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Indonesia Defence Forum

Emergency era Aceh 2003-2005

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Hmm even during our darkest hour after Economic crisis, TNI personnel gear is not that bad compared to our neighbor in ASEAN. The deficiencies acute at the time is in fire support weapons and big ticket items, like APC, MBT, Fighter bomber, Helicopter gunship and other.
Pasted+Graphic.tiff

ANOA2 APC
even before this baby born :smitten:
 
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http://www.atimes.com/article/china...al&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer

China drags Indonesia into South China Sea morass
Beijing's rebuke of Jakarta's decision to rename its natural gas-rich Natuna Island region has agitated what had been a quiescent territorial dispute
By John McBethJakarta, September 7, 2017 12:22 PM (UTC+8)
Indonesia-China-Joko-Widodo-Xi-Jinping-April-22-2015-960x576.jpg

Indonesian President Joko Widodo (R) meets with China's President Xi Jinping (L) during a bilateral meeting on the sidelines of the Asian Africa Conference in Jakarta on April 22, 2015. Photo: AFP

What’s in a name? Quite a lot it seems, particularly when it comes to China’s expansive claims to the South China Sea, which Beijing has increasingly come to regard as its own backyard.

Six weeks after Indonesia declared its intention to rename its 200-mile exclusive economic zone (EEZ) north of the Natuna islands as the ‘North Natuna Sea’, China has demanded that Jakarta drop the new moniker, saying it isn’t conducive to the “excellent” relations between the two countries.

Delivered in a letter to the Indonesian embassy in Beijing on August 25, the Chinese Foreign Ministry protest asserted that the two countries have overlapping claims in the South China Sea and that renaming the area will not alter that fact.

China said changing what it called an “internationally-accepted name” had resulted in the “complication and expansion of the dispute” and affected peace and stability in the region.

In fact, in an action endorsed by the International Hydrographic Organization (IHO), an inter-governmental organization with United Nations observer status, Indonesia renamed the southernmost part of the South China Sea to the Natuna Sea in 1986 without any undue fuss.

Indonesia’s Maritime Ministry included the North Natuna Sea in the new national map unveiled last month. While President Joko Widodo was reportedly happy with the move, Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi is said to have had reservations.

Indonesia-Joko-Widodo-Air-Force-June-2016.jpg

Indonesian President Joko Widodo (C) in the cockpit of a Sukhoi Su-30 aircraft next to Military Chief General Gatot Nurmantyo (L) and Air Force Chief of Staff Air Marshal Agus Supriatna (R) during a military drill on the remote Natuna islands. Photo: AFP

The political and diplomatic statement of sovereignty fits with Widodo’s maritime policy, announced in the first days of his presidency, of strengthening connectivity among the country’s 17,504 islands and reasserting state authority over its archipelagic seas.

Siswo Purnama, the Foreign Ministry’s head of policy analysis, says Jakarta has taken only the first step in a long renaming process that starts with a domestic discourse and ends in possible IHO endorsement. “Indonesia,” he says, “won’t be in a hurry.”

It isn’t exactly clear what stretch of waters China says is in dispute, but Indonesian authorities have long puzzled over Beijing’s unilateral nine-dash line map of territorial sovereignty, which encompasses most of the South China Sea and appears to intrude into Indonesia’s EEZ.

Apart from questioning its legality under the UN Convention of Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), Indonesia’s diplomats in the past have failed in repeated efforts to get China to clarify the geographic limits to the tongue-shaped claim.

Ambassador Hasyim Djalal, a recognized authority on maritime law, says Indonesian never received a reply when it sent a formal note to Beijing in 1994 asking for the coordinates of its nine-dash line map. Two years later, he said, a senior Chinese official told him: “Don’t worry, that’s nothing to do with you.”

China-PLA-South-China-Sea-Woddy-Island-Paracel-Islands-January-29-2016.jpg

China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) Navy patrol at Woody Island in the Paracel Archipelago in the South China Sea on January 29, 2016. Photo: Reuters/Stringer

Indonesia is not a claimant to the hotly disputed Spratly Islands and, previously at least, did not recognize any sea boundary issue with China. But that changed last year when the Chinese Coast Guard seized back a fishing boat detained by Indonesia in what it said were “traditional Chinese fishing grounds.”

