China’s Qin Gang to discuss trade, South China Sea, Ukraine during first Indonesia visit

China’s Foreign Minister Qin Gang is set to arrive in Indonesia for a two-day trip focused on trade and investments, although the South China Sea and Ukraine war will also feature in talks, experts said.

Qin will meet President Joko Widodo and his counterpart Retno Marsudi, chair the fourth meeting of the Joint Commission on Bilateral Cooperation (JCBC), visit the Asean headquarters in Jakarta, and hold talks with Luhut Pandjaitan, the coordinating minister for maritime affairs and investment who is also tasked with boosting Chinese investments.

The JCBC convention will follow up on the agenda set during Widodo’s meeting with President Xi Jinping at the sidelines of the G20 summit in Bali, where both agreed to see through cooperation programmes over the next five years, including the Bandung-Jakarta high-speed railway.

“China’s most recently concluded JCBC with Singapore in November 2022 ... showed China’s main interests in the region, which are those related to development and economy. They highlighted issues such as the Belt and Road Initiative, trade and sustainability, so I expect similar issues in the JCBC with Indonesia,” said Shafiah, deputy executive director for research at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies in Washington DC.

In Indonesia’s last JCBC meeting with China in 2018, then-foreign minister Wang Yi said China would focus on supporting development in North Sumatra, North Kalimantan, North Sulawesi, and Bali, which were deemed comprehensive economic corridors. Retno at the time expressed hope that bilateral trade would be more balanced by increasing Indonesia’s palm oil exports to China, among other plans.

China is Indonesia’s largest trade partner and one of its top sources of foreign investments. In 2022, bilateral trade reached a record US$133.65 billion, while Chinese investors pumped US$5.18 billion into Indonesia last year, behind only Singapore’s US$10.54 billion. The United States was ranked sixth with US$2.12 billion.