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JAKARTA: Indonesia this year rejected a US proposal to allow its P-8 Poseidon maritime surveillance aircraft to land and refuel there, according to four senior Indonesian officials familiar with the matter.
US officials made multiple “high-level” approaches in July and August to Indonesian defense and foreign ministers before Indonesian President Joko Widodo rejected the request, the officials said.
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Representatives for the Indonesian president and defense minister, the press office of the US State Department and the US embassy in Jakarta did not respond to requests for comment.
Representatives for the US Department of Defense and Indonesian Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi declined to comment.
The proposal, which came as the United States and China intensified their competition for influence in Southeast Asia, came as a surprise to the Indonesian government, officials said, because Indonesia has a long-standing foreign policy neutrality policy.
The country has never allowed foreign military to operate there.
The P-8 plays a central role in monitoring China’s military activity in the South China Sea, most of which Beijing claims as sovereign territory.
Vietnam, Malaysia, the Philippines and Brunei have rival claims to the resource-rich waters, through which trade worth US $ 3 trillion passes each year.
Indonesia is not a formal claimant on the strategically important waterway, but considers a part of the South China Sea as its own. It has regularly repelled Chinese coast guard boats and fishing boats from an area to which Beijing claims to have a historic claim.
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But the country also has growing economic and investment ties with China. He does not want to take sides in the conflict and is alarmed by the growing tensions between the two superpowers and by the militarization of the South China Sea, Retno told Reuters.
“We don’t want to get caught up in this rivalry,” Retno said in an interview in early September. “Indonesia wants to show everyone that we are ready to be your partner.”
“OVERREACH”
Despite the strategic affinity between the United States and Southeast Asian states to curb China’s territorial ambitions, Dino Patti Djalal, a former Indonesian ambassador to the United States, said that the United States’ “very aggressive anti-China policy” had made Indonesia and the region nervous.
“It looks out of place,” he told Reuters. “We do not want to be misled into a campaign against China. Of course we maintain our independence, but there is a deeper economic commitment and China is now the most shocking country in the world for Indonesia.”
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Greg Poling, a Southeast Asian analyst with the Washington DC-based Center for Strategic and International Studies, said trying to obtain landing rights for spy planes was an example of awkward range.
“It is an indication of how little people in the US government understand Indonesia,” he told Reuters.
“There is a clear limit to what can be done, and when it comes to Indonesia, that limit is putting your boots on the ground.”
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The United States has recently used military bases in Singapore, the Philippines and Malaysia to operate P-8 flights over the South China Sea, military analysts said.
China has stepped up military exercises this year, while the United States has increased the pace of naval freedom of navigation operations, submarine deployments and surveillance flights.
The P-8, with its advanced radar, high-definition cameras, and acoustic sensors, has been mapping the islands, surface, and underwater kingdoms of the South China Sea for at least six years.
By carrying sonobuoys and missiles, planes can detect and attack ships and submarines from long distances. It also has communications systems that allow it to control unmanned aircraft.
In 2014, the United States accused a Chinese fighter jet of approaching 20 feet and executing a barrel roll over a P-8 patrolling the South China Sea. China described the United States’ complaint as “unfounded”.
