The US Army’s top general was deployed to Indonesia in an effort to solidify the country’s position in the American orbit this week amid Washington’s ongoing efforts to encircle China militarily and constrain its growth.
On Friday, the Army’s Chief of Staff, James McConville, described his meeting with Indonesian Defense Minister Prabowo Subianto as a relatively benign effort to bring peace to the Indo-Pacific region.
“We have many friends in the region, and we work closely together," McConville said. “We all share the same interests for the region: peace, security, stability.”
“That’s why we work together on maintaining a free and open Indo-Pacific for everyone,” he insisted.
For his part, Subianto described peace and stability in the region as a “common concern,” but insisted Indonesia would maintain its neutrality, pledging to continue pursuing relationships with all world’s nations – “especially all the major powers.”
McConville touched down in Jakarta on Thursday on the heels of a visit to the Philippines. That trip came shortly after last month’s massive US-Philippine war drills provoked anger among authorities in Beijing, who simulated an encirclement of their own against the renegade island of Taiwan in response.
But it’s unclear that Jakarta’s leaders are as willing to sign up for a battle with Beijing as their counterparts in Manila. Last November, Subianto promised to restore joint military exercises with China following a meeting with the nation’s defense minister.
In 2017, the US embassy in Jakarta released around 30,000 documents showing “the US actively supported the Indonesian military’s killing of as many as 1 million suspected communist sympathizers in the mid-1960s despite concerns about the reasons behind the massacre,” the Financial Times reported.
But the US maintains close relations with Indonesia’s leaders despite its questionable legacy there.