Indonesia’s president-elect Prabowo Subianto to visit China
- The former general, who will take office in October after his sweeping victory was confirmed last week, has been invited by President Xi Jinping
- Relations between the two countries have been good under current President Joko Widodo, who was widely seen as tacitly supporting Prabowo’s campaign
The 72-year-old leader of the right-wing nationalist Gerindra Party was officially confirmed by the election commission last week as the winner of the Indonesian presidential election with just over 58 per cent of votes. He will assume office in October.
However, his two rivals, Anies Baswedan and Ganjar Pranowo, have asked the constitutional court to re-run the poll by the end of April and disqualify him from the ballot.
China not expected to let past overshadow ties with Indonesia’s new leader
The losing candidates accused the outgoing president, commonly known as Jokowi, of interfering in the election by tacitally supporting Prabowo and using the state apparatus to help his campaign, accusations he denies.
Prabowo lost two previous elections to Widodo in 2014 and 2019. The latter result triggered a deadly riot in central Jakarta that killed six and injured more than 200.
He was once banned from entering the United States over the accusations, which he has always denied.
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Although Indonesia is not one of the countries that has challenged China’s territorial claims to most of the South China Sea, the two countries have their own dispute over waters off the Natuna Islands.
This area falls within Indonesia’s exclusive economic zone, which overlaps with waters that are included in the “nine-dash” line that forms the basis of China’s sweeping claims.
However, Beijing has built a strong relationship with Jakarta under Widodo. China is the largest trading partner and second largest foreign investor in Indonesia.
Some Indonesian Chinese wary of Prabowo amid memories of 1998 riots
The country is also China’s second largest investment destination in Southeast Asia after Singapore.
Xi and Widodo have met frequently over the past 10 years and a Chinese firm built the high-speed rail line linking Jakarta with Bandung in West Java, which opened last year.
China has hailed the project, Southeast Asia’s first high-speed railway, as a success for Xi’s Belt and Road Initiative, a project to boost infrastructure and connectivity in the region.
