JakartaPost-July 13, 2022
President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo is expected to visit China at the end of the month, a Cabinet minister has said, as the two countries look to foster new “growth points” in their relationship amid worries of cost overruns in a Chinese-funded rail project in West Java. Following the Group of 20 foreign ministers’ meeting in Bali last week, Chinese State Councilor Wang Yi remained on the island to attend the second High-Level Dialogue and Cooperation Mechanism (HDCM) meeting, hosted by Foreign Minister Retno LP Marsudi and Coordinating Maritime Affairs and Investment Minister Luhut Pandjaitan on Saturday. Luhut wrote on his official Instagram account on Monday that he had relished his meeting with his “close friend” Wang Yi. He added that he and Retno had relayed a message to Beijing officials conveying their desire to renew a memorandum of understanding (MoU) to coordinate Indonesia’s Global Maritime Fulcrum (GMF) development strategy with China’s infrastructure-focused Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). “Hopefully the MoU can be extended in time for President Jokowi’s visit to China, scheduled for the end of July 2022,” Luhut wrote on Instagram. Japan and South Korea are also reportedly on the President’s itinerary. The visit to Japan was announced in a Foreign Ministry press release on Friday as Retno met with her Japanese counterpart Hayashi Yoshimasa to discuss bilateral cooperation in infrastructure, human resources and coast guard activity. A source familiar with the bilateral talks indicated that a stopover in South Korea could also be in the cards. Abdul Kadir Jaelani, the Foreign Ministry’s director general for Asian, Pacific and African affairs, told The Jakarta Post that Jokowi indeed had plans to visit the three countries at the end of the month, although exact dates had yet to be determined. Read more at: https://www.thejakartapost.com/paper/2022/07/12/jokowi-sets-sights-on-east-asia.html.
