from Bandung until Today

INDONESIA AND THE SOUTH–SOUTH COOPERATION FROM BANDUNG UNTIL TODAY

Bence Kocsev

This article aims to focus on the role Indonesia plays in forging South–South relations. The paper will first examine the context in which the idea of South–South Cooperation was born and unfolded, then the focus will shift to Indonesia to briefly outline its historical and current engagement with other countries in the Global South. The paper ends with some brief and tentative remarks on the current situation and perspectives of South–South relations.

THE ORIGINS AND THE FRAMEWORK OF SOUTH–SOUTH COOPERATION

The founding myth of the South–South Cooperation (SSC)1 circles around the so-called Bandung Conference which was held sixty-five years ago when politicians, leaders of national liberation movements, and other opinion leaders from twenty-nine African and Asian countries gathered in the West Javan city for a conference that was aimed to set a new course for the postcolonial world amid the processes of decolonisation and in the emerging context of the global Cold War. With participants like Gamal Abdel Nasser, Zhou Enlai, Ho Chi Minh, Kwame Nkrumah, or Sukarno, the Afro-Asian Conference (as it was officially called) was one of the most significant events in the emergence of an independent postcolonial world. In Bandung, the new and reborn states, being increasingly dissatisfied with the perpetuated colonial subjugation that survived in many respects such as trade, politics, security, etc., attempted to create a political alternative to the bipolar world system. As Sukarno, the first president of independent Indonesia, put it in his opening speech: “We do not need to go to other continents to confer. . . . We are again masters in our house.”2 While it provided a global forum to discuss the various political problems affecting these countries and assured assistance for those still fighting for independence, by issuing the Declaration on Promotion of World Peace and Cooperation, the conference also laid the foundation for economic cooperation among developing countries in the Global South, encouraging economic cooperation and diversification, as well as cultural and technical exchange. Envisioning collaboration and solidarity within the developing world, the declaration sought to pave the way for future economic, cultural, and technical cooperation among southern countries. In this regard, Bandung was a moment when a distinct “Third Worldist” program was formulated and entered the global scene. Henceforth, the spirit of the conference kept inspiring the meetings of the developing countries in various fora (Group of 77, Non-Aligned Movement, Afro-Asian People’s Solidarity Organization, etc.) and provided a dynamically changing framework by which actors from Africa, Asia, and Latin America tried to locate themselves in the vortex of the world economy during and beyond Cold War bipolarity.

In addition, to facilitate economic cooperation among developing countries in an institutionalised way, the establishment of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) took place in 1964. For decades, the UNCTAD has been providing a unique platform for challenging the historical hegemony of the Global North and for fostering a closer South–South Cooperation. The efforts by the developing countries within and outside the UNCTAD culminated in the formulation of the so-called New International Economic Order (NIEO), a set of proposals that promoted an equitable international trade regime and a more intense SSC. In the same year, 1974, the United Nations (UN) created the Office for South–South Cooperation (UNOSSC) with the mission to promote and to coordinate intra-South and triangular cooperation.3 In 1978, the UN took a further step and convened the Conference on Technical Co-operation among

Developing Countries. The meeting, held in Buenos Aires, adapted a Plan of Action that served to boost technical cooperation and continues to affect South–South and North–South relations.4

What becomes evident from this bird’s eye view of the early history of the SSC, which may suffice here, is that this kind of cooperation is not a new phenomenon at all, although its intensity may have varied in certain periods. While the global political constellations of the 1960s and 1970s facilitated the emergence of these relations, the 1980s saw reduced cooperation among developing countries, due to the economic turbulence of the 1970s, the debt crisis deriving from it, and the subsequent neoliberal economic readjustment. Towards the turn of the millennium, however, the tide turned, and SSC underwent a revival. The fact that Africa’s largest trading partner for many decades, the United States, yielded its eminence to China around 2010 clearly illustrates this trend. In this respect, the frequency of meetings convened to facilitate the SSC is also quite indicative: in 2005, fifty years after the first Afro-Asian Conference in Bandung, a commemoratory summit was held in Jakarta and was followed by a number of other interregional gatherings like the meeting for China–Africa Cooperation, the first South America–Africa Summit (both in 2006), the first India–Africa summit (2008), the second South America–Africa summit (2009), to name a few.5 Lately, summits, conferences, and other meetings between various southern parties have been taking place on a regular basis (e.g., the three yearly meetings of the Forum on China–Africa Cooperation, the commemorative summits on the anniversaries of the Bandung Conference, and the Buenos Aires Plan).

