Canada

The absolutely predictable reply of running to pieces by organizations like ASPI and Lowy to find ideologically aligned and bias-confirming snippets, because you don't actually have any depth in international development economics or the nuances of Southeast Asian policy.

All you're actually demonstrating is a lack of understanding. Conflating a structural trade deficit, that is actually standard for a developing nation with a manufacturing base early in development, with "economic dependence" is, as typical for your posts, all about ideology not about reality.

Importing capital goods and machinery is the typical mechanism for nations to industrialize. It is not a trap. It's the same development ladder that Japan, South Korea, and China used to climb up. This is how flying geese works.

Also, presenting Lowy and ASPI as objective sources is laughable. Do you know these think tanks and how they fit into the picture of the region? Both have been heavily funded by US/Western defense and government interests or benefactors tied to those. They operate to produce knowledge products that facilitate opposition to Chinese influence. Quoting them to make a shallow "China bad" argument is, at best, circular. Really, it's your standard propaganda.

You're pushing the idea that Indonesia’s 2024 e-commerce restrictions sre proof of a failed relationship? Nope. That is a demonstration of Indonesia’s agency in the relationship. A dependent puppet state wouldn't do things like ban TikTok Shop or tax Chinese imports to protect domestic SMEs. So, it's actually a counterpoint to the narrative you're trying to push. A nice self own.

What they're actually doing in Indonesia is leveraging the smile curve of value-added production. They banned the export of raw nickel ore and forced Chinese firms to build refineries inside Indonesia. That pulls the country up the value chain and is part of the development process.

As for your take on the South China Sea, Indonesia’s refusal to mimic the Philippines’ "transparency initiative" isn’t them being afraid. They have a long-standing, non-aligned foreign policy doctrine of being "free and active." They are actually prioritizing strategic autonomy and ASEAN centrality over becoming a pawn in US-China containment.

Oh, and did you know the "transparency initiative" is based on work of a US air force colonel who moved out of direct military service into operating an organization focused on serving the same US defense goals but at arms length? Probably not. Did you watch the US senate hearings back in October where that former USAF colonel was advocating for the expanded use of the "transparency initiative" as a method serving US interests in the region and essentially lobbying for more funding to have his "independent" organization expand application of the method to serve US security interests? Probably not.

Well, that's exactly the type of stuff that Indonesia’s free and active policy doctrine is about keeping themselves out of. So, choosing not to be part of it isn't dependence. They are making a strategic choice aligned with long-standing doctrine to maintain independence and agency.

When you try to present hedging strategies that are actually demonstrations of agency as just being "dependency", you're just revealing your own inability to view SEA nations as independent, rational actors making their own intelligent moves.

What you have is an ideological commitment combined with a lack of experience and expertise, so you end up parroting a narrative funded by stakeholders from Washington and from Canberra with deep defense ties that treats Indonesia as a victim that ought to be saved through conformity with Western interests, but not as an active and intelligent agent in their own economic development. That is some pretty weak and foul-tasting sauce.

Instead of habitually pushing articles on topics you don't actually know much about to advance an ideological position, a good faith actor would take some substantial time to really read and research issues from a balanced range sources and raw data. But, that's not what you do here, is it? You push heavily ideologically aligned articles, cross posting to numerous communities to drive a narrative. Your account has been called out by multiple people as being one of several sock puppets engaged in the same activity pushing the same narratives here. So are you a good faith participant, or a bad faith participant? People can make up their own minds about that based on the evidence.