REPLAY: Statecraft with Sass Rogando Sasot | March 18, 2023 Featuring: H.E. Agus Widjojo | Indonesian Ambassador to the Philippines #Statecraft #SMNINews Wag kalimutang mag-JOIN at mag-SUBSCRIBE sa ating Youtube channel Click the link to Subscribe: 👇👇👇👇👇👇👇👇👇 https://www.youtube.com/c/SmniNews?su... 📺 Watch Us On Digital TV SMNI News Channel FREE TV on Ch. 39 Manila, Ch. 39 Butuan, Ch. 39 Roxas, Ch. 38 Vigan, Ch. 37 Isabela, Ch. 35 Laoag, Sky Cable Ch. 162 Manila. Sky Cable Ch 46 Davao and Cignal Ch. 186 💻📱 Online at www.smninewschannel.com #TruththatMatters #roadto2millionsubs Visit us on : http://www.smninewschannel.com Visit us on : https://www.facebook.com/SmniNews/ Visit us on : https://www.facebook.com/DZAR1026/ Follow us on : https://www.instagram.com/smninewscha... SMNI News Channel youtube.com

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Good evening, Philippines. My name is Sasrogando Sasot and this is Statecraft.

How does the Republic of Indonesia positions itself in world politics?

What can we learn about Indonesian democratic practices?

And what we can look forward to after the state visit of President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. in Indonesia.

This and more as I speak tonight with the Ambassador of the Republic of Indonesia to the Philippines, His Excellency Agus Widoyo.

Good evening, Your Excellency. Welcome to Statecraft.

Thank you. Thank you for the invitation and thank you for coming.

I believe that good evening in Indonesian is selamat malam.

Yes, selamat malam. Yes. Selamat suri and selamat malam. Yes, you can take that.

Yeah, because Filipino and Indonesian have similar words, no?

Really? Okay. Yes, there are some words that are similar.

So, do you understand Filipino, sir?

Well, I've only been here for six months. Let me see. No, six months is not enough even to understand the language.

But is this your first diplomatic assignment, sir?

Yes, this is my first diplomatic assignment. I'm not a career diplomat. I'm a political appointee.

And this is my first experience being thrown in or thrusted into the diplomatic world.

What were you before, sir, before your diplomatic career? Were you a politician or in a private sector in Indonesia?

I was also in the government, from the government. I was the governor of the National Resilience Institute.

And the original name for that institute was actually National Defense Institute.

Okay. So, you still have a lot of understanding about diplomacy because of your previous assignment in government.

Yes, I think what is continuing in a straight line consistently is that I'm dealing with the national interest.

And speaking of the national interest, Your Excellency, I would like to ask a very important aspect of Indonesian foreign policy.

Okay.

And I'm sorry if I would pronounce this Indonesian phrase incorrectly. It's medayong antara dua karang or rowing between two reefs.

Yes.

Can you help us understand what does this mean?

Well, we have to understand the history where that terminology came from.

It was, I think it was introduced by our Vice President Muhammad Hatta during our early Republic days.

If it's not late 40s, maybe early 50s. And during that time, it was the situation, the strategic environment leading to the Cold War.

And of course, we all know that it was between the West and the Soviet Union.

And we do not want to be caught, to take side in the confrontation of those two blocks.

That is why we have to keep our independence in conducting our foreign policy.

And that is what we mean that we are rowing between the two islands.

Sir, speaking of independence, it's one of the characteristics of Indonesian foreign policy.

Yes.

And the other one is active.

Yes.

So, let's discuss these two terms in terms of how Indonesia actually realized this in world affairs.

For example, independence.

Right now, the geopolitical rivalry is between the United States and the People's Republic of China.

Yes.

So, how does Indonesia navigate these new waters?

Is it the same as how Indonesia navigated the Cold War?

Essentially, yes. Although in a different form.

Essentially, it is not to take sides.

So, again, how is it that it is not to take sides?

That we are free to make our own decisions in accordance to our national interest.

So, we do not follow the decisions of other external elements or moreover the big powers.

But we maintain our independence in making our own decisions in the pursuit of our national interest.

I think that is what we mean by our independent foreign policy.

