Megawati's foreign tour
President Megawati Soekarnoputri will shortly embark on a difficult mission. Namely, a visit to the People's Republic of North Korea, where she will attempt to draw its leaders into the circle of other Asian nations outside the sphere of influence of the People's Republic of China, thus helping to create a more peaceful situation in the region. The President is also to meet with Chinese leaders on her tour.
But the main objective of Megawati's tour is to visit mainland China and talk about how to improve trade relations between the two countries. Relations between Indonesia and China -- diplomatic, economic, cultural and otherwise -- have perhaps never been as good as they are now.
Following the fall of the first president of the Republic, Sukarno, in 1966, former president Soeharto declared the Republic of China Indonesia's number one enemy for its supposed role in supporting the Indonesian Communist Party (PKI) in its attempted coup. All ties were severed with China as the military in Indonesia took power.
Following the fall of Soeharto in 1998, conditions gradually began to return to normal and ambassadors were exchanged. At present, anti-Chinese, or rather anti-Communist, sentiments in the country have practically disappeared.
Today there is a constant flow of Indonesian tourists to China and Chinese tourists to Bali and other destinations in Indonesia.
Megawati is also to visit Taiwan on her tour, and it is known that investment from Taiwan to Indonesia is continuing to grow.
Seoul is another capital city to be visited by Megawati, in a bid to attract more investors to Indonesia. It is also striking in this respect that the Indonesian mission will study the success of cooperatives and agricultural enterprises in China, Taiwan, North and South Korea.
Valuable as Megawati's visit to these Asian countries may be in terms of restructuring Indonesia's economic development, and at the same time practicing the foreign policy principle of constructive engagement with all countries of the world to contribute to world peace, the President should be warned not to leave her country too long or too often. Domestically, she still has many urgent problems to deal with.
GANDHI SUKARDI
Jakarta