Advertisement
Opinion
How new US-Indonesia defence pact sharpens China’s ‘Malacca dilemma’
The US is investing in the systems, skills and relationships that would matter if access to the Strait of Malacca ever came under pressure
3-MIN READ3-MIN
3
Listen
Julien Chaisse is professor of law & RGC Senior Research Fellow at City University of Hong Kong and President of the Asia Pacific FDI Network.
Indonesia says it is not choosing sides. That is true in diplomacy. It is less true on the map. The “major defence cooperation partnership” announced by Washington and Jakarta on April 13 is written in the safe language of official communiques: capacity building, education, exercises, cooperation. But the harder meaning lies beneath the phrasing.
The most important line in this new defence partnership is not the reassuring one about “peace and stability”. It is the one about “maritime, subsurface and autonomous systems”. Add the promise of maintenance, repair and overhaul support, as well as the commitment to expand joint special forces training, and the document reads less like ceremony than capability.
This is not just another diplomatic upgrade. It is the quiet architecture of military usefulness. As argued previously, strategic competition is no longer defined only by territory, but by control over the routes through which energy, trade and force must pass.
Indonesia has not suddenly become an American ally. Jakarta has stressed sovereignty and its long-standing “free and active” foreign policy, while a separate US proposal on military overflight access remains under review and, according to Indonesian officials, sits outside the published partnership. That caveat matters. But it does not reduce the significance of what has been agreed. In Asia, the most consequential shifts often arrive without treaty drama. They are built through habit, hardware and interoperability.
Select Voice
Select Speed
1x
AI-generated voice