So, Indonesia is free to, for example, engage with China as well as the United States.

Yes.

We can, maybe for a certain interest, we are close to China.

But in other domains of interest, then we can be talking to the United States.

But, again, do not force Indonesia to take sides in this confrontation between two big powers.

And that is that we are still independent to take our own decisions.

Sir, as I understand, Indonesia also has no military alliances.

And is this part of the expression of the independent foreign policy of Indonesia?

Okay, one more that I may add that I forgot is that Indonesia is free to choose, quote-unquote, who her friends are.

So, again, do not dictate Indonesia as to who can we be friends with and who we cannot.

And as to your question, yes, what was the question? The question was about?

About military alliances.

Oh, military alliances.

Yes, again, I think we have to agree on the definition of a military alliance.

I do not think that Indonesia in its historic journey ever was or ever belonged to any military alliance.

In a military alliance, you have to have an agreement as to the same threat and as to maybe the same military commands.

We never put ourselves into a military alliance such as those criteria or definition.

No, we may have cooperation with neighboring countries. We may have collaborations with allied countries.

But we never put ourselves into a strict and stiff sort of alliance that we are saying that we are facing the same threat.

And we have same definitions of all those terms that are related to a military alliance.

Sir, regarding the other description of Indonesian foreign policy, which is active, it is described in this way in one of the foreign policy documents of Indonesia that I've read.

Indonesia does not maintain a passive or reactive stand on international issues, but seeks active participation in their settlement.

And this I find very interesting. But how does Indonesia seek an active participation in the settlement of disputes?

Yes, again, it is an aspect that cannot be separated from the first element that is the independence aspect of our foreign policy.

And this leads to the active aspect, which means that we do not stay still, just seeing dynamics at the international relations, especially in our vicinity, our strategic vicinity, which can influence our well-being.

And that is actually a mandate that is written or mandated in the preamble of our constitution. And that is to contribute to the building of world peace.

And with that, we have some examples, if I can show you some of the examples.

For instance, in Southeast Asia, during the Cambodian crisis, we came up to take the initiative of inviting all the elements that are involved in the various factions in the Cambodian crisis

to sit down and talk, to decide for themselves how to come to a consensus and agreement what is best for the future of Cambodia.

So, it is not for us to dictate, it is not for us to make the decisions, but we invite them to sit together and initiate the discussion, the negotiations and the deliberations.

So, does Indonesia sees itself as more of a mediator?

Yes, more or less.

And for example, here in the current Ukraine-Russian conflict, I believe that Indonesia does not really take sides, but still, it takes an active participation in settling the tension.

Can you give us an update, sir, on how Indonesia is proceeding to mediate the situation?

That can be related to the role of Indonesia's presidency in the G20.

And we would like this forum of G20 to be a forum at least to open up communications between Russia and Ukraine, between parties that are involved in the war, and start talking to each other.

Just like ASEAN, any actions leading into reconciliation has to start from talking to each other.

At least with talking to each other, this is a starting point to try to understand each other and maybe to come to an agreement or a consensus.

So, we use the forum of G20 for that, and we have sent out invitations without any consideration of political interest.

But again, we remind that G20 is an economic forum, and we maintain that characteristic, but actually also to be able to have its effect into the political aspect.

That again is to answer your question, and we hope that the G20 will be a starting point for positive next steps to influence the situation for establishing peace.

Sir, you mentioned earlier the Cold War. So, let me backtrack a bit, because Indonesia is one of the founding members of the Non-Aligned Movement.

Yes.

To what extent does Indonesia think that the Non-Aligned Movement is still relevant in the 21st century?

Yes. Again, I think the essence there is to try to diminish or to lessen the various establishment or building of political blocs or military blocs.

And with that, I think the spirit of non-bloc is still valid, so that we can avoid and move away from building the world into confronting blocs.

Although that it has to take the concrete model that is relevant to the current situation, and may not be like when it was the Cold War when the non-bloc was established,

and those were the confrontation between the West and the blocs of the Soviet, the Warsaw bloc.

So, I think that is relevant to build a peaceful world in the 21st century.

Thank you so much for that, Your Excellency. Before we continue, we will just have a short break. Statecraft will be back.

