RI's foreign policy priorities: Regional or global?

RI's foreign policy priorities: Regional or global?

JAKARTA (JP): Where should Indonesia's foreign policy
priorities lie? With the region or with the world?

International relations experts said on Saturday that
Indonesia must maintain a comprehensive approach in its foreign
policy, by engaging in the activities of both regional and global
organizations with equal intensity.

"In a world that is increasingly more global... we have to
take part in everything," remarked Juwono Sudarsono of the
University of Indonesia.

Sudarsono, who is also a deputy governor of the National
Resiliency Institute, said global competition was a reality and
that participation in various multinational organizations was one
way of meeting the challenges that globalization entailed.

Dorodjatun Kuntjoro-Jakti, an expert staff member at the
office of the Executive Assistant of the Non-Aligned Movement
(NAM), said that inter-regional organizations, such as NAM, were
an important asset in Indonesia's foreign policy.

Regionalism is more practical, he said, but all available
networks must be used.

These comments were made during and after a seminar entitled
"NAM at the Crossroads" which took place on Saturday. At the
seminar, J. Soedjati Djiwandono, a director of Jakarta's Centre
for Strategic and International Studies, argued that ASEAN should
be Indonesia's main priority.

"The most valid foreign policy approach at the moment is
regionalism," Soedjati said, adding that ASEAN should be the
country's main focus of Indonesia's foreign policy.

The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) is a socio-
economic regional grouping comprised of Brunei, Indonesia,
Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore and Thailand.

Juwono agreed that ASEAN should be one of Indonesia's foreign
policy spearheads, but he maintained that many issues went beyond
the boundaries and interests of regional groupings.

"From a perspective of regional and geographic proximity, of
course ASEAN (should be the focus), because it is the most
important one. But there are challenges which are cross-regional,
such as economic issues of workers' rights, investment and
trade," he said.

Global interdependence and inter-relations had reached a
point, Juwono said, at which "there is no such thing as a
national economy anymore, there is only national policy."

Interest

Legislator Theo Sambuaga argued that, apart from Indonesia's
constitutional duty to help create a just and peaceful world,
Indonesian foreign policy was also aimed at safe-guarding the
national interest.

He agreed with Soedjati that, although NAM may not be the
country's chief foreign policy priority, if Indonesia neglected
organizations such as NAM it could not hope to accomplish much in
the international arena.

Theo said that with the disappearance of super power rivalry,
NAM members now faced a tendency towards political and economic
domination from the world's more powerful countries.

Dorodjatun said a nation could not be defended by the armed
forces alone, but also had to rely on diplomacy.

He spoke of the capital and technological advantages enjoyed
by the developed countries as compared with the developing ones
and said that this relative weakness was a common factor among
NAM members.

He said that NAM could help to redress the imbalance, adding
that Indonesia had a moral responsibility to take part in that
task.

In October, Indonesia will hand over its three-year
chairmanship of NAM to Colombia.

During its tenure as chairman, Indonesia has focused much of
its efforts on promoting programs to help the developing nations
which make up the bulk of NAM's membership.

It has called to attention the burgeoning debt problem and has
pushed for increased South-South cooperation as a means of
exchanging development experience, particularly for the less
developed nations of Africa.

Indonesia has also attempted to revive the North-South dialog
to foster a better framework of understanding and cooperation
between the developed and the developing worlds.

"NAM is important because it is part of the humanistic
concept," Dorodjatun said.

"It is important that we do not lose our concern (for NAM)
once we are no longer chairman," he said. (mds)