Having this in mind, it is not surprising that, in the past decades, South–South investment and trade have shown a significant increase, and, according to some estimations, trade among southern countries have even expanded the North–South commerce.6 It is, moreover, apparent that, within the framework of the SSC, countries are able to pursue a more global strategy than with the North–South trade, as flows created by South–South interconnections are much more diversified than what the North–South ones (which are often based on previous colonial forms) normally reinforce. In addition, it seems that crises like the global financial one in 2008 did not just urge to intensify but also opened up many opportunities to strengthen the South–South cooperation.

OUTLINING THE INDONESIAN SOUTH–SOUTH COOPERATION

From a historical perspective, decolonisation and the ensuing liberation and civil wars obviously reduced the capacities of the economies in the South and, therefore, significantly determined the scope and capacity of these countries to

engage in South–South cooperation. After all, the oil crises of the 1970s, which eventually allowed oil-rich southern countries to accumulate enough capital surpluses, opened the way for an increased South–South Cooperation.7 However, many actors in the field had arrived earlier and were not even dependent on the influx of petrodollars.

Since the early years of the Cold War, most of the attention has been given to China and its policies attempting to outdo capitalist and socialist “competitors” by providing aid in many developing countries. Obviously, Africa was an important place where the Sino-Soviet rivalry (or Shadow Cold War, as Jeremy Friedman called it) could unfold. For various reasons, the Chinese offensive to win the “hearts and minds” of the people eventually proved to be more successful, and this intense involvement, in turn, also laid the foundation of China’s current penetration into Africa. Besides China, the most discussed source of development assistance, emphasis was also given to Cuba that did not just mingle in a number of Cold War proxy wars but lent expertise and assistance to many southern countries, especially in Africa. Lately, in a rather multipolar setting, the efforts of the BRICS (Brazil, India, China, and South Africa) have been in the main focus of studies analysing the SSC.

Despite having a long history of stimulating the SSC, Indonesia is less known for having been an eminent advocate of Southern cooperation since the early days of the republic. To demonstrate its commitment to South–South solidarity and, perhaps more importantly, to gain international recognition, the country, officially still as part of the Dutch colonial empire, sent 500,000 tons of rice to famine-hit India in 1946 and participated in the Asian Relations Conference held in New Delhi in the following year.8 Indonesia’s engagement in the South–South cooperation became nevertheless internationally visible during the Bandung Conference. By coinitiating, hosting, and leading the conference, Indonesia’s first president between 1945–1967, Sukarno, even managed to secure a leading position within the developing world and to gain a certain international prestige. As a longlasting legacy, the Bandung conference has still been serving as a principal frame of reference for the engagement of Indonesia in the Global South. (The current president of Indonesia, Joko Widodo, for instance, still stressed the importance of the Bandung spirit in South–South relations during the ceremonies related to the 60th anniversary of the Bandung Conference.)

To forge South–South cooperation, in the coming years, Indonesia joined the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) and the Group of 77 (G-77), a forum within the UN that aimed to defend the economic interests of the Global South. As an opinion leader, Sukarno, who adhered less to the concept of the NAM, even formulated his world view into a

Members of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) in 2012

■ Current members ■ Observers

distinct concept that was based on the dichotomy and confrontation of the “old established forces” (OLDEFO) and the “new emerging forces” (NEFO) which he also saw as the backbone of future South–South relations. (In this context, Indonesia even organised a counter-Olympics, the Games of New Emerging Forces (GANEFO), in 1963. Moreover, to “institutionalise” his idea, Sukarno suggested to set up the Conference of the New Emerging Forces (CONEFO).

While Indonesia played an important role in forging South–South alliances with the Bandung Conference and envisioned ambitious cooperation underpinned either by the spirit of Bandung or the OLDEFO–NEFO concept, in reality, the country’s relations with other southern countries were limited and yielded rather low returns.9 Moreover, the aggressive foreign policy of Sukarno (especially his Konfrontasi policy against the neighbouring Malaysia) inevitably left certain marks on the country’s reputation and alienated many of the postcolonial countries from Indonesia.