Thank you very much.

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Welcome back to StatePrep.

Still with us is the Ambassador of the Republic of Indonesia to the Philippines, His Excellency Agus Widjojo.

Correct.

Welcome back, Sir.

Sir, now let me talk about the Navy of Indonesia.

It is the strongest in Southeast Asia.

In Southeast Asia.

And I believe that during the start of the leadership of Mr. Jokowi, there was a revival of the naval power of Indonesia.

And how is it proceeding right now?

The modernization and the strengthening of the Navy.

Yes.

The question is, are there any other alternatives?

Because the building of a defense for structure will more or less to a certain extent dictated by the geographical form of the state.

And Indonesia, like the Philippines, is an archipelagic state, which the capability to defend its waters will lead to the capability to defend the state.

It's because also that in the past, the government has put priority on the development of enhancing and increasing public welfare.

So the consideration of building a strong defense force was put in a lesser priority than the higher priority to build or to establish a strong welfare base for the people.

So I think it's nothing alarming, it's just maybe more of going to the mainstream or what we should have done in the past and make up for maybe lost time of establishing a defense force.

In accordance with the requirement of the geographical location of Indonesia.

So besides having the strongest Navy in Southeast Asia, Indonesia is also known for its very able diplomat.

And you know, how does Indonesia balance its hard power capabilities and its soft power capabilities?

How does it relate to the world? Because some countries, they often use their hard power more than their soft power.

But for a state like your country, how do you do it?

Yes, that's a good question. That makes me think.

Okay, let me see. I think that each of these elements, the soft power and the hard power, each have its own sense of responsibility.

If not saying sense of pride, in which each will move to establish the capability that they would like to have.

Other than that, I think that it is the inter-sectoral coordination of a whole of government approach of any policies.

So that we can decide which comes as the leading sector in a certain issue of international relations.

I think it's just common sense and logical, but each has its own pattern of management internally to prepare their officials.

Sir, another interesting mix about the Republic of Indonesia is the fact that your country is the largest Muslim country in the world in terms of population.

While at the same time, it is also a democracy.

In the past decades, several critics have said that Islam and democracy are not compatible and that they cannot exist.

So what can the Indonesian experience teach the world about making these two a way of living work?

Yes. I think again, it is the DNA that we have in our history and our culture.

First of all is that in the line of our historic process of the past, none were vacuum or absence of any Islamic rule.

There is always an Islamic rule in any segment of our history.

But also that in our culture, we are used to reach a decision by consensus.

So blend those two together, then we have an Islamic culture.

If I may say, not that it is unique to Indonesia, but it is used to be involved in collaborations, in deliberations.

As a part of what we call the Gotong Royong culture.

Again, that was also evident during the process of our deliberations between our political founding fathers.

Because we have, let's say, we have a divergent composition of population.

We have hundreds of ethnic groups, which is very much different from other ethnic groups.

Completely different language, culture, tradition, even religion.

That makes us think when we were faced with an independent republic, how do we manage this?

And we were very fortunate to have a team of founding fathers, who really wanted to build a foundation for the republic, rather than going in and flow with the republic.

During that time, some of the Islamic element wanted the republic based on Islamic teachings.

But as we know, the eastern part of Indonesia mostly consists of non-Muslim religion.

So when the Islamic element wanted to have a sectarian state, the representative from the eastern Indonesia said,

if we would have a sectarian state based on Islamic teaching, we will break off from the United Republic of Indonesia.

That made us think, and it was Vice President Hatta who then assembled these Islamic representatives.

And that was only one day before they had the conference to agree on the constitution, on the preamble of the constitution.

And it was in the morning before the decision was made that they say that the original wordings was that Islamic population must adhere to the Islamic teachings.

Something in those words.

But when Vice President Hatta, who became the Vice President, he was not Vice President then, he came with a group of the Islamic representatives.

He came to Bung Karno, not yet the President, and he said that we agreed that those seven words will be deleted and put instead the Ketuhanan Yang Maesa, the one and only God.

So that was a middle way, a consensus to accommodate the Islamic, let's say, aspect for the Republic,

but it also accommodates the interest of those ethnic groups that were non-Muslim who came from East Indonesia. That was the consensus.

