Overseas Network, October 28. The Australian “Sydney Morning Herald” published an article on the 26th titled “U.S. Anti-China Practices in Southeast Asia Does Not Work”, stating that the U.S. government’s efforts to persuade Southeast Asian countries to counter China will not work. Peo’s visit to Jakarta is unlikely to change this. Some analysts said that Indonesia has made it very clear that it does not want to take sides in the Sino-US dispute.
Pompeo recently embarked on a five-day trip to Asia, visiting places including India, Sri Lanka, Maldives and Indonesia. Before the trip, Pompeo blatantly claimed that the United States wanted to protect the sovereign interests of Southeast Asian countries, including maritime rights and interests, to prevent them from being “threatened” by China.
Aaron Connelly, an American researcher at the Singapore Institute for International Strategic Studies, said Pompeo emphasized competition with China, but this practice is not recognized in the region. It is impossible to find a country in Southeast Asia that is willing to participate in the Trump administration
China policy. There are three reasons: First, Southeast Asia believes that the United States is trying to obliterate China’s power, but
United States’ strategy in the region is still unknown; second, Southeast Asia believes that the United States’ demands for democracy and human rights are aggressive; third, Taking into account the economic and commercial cooperation, Indonesia’s trade volume with China is larger.
Australian media said that Indonesia also hopes to cooperate with China to contain the epidemic. The Indonesian Foreign Minister said in September that “we don’t want to be involved in the (US-China) competition.”
The former Indonesian ambassador to the United States, Dino Jalal, recently wrote an article sharply pointing out that the United States’ anti-China has escalated to a new level, but Southeast Asia does not recognize it.
Greg Pollin, director of the Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative, believes that although India, Japan, and Australia are drawn to the United States, Indonesia will never join such an anti-China alliance. Indonesia will only focus on its own interests.