In 1966, Sukarno was overthrown and was followed by General Suharto (1968–1998), an authoritarian ruler whose New Order (Orde Baru) took many things from the Sukarno era that were considered important to demonstrate continuity and to stabilise the new system, but, at the same time, gave new interpretations to certain elements of the “Old Order.” For instance, the principle of internationalism, aimed to counterbalance certain nationalist forces and to stabilise the international positions of the country during the Sukarno Era, paved the way for Suharto to strengthen Indonesia’s ties with Western capitalist countries in general and the United States in particular.10 In this respect, the country’s position as a nonaligned, i.e., neutral country came into question, and, while Suharto managed to maintain friendlier relations with neighbouring countries, South–South cooperation was considered less important in the context of the three-decade-long Orde Baru. 11 In fact, instead of pursuing an independent economic policy, Suharto turned to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank for advice and, consequently, became increasingly committed and entangled in the world capitalist system. Against this background, it is not surprising that the attitude of Indonesia towards the program of the already mentioned New International Economic Order (NIEO)—aimed at reconstructing the world economy and, hence, striving for closer cooperation among Southern countries—has been ambiguous from the very beginning. Supporting certain elements of the NIEO but objecting its radical language, Indonesian spokesmen rather underlined the importance of reforming the existing order and, consequently, downplayed the feasibility of the ideas presented by the NIEO.12

In principle, the establishment of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) in 1967 (in which Indonesia was a founding member) could be seen as a positive step towards a closer South–South cooperation, at least at a regional level. In fact, the principles of the SSC, such as the respect for sovereignty and diversity, non-interference, shared commitment and collective responsibility for regional peace, security, prosperity, etc. are an integral part of the ASEAN Charter.13 Yet, in the early years, the attitude of these countries towards a closer SSC has been limited, and, in general, ASEAN was rather a pro-Western organisation being barely committed to enhancing South–South cooperation.14

Despite the Suharto regime’s reservations over an enhanced South–South Cooperation, some tentative actions were taken, and, among others, Indonesia established the Indonesian Technical Cooperation Program in 1981 to provide assistance to certain developing countries.15 Moreover, twenty-five years after the establishment of the G-77, at the 1989 Belgrade Conference of the NAM, a group of developing countries (including Indonesia) established the Group of 15 (G-15). Anticipating that the world economy would be soon reconfigured, its mission was to elaborate concrete ways for South–South cooperation and to mobilise wider support for them. A few years later, shortly before the NAM meeting of 1995 in Colombo, the government of Indonesia even proposed the idea of establishing a NAM Centre for South–South Cooperation, which received endorsement from the heads of state and was built in Jakarta.

A major factor behind a change in Jakarta’s priorities was the rapidly transforming economic geography of the region. From the 1980s, the growth rate in many Southeast Asian countries

foretold a promising future, and, due to a number of factors, some of them, despite having been backward countries earlier, caught up very quickly. Even though the Asian financial crisis in the late 1990s—that even led to the resignation of Suharto—deteriorated this trend, once the calamity was over, these countries managed to increase their growth rates to a degree comparable only to China. In this new situation, the competition was strong, and Indonesia was forced to reposition itself, which led to a more active foreign policy.16 Changes in its foreign policy eventually turned the country more towards the SSC, and it made several efforts to improve the quality and effectiveness of development cooperation. By this time, the Asian financial crisis of 1997–1998 and the enlargement of ASEAN also shifted the agenda of the organisation (and thus of Indonesia) towards an increased South–South pattern.

