights — their maritime rights, their sovereign rights, their ability to conduct business in the way that they want to inside of their country that the Chinese Communist Party continues to threaten,” Pompeo told reporters Wednesday.
The trip reflects how competition with China has changed perceptions of the archipelago, long-viewed as a “strategic backwater” despite Indonesia’s status as the fourth-most populous country in the world, as one analyst put it. U.S. overtures to Jakarta are hampered by the Indonesian aversion to aligning with any major power, but Washington’s efforts are being reinforced by Japan.
“Japan is opposed to any actions that escalate tensions in the South China Sea,” Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga said Wednesday during a trip to Indonesia. “Let me stress anew the importance of all the countries concerning the South China Sea issues not resorting to force or coercion but working toward peaceful resolutions of the disputes based on international law.”
That’s a rebuke of China, which has asserted sovereignty over vast swaths of the South China Sea and attempted to buttress those claims by deploying military assets to artificial islands in the busy waterways. Those claims entail trampling on the sovereignty claims of several other countries in the congested neighborhood, but Indonesia has the greatest potential capacity to resist China’s pressure — although Jakarta has hesitated to join any collective efforts to rebuff Beijing.
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/policy/defense-national-security/us-and-allies-prioritize-indonesia-as-potential-counterweight-to-china