Not only was the Chinese trawler intercepted by a fisheries protection craft deep inside Indonesia’s EEZ, but Indonesian officials say two heavily-armed coast guard vessels penetrated the country’s 12-nautical mile territorial limit to force its return.

Traditional fishing grounds are not recognized under UNCLOS, but traditional fishing rights are and have already been the subject of successful bilateral negotiations between Indonesia and two of its neighbors: Australia and Malaysia.

“What are traditional fishing grounds and how far back do we go?”, Djalal asks, pointing to the way Japanese trawlers fished for tuna around Indonesia’s Banda islands for decades before Indonesia was formally declared an archipelagic state in 1982.

With the Widodo government launching a major crackdown on illegal foreign fishing boats in 2014, it always appeared inevitable the new president’s maritime policy would, at some point, bump up against China’s aggressive push into the South China Sea.

Chinese officials conceded in 1994 and again in 2015 that the strategic Natuna island group, lying 300 kilometers from the northwest extremity of Indonesian Borneo, belong to Indonesia.

Indonesia-China-Natuna-Islands-Fishing-June-2016.jpg

Indonesian War Ship KRI Imam Bonjol-363 (L) arresting a Chinese fishing boat (R) in Natuna waters on June 21 2016. Indonesia’s navy said that poaching by Chinese trawlers in its waters was a “ruse” to stake Beijing’s claim to fishing grounds. Photo: AFP

But the nine-dash line claim, first published in Chinese maps in 1947 and revived in 1992, and Beijing’s more recent claim to supposed ancestral fishing grounds, suggest it does not recognize Indonesia’s EEZ, which should logically follow under the Law of the Sea convention to which both countries are signatories.

Indonesian officials believe the nine-dash-line, extending at least 300-nautical miles south of China’s Hainan Island, ends somewhere before the point where Indonesia’s continental shelf intersects with that of Vietnam and Malaysia.

Protecting its fishing grounds from a country that consumes 32 million tons of fish a year is not Indonesia’s only concern. The North Natuna Sea also contains about 50 trillion cubic feet in natural gas reserves, though all but five trillion of that is in the East Natuna Block.

Known as Alpha-D when it was discovered by ExxonMobil in the early 1970s, East Natuna’s huge quantities of carbon dioxide may always make it uneconomic to develop. Indeed, Exxon recently pulled out of the consortium tasked to bring it on stream.

Indonesia’s Black Platinum Energy, which has made two promising new discoveries 100 kilometers directly to the south of East Natuna, is still some way short of the 2.5 to 3 trillion cubic feet in reserves needed to make the venture commercially viable.

Indonesia-Pertamina-Gas-January-2011.jpg

Indonesian orkers upload liquid petroleum gas canisters in a file photo. Photo: Reuters/Crack Palinggi

Three fields in the area known as West Natuna, 350 kilometers west of the Natunas, currently supply gas to Singapore and Malaysia through a well-established pipeline network, but those reserves are likely to run out in the next 10 years.

Like East Natuna the three West Natuna fields have never been the subject of a territorial dispute with China.

It is highly unlikely Indonesia or China will file a case at The Hague’s Permanent Court of Arbitration over the claims, as the Philippines did against China and won in July 2012 over ownership of strategic reefs and atolls in the Spratly Islands. Beijing rejected the decision and the authority of the court.

Indonesia is also known to be equally leery of The Hague-based court after its humiliating loss to Malaysia of the Sipadan and Ligitan islands off the eastern coast of Borneo in 2002, a decision it accepted but also brought harsh domestic criticism down on the government of the day.
Brave and daring political moves by indonesia should also be supported by a strong and capable air force and navy.....
 
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Hmmm interesting, Indonesian submarines are eyeing the portuguese naval fleet (NRP Alfonso de Cerquiera and Joao roby) stationed near atauro during 1975 invasion of east timor) and make sonar contact

"From the log of the Afonso de Cerqueira, one of two Portuguese corvettes anchored off Atauro on 7 Page 160 December 1975, at 04h30 on that day "seven slow aircraft (helicopters) were seen in the distance". At 04h45 ships with "lights hidden", commenced "bombardments" in the direction of Dili, lasting until 05h30. At 05h10 "weak sonar contact was made" (with submarines)"

A
rchive from history of Timor .pdf page 162


154836.jpg

NRP Afonso Cerqueira (F488)


 
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11 September 2017

Kapal tanker yang dibangun di PT Batamec Shipyard merupakan kapal tanker baru ketiga TNI AL (photo : batampos)

batampos.co.id – TNI Angkatan Laut (TNI) kembali membuat kapal perang (KRI) modern . Kapal ini berfungsi sebagai kapal bantu cair minyak (BCM) di Batam . Mereka mempercayakan proyek pembuatan kapal tanker khusus ini di PT Batamec Shipyard yang sukses melaksanakan peletakan lunas pertamanya (keel laying) di Tanjung Uncang, Jumat (8/9) kemarin.

