Some readers were unimpressed when I excitedly shared the news on social media that Indonesia had refused to host the Israeli team as part of the Under-20 World Cup, scheduled from May 20 to June 11 in Indonesian cities. Though any news related to Palestine and Israel often generates two sharply different kinds of responses,…
Indonesia, a country of 275 million people, and Malaysia, a country of 33 million, are neighbors with many similarities. Malaysia and Indonesia have a shared history, culture, and religion, Islam. Their national languages belong to the same language family, making communication between their citizens simple. Furthermore, both Southeast Asian states are founding members of major…
The Arab, Muslim and many of the “Non-Aligned” member countries were once staunch supporters of the Palestinian cause. However, in the world that exists today, this is no longer the case. One after the other, the Arab states are falling into the trap of normalizing relations with Israel. Many African nations are doing the same,…
The Republic of Indonesia does not actively participate in the present geopolitical game being played on the world stage and strives to maintain harmonious ties with both its immediate neighbors and powerful nations like China, the United States, and Russia. Meanwhile, the fact that Indonesia is a pretty large state with 275 million citizens and…
One way or another, whichever decision it makes will be zero-sum. Indonesia will either risk creating the pretext for China to potentially react through economic means to newfound AUKUS-led regional security threats “passively facilitated” by that archipelago or it’ll literally place itself in the military crosshairs of that anti-Chinese alliance’s contingency planning. The emerging powers…
The visits of Indonesian President Joko Widodo to China and Japan conducted in a temporary tandem mode at the end of July this year seem to be a single important event that significantly characterizes the situation in the sub-region of Southeast Asia as a whole. At the same time, it should be noted that, in…