Apart from regional changes, as it was mentioned above, the 2000s saw a renewed interest in the cooperation among developing countries (see, e.g., the formation of the BRICS) and led to the development of cooperation policies and programmes. The growing resistance to neoliberal rearrangement and a reiterated South–South agenda urged governments to further develop their SSC policies and programmes. Since then, several big emerging economies (China, Brazil, India, Indonesia) have been competing with their projects that have gradually gone beyond the traditional aid agenda and integrated a variety of cooperation modes (finance, investment, trade, and infrastructure construction).17

Changes in its foreign policy also pushed Indonesia more towards Southern cooperation and a greater political and economic presence within the Global South. Since then, the country’s role in South–South and Triangular Cooperation (SSTC) has grown rapidly, and several efforts have been made to improve the quality and effectiveness of these projects. (For promising SSTC projects see, e.g., the one with Japan in a number of African countries.) While, in general, the foreign policy of Indonesia has long been focussing on ASEAN and intra-Asian cooperation, a current (re-)emergence of the country in Africa is also increasingly visible.18 In this regard, the Bandung Conference and its spirit still provide a powerful reference that helps the country to explore new avenues in the SSC and to pursue its specific interests in trade or diplomacy.

To facilitate this global opening, in 2005, Indonesia hosted the Asian–African Summit and the 50th anniversary of the Bandung Conference, and, five years later, it formed the National Coordination Team for South–South and Triangular Cooperation. The latter meeting yielded the adoption of the New Asian–African Strategic Partnership Declaration aiming at increasing cooperation between the two continents, especially in sectors such as

trade, industry, investment, tourism, information and communication technology, and agriculture. This conference produced a special declaration on supporting Palestine, too. This also shows Indonesia’s commitment to the Islamic world and its development. Indonesia’s support for Uganda’s finance sector, including Sharia-based microfinance, is yet another indicator of this engagement.19

Ten years later, during the celebration of the 60th anniversary of the Bandung Conference, President Joko Widodo highlighted that the meeting was a sign of increasing South–South cooperation and urged for further steps towards the realisation of an intensified cooperation. In his opening remarks, the president even called for a “new global economic order that isn’t reliant on the world’s three main multilateral lending institutions. . . . The idea that the world’s economic problems can be solved only through the World Bank, IMF and ADB is obsolete and must be abandoned.”20 What is evident from this citation is that the global financial system and its paralysis in 2008 urged the need for a different world economic setting with institutional arrangements and policies other than the ones prescribed by the neoliberal mainstream. The experience of the global economic crisis led developing countries to intensify the diversification of sources of growth and seek alternative models of economic development. Ultimately, this dissatisfaction also opened up many opportunities to strengthen South–South cooperation, in which Indonesia is playing an eminent role.

SOME CONCLUDING REMARKS IN LIGHT OF THE CURRENT PANDEMIC

Recently, it has become clear that the impacts and ramifications of the current COVID-19 pandemic go far beyond the health sector and pose a particular challenge to—among others— the world economy. The expansion of the virus in the last couple of months nearly brought the world economy to a standstill. Its effects on production chains and critical infrastructures revealed how global economic interdependencies work and demonstrated the various risks they bear. Obviously, given their heavy reliance on external markets and sources of finance, developing countries are more vulnerable to this current development, which clearly manifests itself in the fact that they are unable to solve many of the problems related to the pandemic in a self-reliant way.21

Therefore, not surprisingly, the structure of the global economic order, based on the neoliberal economic principles that have often denied economic sovereignty and self-reliance, is yet again increasingly under review. In this regard, one of the possibilities to cope with the crisis is strengthening South–South cooperation that, in turn, would mitigate the impact of the virus in many aspects (it would create new regional or

even global value chains, enhance self-reliance in terms of food, health products, etc.). This requires new rules of cooperation within the international economic system and, thus, better integration of the developing countries into it. While the previous global crisis (though it was “just” a financial one) strengthened South–South cooperation, given the great number of uncertainties, it is difficult to foresee whether, in a longer run, the same may apply for the crisis caused by the COVID-19 pandemic or rather divergent tendencies will prevail. This holds especially true for Indonesia’s future engagement in the Global South, as the coronavirus crisis has hit its economy more severely than it was previously expected.

ENDNOTES

1

According to the official United Nations definition South–South Cooperation (SSC) „is a broad framework of collaboration among countries of the South in the political, economic, social, cultural, environmental and technical domains. Involving two or more developing countries, it can take place on a bilateral, regional, intraregional or interregional basis.” Within the framework of SSC “developing countries share knowledge, skills, expertise and resources to meet their development goals through concerted efforts.” Cooperation between these countries could be realised in many forms of exchanges (trade, foreign direct investment, technological and scientific transfers, etc.). See About South–South and Triangular Cooperation. United Nations Office for South–South Cooperation. <https://bit.ly/3j16Gfa > Accessed: 1 July 2020.

