Newly inaugurated Indonesian President Subianto visits China in first abroad journey | EUROtoday

Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto pledged to keep up shut ties with China throughout a gathering with Chinese chief Xi Jinping in Beijing on Saturday, his first abroad cease since he took workplace three weeks in the past.

Subianto is in search of to strengthen relations with China, Indonesia’s largest buying and selling accomplice and certainly one of its most necessary international traders. This is his second go to to Beijing this yr, following a go to in April as president-elect, the primary abroad journey he made after profitable the Indonesian presidential election in February.

“Indonesia considers China not only as a great power but as a great civilization,” Subianto stated on the assembly, including that the 2 international locations had had shut relations for hundreds of years. “Therefore, I think it is only natural that now in the present situation, geopolitical and geoeconomic, that Indonesia and China have become very close partners and in many, many fields.”

Xi vowed assist for Subianto’s administration, thanking him for visiting China first and saying he believed “Indonesia will adhere to an independent development path, continue to make new achievements in the journey of achieving national prosperity and national rejuvenation, and play an important role on the international and regional stage.”

Earlier on Saturday, Subianto met with different prime Chinese leaders, together with Premier Li Qiang and Zhao Leji, who’s chairman of the National People’s Congress and regarded the No. 3 official within the ruling Communist Party.

Subianto is on the primary cease on a multi-country tour. He is scheduled to go to 5 different nations, together with the U.S. and the U.Ok., suggesting that Indonesia will proceed to pursue its longstanding stance of neutrality between Beijing and Washington.

Subianto, 73, is a rich ex-general with ties to each Indonesia’s common outgoing president and the nation’s dictatorial previous. He offered himself as inheritor to the immensely common President Joko Widodo, the primary Indonesian president to emerge from exterior the political and army elite. Subianto vowed to proceed the modernization agenda that has introduced speedy progress and vaulted Indonesia into the ranks of middle-income international locations.

Indonesia’s financial ties with China flourished throughout Widodo’s decade in workplace. China grew to become Indonesia’s largest buying and selling accomplice and plowed billions into main infrastructure initiatives such because the Jakarta-Bandung high-speed railway, which opened final October, and Cirata, Southeast Asia’s largest floating solar energy challenge, on a reservoir in West Java, 130 kilometers (80 miles) from the capital, Jakarta.

Subianto stated in the course of the assembly with Xi that he’ll preside over the signing of over $10 billion price of offers throughout a gathering between Chinese corporations and the Indonesian Chamber of Commerce and Industry.

Subianto is singling a extra energetic international coverage for Indonesia, visiting over 20 international locations as president-elect. Days after his inauguration, Indonesia expressed curiosity in turning into a full member of the BRICS bloc of creating economies that features Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa.

Indonesia has maintained a comparatively impartial stance amid rising tensions between China and its Southeast Asian neighbors over territorial disputes within the South China Sea. China, the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, Taiwan and Brunei have overlapping claims within the resource-rich and busy waterway.

The Philippines has boosted safety ties with Washington since President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. took workplace in 2022, shifting again from the extra China-friendly coverage of his predecessor, Rodrigo Duterte. China and the Philippines have been participating in repeated high-seas confrontations since final yr, sparking fears of a bigger battle that would put China and the U.S. on a collision course.

Though Indonesia’s leaders say they don’t have a proper territorial dispute with China over the South China Sea, China’s “nine-dash line,” which it makes use of to roughly demarcate its declare to a lot of the South China Sea, overlaps with a piece of Indonesia’s unique financial zone that extends from the Natuna Islands.

Last month, Indonesian patrol ships repeatedly drove away a Chinese coast guard vessel from a survey vessel within the disputed space, in keeping with Indonesian authorities. Jakarta has turn out to be more and more protecting of its rights within the area as Chinese ships have usually entered the realm Indonesia calls the North Natuna Sea, fueling tensions between the international locations.

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Associated Press author Niniek Karmini contributed to this report from Jakarta, Indonesia.