Indonesia’s Prabowo pledges cooperation with Japan after promising China closer ties

TOKYO – Indonesia’s President-elect Prabowo Subianto told Japan’s Prime Minister Fumio Kishida on April 3 that he wanted deeper security and economic cooperation, just two days after telling Chinese President Xi Jinping

he wished for close ties.

“We have built a cooperative relationship and going forward I would like to strengthen that,” Mr Prabowo told Mr Kishida at a meeting in Tokyo.

Mr Prabowo, who has previously said the world’s fourth-most populous nation was committed to a policy of non-alignment, visited Japan after travelling to China on April 1 on his first foreign trip since winning Indonesia’s presidential election in February.

Both Tokyo and Beijing are courting the South-east Asian nations that ring the contested South China Sea, most of which China claims, to gain influence in the strategic region.

Mr Kishida told Mr Prabowo that Japan attached great importance on cooperating with Indonesia to strengthen international rules and said Japan, which agreed in 2023 to supply it with patrol ships, wanted to expand security cooperation.

The current defence minister and former special forces commander will be sworn in by President Joko Widodo in October.

His election has raised concerns among human rights groups who point to abuses he is alleged to have committed during his time in the military. Mr Prabowo, who was found by a military council to have kidnapped student activists in 1998, denies the accusations.

Mr Prabowo also met Japan’s Minister of Defence Minoru Kihara in Tokyo. REUTERS