JAKARTA – Indonesia’s presidential front runner Prabowo Subianto has vowed to maintain the country’s neutrality in international relations, stressing that he would not align with any major power blocs or join any military alliances amid rising tensions between the United States and China, in the interests of the nation and its people.

Mr Prabowo emphasised that “one thousand friends are too few, one enemy too many” at an event organised by Jakarta-based think-tank Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) on Monday, hinting at the direction of his foreign policy strategy if he is elected as the country’s next president in the February 2024 polls.

“We will maintain our independent foreign policy. We will not be part of any military bloc. We will not be part of any geopolitical bloc. We need to have the best relations with all partners, all countries, especially our neighbours, regional neighbours and direct neighbours,” the 72-year-old Defence Minister told international diplomats, researchers and journalists.

Indonesia has no formal military alliances with any country.

A popularity poll conducted between Oct 27 and Nov 1 by research institute Indikator Politik Indonesia placed Mr Prabowo in a comfortable lead against his rivals, former Central Java governor Ganjar Pranowo and former Jakarta governor Anies Baswedan in the upcoming presidential race.

Some 39.7 per cent of 1,220 respondents said they would vote for Mr Prabowo, compared with 30 per cent for Mr Ganjar and 24.4 per cent for Mr Anies.

At Monday’s talk, Mr Prabowo said Indonesia has been at the “crossroads of great civilisations” by way of trade routes and strategic waterways for many centuries – and remains so.

Citing Indonesia’s “bebas aktif” – “free and active” – approach to foreign policy, he stressed that the country respects all great powers in the world, including the US, China, India and Russia, and wants to maintain good relations by not taking sides.

“This web of strong friendships will actually be our strongest pillar of foreign policy. And in the end, also our defence policy… We need peace and stability for our economy to flourish. And we need our economy to flourish to bring prosperity to our people,” he said.

While the intense competition between the US and China is a “matter of concern for us”, rivalries have been happening in the long history of mankind, he noted.

Indonesia, he said, has a “debt of honour” to the US, which helped to push for its independence by placing strong pressure on the Netherlands to end its colonial rule. But Indonesia also recognises that China has contributed significantly to the economy of the country, as well as that of South-east Asia.

Mr Prabowo said competition between great powers in the past had ended in war.

However, people now prefer collaboration to conflict, and meetings between Western and Chinese leaders have demonstrated that they “realise the great risk that can erupt if this competition is not calibrated”.

“I am an optimist. I believe that the leaders of these great superpowers are cognisant of their duty to their people and to humanity,” Mr Prabowo said.

“A rational leader will want to avoid open warfare, and I think this is the way of the world now.”

He reiterated that Indonesia’s top priority is improving the welfare of its population of 280 million by creating jobs and eradicating poverty. This means the country must stay impartial in its foreign policy, he said.

Joining a military bloc might seem an easy choice for a small or weak country, as “there’s somebody to defend you”, while “to be neutral (means) you’re on your own”, he said.

But Mr Prabowo added that “the essence of neutrality is we cannot, and we do not, threaten anybody”.

“It is my conviction that Indonesia must maintain the best relations with all the great powers. And by having these relations, we can be an honest broker, some sort of bridge, because we have no hidden agenda,” he said.

Mr Prabowo, who reportedly has President Joko Widodo’s backing in the election, praised the Indonesian leader’s “successful economic management” and said he would continue his foreign policy.

He added that the development of infrastructure such as dams, roads, ports and airports, as well as government assistance, showed that “we are taking care of our poor and our weak”.

Mr Widodo’s foreign policy has been very much oriented towards domestic needs such as infrastructure and development programmes since he took office in 2014.

Analysts have said Mr Widodo thinks it is in the country’s interest to protect its citizens overseas, as well as establish and maintain trade and investment relations with other countries.

Foreign affairs took centre stage in the later years of his tenure, and Jokowi – as he is better known – received praise for hosting a successful Group of 20 summit in 2022 and Asean summits in 2023.

In separate CSIS discussions last week, Mr Anies and Mr Ganjar presented their foreign policy strategies, laying out Indonesia’s geopolitical stance, ties with global powers, and national defence issues.

Like Mr Prabowo, the two men also committed to uphold Indonesia’s “free and active” foreign policy, under which Indonesia does not side with any major powers and plays an active role in contributing to world peace.

However, they vowed to play a more active global role should they win the election.

Last Wednesday, Mr Anies criticised Mr Widodo’s approach to foreign policy as being too transactional, instead of based on values.

“If we don’t have values, we will only talk about profit or loss,” he said.

He cited Mr Widodo’s trip to Kyiv and Moscow in June 2022 as being largely focused on “narrow” domestic interests, such as securing grain supply for Indonesia, when the Ukraine-Russia war was “something bigger”.

Mr Anies also called out Mr Widodo’s absence from international multilateral forums such as the United Nations General Assembly, which indicated Indonesia’s lack of interest in geopolitical issues.

Mr Ganjar said on Nov 7 that Indonesia “cannot depend on only one country” in international cooperation, and pledged to defend Indonesia’s maritime sovereignty by raising the maritime defence budget, although he did not specifically mention overlapping territorial claims in the South China Sea.

He said: “We ought to be active in realising world peace.”