G20 Indonesia: Expecting "China Opportunities"

The Philippine Post（Indonesian /International Daily News）This year's G20 Leaders' Summit will be held in Indonesia from November 15 to 16, 2022. Due to the impact of Covid-19 pandemic, the summits in 2020 and 2021 have been rescheduled to be held online, so this is another face-to-face meeting between G20 leaders after a gap of two years.

In the past two years, due to the impact of Covid-19 pandemic, trade and personnel exchanges between countries around the world have been hampered, coupled with certain countries engaging in "decoupling" and "supply chain restructuring", creating the problem of "supply chain security”, the international economic order has been disrupted.

At the same time, the outbreak of the Russia-Ukraine conflict and the imposition of the toughest sanctions by the West on Russia have caused a sharp rise in international oil and food prices, further increasing inflation in various countries and threatening the poor in low-income and high-income countries with hunger. Just when all countries are facing great economic difficulties, the U.S. Federal Reserve has raised interest rates one after another, leading to the flow of capital from all countries to the U.S., and the currencies of all major economies in the world have depreciated significantly against the U.S. dollar.

The world economy is facing such great challenges, and as an important mechanism of global economic governance, the G20 Leaders' Summit shoulders the important task of policy communication and coordination among the world's major economies. The international community is looking forward to the success of the summit, for which Indonesia, the host country, has made a lot of efforts.

As the world's second-largest economy and largest trading country, China, also located in Asia, has given its firm support to Indonesia's hosting of the G20 Leaders' Summit and its principled position on the Russia-Ukraine issue. In July 2022, Indonesian President Joko visited China and personally invited Chinese leaders to the G20 Summit. President Joko is also the first foreign head of state invited to visit China after the Beijing Winter Olympic Games, which reflects the high importance both sides attach to the relationship between the two countries.

During his meeting with President Joko, Chinese President Xi Jinping said that the world is changing in an unprecedented way and that China and Indonesia should work together to demonstrate the responsibility of developing powers, practice genuine multilateralism, adhere to open regionalism, provide Eastern wisdom and contribute Asian power to advance global governance. Xi affirmed Indonesia's status as a major developing country by classifying Indonesia and China together as "major developing countries". Xi also expressed full support for Indonesia's hosting of the G20 Bali Summit and its rotating chair of the Association of Southeast Asian Nation next year and welcomed Indonesia's continued active participation in “BRICS Plus” cooperation, indicating that China expects Indonesia to play a "great power role" in global and Asian regional governance and is willing to strengthen cooperation with Indonesia in these areas.

Indeed, Indonesia and China share the same and highly similar positions and views on most major global and regional issues. Indonesia and China can work together to build a more just and reasonable global governance system and institutional environment, and actively safeguard the common interests of the majority of developing countries and the international community. In particular, the international system with the United Nations at its core and the international order based on international law should be maintained, and the new Cold War and ideological confrontation should be opposed.

Indonesia-China bilateral cooperation has achieved great success and has great potential. China has been Indonesia's biggest trading partner for nine successive years, and their bilateral trade volume in 2021 exceeded $120 billion, 58.6% higher than that of 2020, the largest increase in China’s trade among all the ASEAN countries. The upcoming opening of the Jakarta-Bandung High-Speed Rail, a landmark project of cooperation between Indonesia and China, is the first high-speed rail in the whole Southeast Asia, which will inject new vitality into Indonesia's economic development. As Indonesia's economic development enters the fast lane, the potential for future cooperation between two large developing countries with a combined population of 1.7 billion people is unlimited.

As developing powers in Asia, Indonesia and China have an important responsibility to maintain peace, stability and development in the region, and it is in their common interest to do so. The center of gravity of the world economy is shifting to Asia. The total economic volume of East Asia and ASEAN has now surpassed that of North America and Europe, becoming the largest of the three major centers of the world economy, and with great potential for development. The Asian region should strengthen the industrial and value chains in Asia, promote regional investment and production capacity cooperation, and promote the rise of developing countries in Asia as a group through regional cooperation mechanisms such as China-ASEAN (10+1), ASEAN Plus China, Japan, ROK, and RCEP.

Asia's affairs should be discussed and managed by the Asian people. Indonesia and China and ASEAN should strengthen unity to prevent being divided and drawn into military bloc confrontation, maintain a good international environment for economic development in the Asian region, and maintain peace and security in Asia. Indonesia and China should jointly raise the "Asian voice" of developing countries' solidarity and self-improvement in the international multilateral arena and jointly highlight the "Asian moment" of global governance.