Perusahaan ini sendiri, merupakan salah satu perusahaan galangan kapal terbesar di Batam yang bergerak di bidang pembangunan kapal baru, perbaikan dan konversi kapal yang telah menerima penghargaan ISO 9001:2008 tentang sistem manajemen berkualitas, serta sistem keamanan dan kesehatan dari BS OHSAS 18001:2007, serta sistem manajemen lingkungan ISO 14001:2004.

Asisten Logistik Kasal Laksda TNI Mulyadi menyebutkan, secara umum, dipilihnya PT Batamec sebagai perusahaan pembuat kapal ini karena PT Batamec sudah memiliki berbagai fasilitas lengkap untuk pembuatan dan perbaikan kapal. Yakni berdiri di atas lahan sekitar 64 hektare dengan fasilitas seperti graving dock yang sudah dilengkapi 2 grantry crane berkapasitas 160 ton dan tinggi 32 meter.

Selain itu, sudah dilengkapi 3 buah slipway dengan masing-masing gantry crane berkapasitas 100 ton, ada juga Syncrolift berukuran 100 meterx20 meterx8 meter dengan kapasitas 3000 ton dan sudah dilengkapi gantry crane berkapasitas 140 ton, serta tiga buah dermaga, lima workshop pabrikasi, 3 mesin CNC Plasma yang mampu memproduksi 30 ton per hari, serta dilengkapi berbagai mesin seperti mesin bending, rolling, mesin bubut yang menunjang produktivitas perusahaan tersebut.

“Selain itu, ini juga merupakan dukungan dan pengabdian TNI AL dalam mendukung industri lokal dan menggunakan produk Alutsista buatan negeri sendiri, serta menjadikan Indonesia sebagai poros maritim dunia,” ujar Mulyadi usai peletakan lunas pertama (Keel Laying) kapal BCM milik TNI AL di Tanjunguncang, Jumat (8/9) kemarin.

Menurutnya, kapal tanker ini merupakan kapal ketiga milik TNI AL yang dibangun di Indonesia dan sudah menggunakan biro klasifikasi Bureau Veritas (BV). Tanker baru ini hadir dengan ukuran panjang 123,50 meter dan lebar 16,50 meter dengan kapasitas muat minyak 5500 meter kubik. Ke depan, kapal ini berfungsi sama seperti KRI Tarakan, yakni sebagai Auxiliary Support Vessel, yang mengisi bahan bakar kapal perang Angkatan Laut Indonesia saat beroperasi di laut.

“Rencananya kapal ini akan dioperasikan di gugus tugas wilayah armada bagian barat (Armabar,red), mengingat saat ini, kita kekurangan alat untuk wilayah ini,” ujar Mulyadi.

Tanker ini juga akan dilengkapi sistem Replenishment at Sea (RAS) yang memungkinkan kapal untuk mentransfer bahan bakar ke kapal-kapal lain saat dalam kondisi beroperasi dan pelayaran jauh. Kemampuan ini sangat bermanfaat dalam strategi kemiliteran, dimana waktu dan kecepatan merupakan hal yang sangat menentukan dalam situasi genting.



KRI Tarakan 905 kapal tanker baru TNI AL buatan galangan kapal dalam negeri (photo : TNI AL)

“Itu artinya, kapal tak perlu berhenti atau kembali ke pangkalan untuk sekedar melakukan pengisian bahan bakar. Misalkan, kita tak butuh kembali ke pangkalan di Natuna saat beropasi di perairan terluar. Kapal ini kita butuhkan saat beroperasi dalam menjaga batas-batas laut Indonesia di kawasan perbatasan,” jelasnya.

