Welcome Premier Zhu

A very special guest is coming to town this Wednesday: Chinese Prime Minister Zhu Rongji, who is starting his four-day official visit. The visit, the first by a Chinese prime minister to Indonesia in 11 years, is very special in more than one respect. Indonesia would do well to take advantage of and explore the opportunities presented by this occasion.

China has undergone a massive transformation in recent years and it is no longer the backward communist state it once was. Although the majority of its massive 1.2 billion population still lives in poverty, and although on paper at least it is still a communist state, China is well on its way to rapidly becoming one of the world's major economic powers. With the rest of the global economy going into a recession while its own continues to boom, and with Japan fast becoming a spent economic force, China's economic rise is even more pronounced.

China is already absorbing more than two-thirds of all the foreign direct investment bound for Asia, coming, of course, at the expense of other countries in the region, including Indonesia. Many Indonesian investors had themselves got their feet in China's door long before the economy back home tumbled.

With Beijing recently gaining admission to the World Trade Organization (WTO), the scene is set for China to become one of the world's largest international trading nations.

This is a completely new, modern and very confident China that the rest of the world has to deal with. In Beijing we find a regime far less ideologically inclined and far more pragmatic than the one we knew perhaps as recently as a decade ago. This is a new China that can, and will, exert its influence on the rest of the world through a combination of its sheer geographical and population sizes as well as, now, its economic power.

Indonesia, like the rest of the world, is dealing with a completely transformed and more powerful China. Jakarta would do well to review its ties with Beijing, and to establish a new kind of relationship, taking this new reality into account.

The visit by Prime Minister Zhu Rongji offers a great opportunity for both countries to put that relationship on a new footing. Going by the news from Beijing last week, the visit will place a particular emphasis on economic cooperation. Zhu Rongji reportedly will be making a new pledge of assistance to Indonesia.

We certainly believe that economic cooperation between the two largest countries in East Asia can go beyond China simply giving aid to Indonesia. Investment is one sector worth exploring. With its massive foreign exchange reserves, China is already under pressure to begin exporting capital abroad. Indonesia, like the rest of Asia, is well positioned to become one of the main recipients of China's investment if it plays its cards right. Allowing the Bank of China to reopen its office in Jakarta, for example, would be a step in that direction.

But this is a very special visit, most of all, because of the man himself. Zhu Rongji is the brain and the chief architect behind China's economic success. The former Shanghai mayor -- that is another success story in itself -- guided China's economy through good and bad times in the last 10 years, first as deputy prime minister and, since 1998, as prime minister.

This is a man who is not only visionary, but is also willing to take measures that are politically unpopular with members of the Communist politburo, such as when he closed down inefficient state companies. This is also the man who fought tirelessly for China's admission into the WTO. In short, this is the man who is chiefly responsible for transforming China over the last 10 years into its present state, and in doing so, he is also the man responsible for changing the global power equation, hopefully for the betterment of not only his own people, but also for the people of the Asian region.

Indonesia could not be more privileged in having a man of Zhu Rongji's international stature as a guest. On that note, we wish to welcome the Prime Minister to Indonesia, and hope that his time here will be spent productively, for the benefit of the people of both countries.