Having lived and worked in China since 2015, Hendy Yuniarto, a 33-year-old Indonesian, is a keen observer of relations between the two countries. In his opinion, the significance of Indonesian President Joko Widodo's China trip on July 25 and 26 deserves great attention. "The visit is extraordinary. It is an important diplomatic move to strengthen bilateral relations, as well as part of Indonesia's preparatory work for the summit of the Group of 20 leading economies it will host later this year," Yuniarto, a teacher of Indonesian language, at Beijing Foreign Studies University, told Beijing Review.

Widodo was the first foreign head of state to visit China since the Beijing Olympic Winter Games in February. China also became the first stop on the president's first tour of East Asia since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in early 2020.

According to the joint press statement on the meeting of Chinese President Xi Jinping and Widodo in Beijing on July 26, during the visit, both countries renewed the bilateral memorandum of understanding on jointly promoting cooperation within the framework on the Silk Road Economic Belt and 21st-Century Maritime Silk Road Initiative (Belt and Road Initiative) and the Global Maritime Fulcrum vision, and signed a series of cooperation documents covering research and development of vaccines and genomics, green development, customs information exchange and enforcement, cybersecurity capacity building, marine affairs, and the importation of Indonesian pineapples. They also agreed to accelerate the resumption of people-to-people exchanges, including the return of Indonesian students to China, open more direct flights, and beef up cooperation in such fields as education, tourism, youth and local exchanges.

The future of China and Indonesia, both major developing countries, are closely linked, and the responsibilities the two nations must shoulder are even greater in the current international situation of intertwined forces of transformation and turbulence, Chinese State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi said when he co-chaired the second meeting of the China-Indonesia High-Level Dialogue Cooperation Mechanism on the Indonesian island of Bali on July 9.

Friendship rooted in history

In July 2005, a temple dedicated to Zheng He, a Chinese navigator of the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) who traveled to Southeast Asia and Africa, opened to the public in Semarang, Central Java Province of Indonesia, as one of the commemorations of the 600th anniversary of Zheng's arrival in the city.

Zheng visited more than 30 nations during his seven voyages. His footprints in Indonesia covered Aceh, Palembang, Cirebon, Semarang, and Gresik, according to historical records. Zheng's fleet brought porcelain, tea and silk, as well as friendship to Indonesia. Similarly, the Indonesian people also gave a warm reception and help to the Chinese crew. They taught the sick crew members to use Indonesian herbs, and some Chinese crew even stayed to live with the local people.

On April 18, 1955, the First Asian-African Conference opened in Bandung, Indonesia, attended by representatives of 29 countries. Most of the attending nations possessed relatively low international standing then. Premier Zhou Enlai, who was also China's Foreign Minister at the time, led the Chinese delegation to the event and put forward the well-known principle of "seeking common ground while shelving difference" in his extemporaneous speech. The innovative idea helped the conference come to a successful conclusion.

"China and Indonesia have joined hands to oppose imperialism and hegemony. Based on the Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence proposed by China, the Bandung Conference formed the 10 principles to promote world peace and cooperation, and the Bandung spirit of unity, friendship and cooperation still has strong vitality today," Lu Kang, Chinese Ambassador to Indonesia, wrote in an article titled Join Hands to Build China-Indonesia Community with a Shared Future, published in China's People' Daily on July 22. The Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence are: mutual respect for sovereignty and territorial integrity, mutual non-aggression, non-interference in each other's internal affairs, equality and mutual benefit, and peaceful coexistence.

Before the outbreak of COVID-19, China was the largest source of foreign visitors to Indonesia and a popular study destination for Indonesian students. More than 2 million Chinese tourists visited Indonesia, and more than 15,000 Indonesian students studied in China in 2019. At least 16 universities in China now offer Indonesian language courses.

Four-wheel drive

With the completion of the last of all 13 tunnels along the Jakarta-Bandung High-Speed Railway in Indonesia on June 21, the project is making steady headway toward the goal of opening to traffic in June 2023. The 142-km line is built through cooperation between the two countries. With a designed speed of 350 km per hour, it will cut the journey between Jakarta and Bandung from more than three hours to around 40 minutes.

In 2021, a cooperative initiative between China and Indonesia called Two Countries, Twin Parks was set into motion. The initiative is building business parks in the two countries, which will share interconnected industries, interoperable facilities and reciprocal policies.

"Including the Jakarta-Bandung High-Speed Railway and projects under the Two Countries, Twin Parks initiative, cooperation between China and Indonesia under the Belt and Road Initiative is steadily advancing," Xu Liping, Director of the Center of Southeast Asian Studies at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said in an interview with Shanghai-based news portal ThePaper.cn. The Belt and Road Initiative aims to improve transcontinental connectivity and cooperation. In 2013, President Xi proposed the Silk Road Economic Belt in Kazakhstan and the 21st-Century Maritime Silk Road in Indonesia.

Despite the spread of COVID-19, China-Indonesia trade and economic cooperation is growing. China has been Indonesia's largest trading partner for nine consecutive years. The bilateral trade volume exceeded $120 billion in 2021, up 58.6 percent year on year. The growth rate was higher than that of China's imports and exports with any other Southeast Asian countries.

Described as featuring "four-wheel drive," China-Indonesia cooperation exists not only in the economic sphere, but also in political, people-to-people exchanges and maritime fields, designed to enrich the comprehensive strategic partnership of the two countries.

Indonesia-China relations bear strategic significance and global influence, Luhut Binsar Pandjaitan, Indonesian Coordinator for Cooperation with China and Coordinating Minister, told Wang when they met in Bali. The two countries have carried out all-round, wide-ranging and multi-tier cooperation with a commitment to building a community with a shared future. Indonesia supports and stands ready to actively participate in the Global Development Initiative and the Global Security Initiative proposed by China, Pandjaitan said.

The Technical Committee Meeting on Maritime Cooperation and China-Indonesia Maritime Cooperation Fund were established by the two governments in 2012. Since then, they have become important platforms for cooperation between the two countries in the maritime field. During the committee's 11th meeting held via video link in October 2021, the two sides agreed that two proposed projects would be sponsored by the fund and three new proposals would be submitted to the China-Indonesia High-Level Dialogue Cooperation Mechanism for further consideration and approval.

"Economic cooperation often makes headlines, but cooperation in education and culture must also be an essential concern. In the future, there will be more Chinese people who understand Indonesian culture and more and more Indonesians who understand Chinese culture," Yuniarto said. 

(Print Edition Title: Steering and Piloting)

Copyedited by G.P. Wilson

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