2

Sara Lorenzini: Global Development. A Cold War History. Princeton University Press, Princeton, 2019. 40.

3

The so-called Triangular Cooperation includes at least two developing countries and a third party, typically a developed country (i.e., its government or an organisation), supporting South–South cooperation.

4

Sean W. Burges: Developing from the South. South-South Cooperation in the global development game. Brazilian Journal of Strategy & International Relations. 2012/2. 225–249.

5

Fantu Cheru: South–South Cooperation: What Prospects for a New Bandung Consensus? In: South–South Cooperation. Africa on the Center Stage, edited by Renu Modi. Palgrave Macmillan, London, 2012. 42.

6

Thomas Bernhardt: South–South trade and South–North trade: Which contributes more to development in Asia and South America? Insights from estimating income elasticities of import demand. CEPAL Review. 2016/April. 97–114.

Steen Folke–Niels Fold–Thyge Enevoldsen: South–South Trade and Development. Manufactures in the New International Division of Labour. St Martin’s Press, London, 1993.

8

South–south and triangular cooperation in Indonesia. UNDP Brief. 2015. <https://bit.ly/2WkE7zk > Accessed: 8 July 2020.

9

Susan Engel: South–South Cooperation Strategies in Indonesia: Domestic and International Drivers. In: African-Asian Encounters. New Cooperations New Dependencies, edited by Arndt Graf–Azirah Hashim. Amsterdam University Press, Amsterdam, 2016. 155–182. 10 Balogh András: Délkelet-Ázsia történelme. 1945-től napjainkig. Eötvös Kiadó, Budapest, 2016. 111–112. 11 Susan Engel: South–South Cooperation in Southeast Asia: From Bandung and Solidarity to Norms and Rivalry. Journal of Current Southeast Asian Affairs. 2019/2. 218–242. 12 Heinz W. Arndt: Indonesia and the NIEO. In: Asia and the New International Economic Order, edited by Jorge A. Lozoya–Anindya K. Bhattacharya. Pergamon Press, Elmsford, 1981. 189–203. 13 The ASEAN Charter. ASEAN Secretariat, Jakarta, 2008. 14 Engel (2019), 223. 15 Engel (2016), 162. 16 For more about the shifts in Indonesia’s foreign policy, see, e.g., Dewi Fortuna Anwar: The impact of domestic and Asian regional changes on Indonesian foreign policy. Southeast Asian Affairs. 2010/1. 126–141. 17 The Rise of China and India in Africa. Challenges, Opportunities and Critical Interventions, edited by Fantu Cheru–Cyril Obi. Zed Books–NAI, London–New York, 2010. 18 For more, see István Tarrósy: Indonesian Engagements with Africa and the Revitalised ‘Spirit of Bandung’. In: Emerging Powers in Africa. A New Wave in the Relationship?, edited by Justin Van der Merwe–Ian Taylor–Alexandra Arkhangelskaya. Palgrave Macmillan, London–New York, 2016. 233–247.; István Tarrósy: Bandung in an Interpolar Context: What ‘Common Denominators’ Can the New Asian–African Strategic Partnership Offer? In: Bandung at 60. New Insights and Emerging Forces, edited by Darwis Khudori. Pustaka Pelajar, Jakarta, 2015. 139–148. 19 Ida Ruwaida–Bagus Aryo: Sharia-based microfinance institution building and management: an experience between Indonesia and Uganda. OECD–Task Team on South–South Cooperation. 2011. About the stance of the Suharto regime towards Islamic countries, see Leo Suryadinata: Islam and Suharto’s Foreign Policy. Indonesia, the Middle East, and Bosnia. Asian Survey. 1995/March. 291–303. 20 Ben Otto–I Made Sentana: Indonesian President Calls for New Global Economic Order. The Wall Street Journal. 22 April 2015. <https://on.wsj.com/2WirF30 > 21 South–South Cooperation at the time of COVID-19: Building Solidarity Among Developing Countries. United Nation’s Conference on Trade and Development. May 2020. <https://bit.ly/3h2G2Rf >