What's interesting about the Indonesian experience, sir, is that democracy came from below, so it was not imposed from outside.

So the foundations of democracy, like consensus building, has always been with Indonesian culture.

So democracy is not something foreign, totally foreign to Indonesia, but something that naturally has taken root because of the foundations of democracies always been there.

Did I understand correctly, sir?

Yes, yes. Well, the more we go down into the grassroot level of the society, the more that we can see and feel the concrete form of democracy, which is Gotong Royong and Musyawara, deliberations.

And it is only when Indonesia became a modern democracy, where democracy takes the form of Musyawara and consensus at the higher level, because we are starting to face more complicated national issues,

in which practically it would be impossible to reach consensus, then we would go to the modern form of consensus, and that is democratic voting.

Okay, so it's not just fusing different cultures that Indonesia has done, but also the different forms of democratic decision-making.

Thank you so much for that insight, sir. Before we continue, we will just have another short break. Statecraft will be back.

Thank you so much, sir.

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Welcome back to Statecraft. Still with us is the Ambassador of the Republic of Indonesia to the Philippines, His Excellency, Agus Widjojo.

Sir, this is the last part of our conversation.

A relief.

And I would like to end with the relationship between the Republic of Indonesia and the Philippines.

The Philippine President, Bongbong Marcos, chose Indonesia as the first country to visit and I believe that you were with him in Indonesia.

How was his state visit received by Indonesians?

Yes, I think it was a successful visit and he was just, President Marcos Jr. was recently inaugurated as the President of the Philippines.

So, there were also excitement, anxiety within the Indonesian public and with the background.

That resembles between the background of President Marcos and the history of Indonesia.

So, the public was anxious.

But it was a successful visit in the sense that President Marcos created a very positive image of himself.

And with the First Lady, I think it was just the right couple.

Where he seems to be friendly, approachable and at the formal aspect, I think also that he had achieved a lot in his meetings and discussions with President Jokowi.

As he has mentioned, with the criteria of success is that they were able to discuss things that were originally not in the agenda.

So, beyond the target and that they were able again to discuss a detailed implementation, not only at the policy level but also going down into plans of action.

So, I think those were the criteria and I see it as a very successful visit by President Marcos Jr.

And I believe that there are several understandings and agreements that were forged during the visit.

So, what can both of our countries look forward to as a result of the state visit of the President of the Philippines to your country?

Into the future?

Yes.

I think it uses a universal methodology for parties who wish to become friends and that is how to insert the strengths into the counterpart and vice versa.

To analyze the strengths of both of the nations and that would avoid a sort of a division and what I mean is that especially as member states of ASEAN

in a critical strategic region of Southeast Asia and the South China Seas, that would create a stronger bonding between Indonesia and the Philippines

so that it shares a common outlook and vision which would be of course contributing to the common interest of both nations.

Sir, let me just say this. Are we going to expect more Indonesian restaurants in the Philippines in the coming years?

In the coming years. That I hopefully so too. There would have to be a study of best practices with the Thai.

I hope so because the first time that I tasted Indonesian food is in the Netherlands. It's such a shame. We're like neighbors.

Yes, yes. But it's unique the relations between Indonesia and the Netherlands. It's a sort of love-hate relations.

I think every country that has a colonial history would have a love-hate relationship.

And there are many of those elderly Dutch who had lived or who had listened to the stories of their parents about Indonesia and that is still living in the memories.

Yes, and I believe that the older generation of Indonesian can still speak Dutch.

Well, not really. That generation is the generation of my parents and maybe I am the generation of your parents.

I think so, sir. And before I answer because your embassy is quite big and is there like a museum downstairs? Was it a museum that I saw when we entered?

Well, we would like only to present or to show specific characteristics of Indonesia. But again, of my generation, the Dutch language is rarely…

It's no longer being used.

No, no. So, it has done away from the Indonesian society.

Thank you so much for your time, Ambassador.

Thank you.

And thank you for welcoming us to your embassy.

Thank you for coming.

And thank you for watching Statecraft and thank you to the Honorary Chairman of SMNI, Pastor Apollo Kiboloy. Good night, Philippines.

Good night.

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