The importance of Indonesia in India’s Look East Policy will be further highlighted by the coming visit of President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono (SBY) as the chief guest on Republic Day. Indonesia shares a maritime boundary with India and is a natural strategic partner. We have a mutual stake in each other’s progress, prosperity, stability and territorial integrity; and, as pluralistic democracies and developing societies, we face similar challenges.
Indonesia is not only the most populous country in the region, with the largest Muslim population in the world; it has also immense natural resources and a strategic location, for it controls all or part of the very major waterway between the Pacific and the Indian Ocean. The US Pacific Command transits these to support operations in the Persian Gulf; the Japanese need them for their oil tankers. More than half of the world’s shipping traverses these waterways. Indonesia, now recovered from the wreckage of the Asian economic crisis of 1997-98, has maintained relative political stability and economic progress at a time when many other countries are badly affected by the global recession. It is on an upswing economically, given its position as a major player in global energy, minerals and food issues, reflected in its membership of the G-20, now the world’s main council for economic cooperation. The position has undoubtedly granted Indonesia a greater say in ASEAN affairs. When Indonesia assumes the chair of ASEAN in 2011 and welcomes the US and Russia for the first time to the East Asia Summit (EAS) or ASEAN plus 8, it will acquire a critical position in shaping the discourse and agenda of the region.
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