Yang jelas, tambah Mulyadi, kapal ini akan dioperasikan satuan tugas kapal bantu (Satban) dalam pengawalan dan penjagaan di laut Natuna Utara. “Kapal ini akan mengawal kapal-kapal perang kita yang beroperasi di perairan perbatasan seperti di Laut China Selatan yang butuh pengawalan khusus,” jelasnya.

Direktur PT Batamec Shipyard, Mulyono Adi menyebutkan ini menjadi kerjasama pertama mereka dalam mendukung TNI untuk pengadaan Alutsista dengan membuat kapal baru. “Ini yang pertama, tapi kalau maintenance atau perbaikan kapal sudah sering,” ujarnya.

Mulyono menyebutkan, karena kapal digunakan untuk kepentingan operasi, meski pun statusnya sebagai kapal tanker, namun mampu juga mengangkut logistik basah maupun kering untuk kebutuhan militer “Kapal ini telah mengalami penyempurnaan sehingga lebih aerodinamis dan modern,” jelasnya.

Sementara itu, rangkaian keel laying kapal ini sendiri menggunakan metode koin ceremonu. Metode ini merupakan sebuah tradisi yang biasa dipakai pada tahap awal pembangunan kapal. Caranya denga meletakkan koin pada bagian bawah lunas kapal yang dipercaya sebagai simbol keberuntungan. Peletakan itu sendiri diserahkan oleh Mulyono Adi untuk diletakkan secara simbolis oleh Laksda Mulyadi sebagai mitra penerima dari TNI AL.

Proses keel laying ini dilaksanakan sekarang setelah enam bulan proyek berjalan karena PT Batamec, sesuai regulasi Marpol/Solas, mengikuti aturan pembangunan kapal mencapai satu persen dari total berat LWT. “Saat ini sudah menyelesaikan delapan blok setara berat 360 ton. Itu artinya pembangunan kapal sudah mencapai 1 persen, dan sudah bisa keel laying,” ujar Mulyono Adi.

Pembangunan kapal BCM ini diawasi oleh satgas dari TNI AL secara langsung yang dipimpin oleh kolonel laut (T) Hindarto sebagai Dansatgas.

Meskipun venue acara sempat banjir akibat hujan deras, namun acara tetap berlangsung sukses. Rencananya, pembuatan kapal ini akan selesai pada akhir 2018 mendatang.

Acara ini sendiri dihadiri juga Vice President PT Batamec Shipyard Heronimus Setiawan, Project Manager kapal BCM Harsya Damar Hadityo, beserta para karyawan Batamec, dan juga mitra perbakan dan rekanan. Sedangkan dari pihak TNI dihadiri Danlantamal 4 Tanjungpinang, Laksmana Pertama (P) Ribut Eko Suyatno, Danlanal Batam, Kolonel Laut (P) Ivong Wicaksono Wibowo, Kasubdis Adalut Kolonel Laut (T) Andi Djaswandi, serta para pejabat lingkungan dari Mabes TNI AL.

(BatamPos)
 
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Minggu, 10 September 2017
Profile of Indonesian Navy Marine Corps personnels. (ANTARA FOTO/Mohamad Hamzah) ☆

The Chief of the Indonesian Armed Forces (TNI), General Gatot Nurmantyo, said here, Friday, that Indonesia was ready to send peacekeeping forces to Myanmar to help the Rohingya ethnic group in Rakhine.

However, it is yet to receive such orders from the United Nations, he added.

"The possibility is always there, as it is present in our law. However, it will all depend on the UN. The peacekeeping forces operate under the UN's control," he stressed, after opening TNI Chief Cup 2017 at TNI Headquarters.

He mentioned he had not communicated with the UN about it so far, but he was ready if he is ordered any time to send the troops.

"We are ready any time the UN orders us to," he remarked.

The army headquarters had earlier expressed its readiness, if ordered to send troops to Myanmar to help the Rohingyas.

"Sending troops to Myanmar will be the TNI's task. The army only prepares the troops," army spokesman Brigadier General Alfret Denny Tuejeh said, Thursday.

The army conducts exercises to carry out the orders from the TNI commander, but it will be done only after receiving the order.

"We only conduct exercises for whatever duty is assigned to us by the TNI commander. Again, the army is always ready for whatever duty it is given. It is the government that decides politically. We are ready for it," he emphasized.

Regarding border security following the Rohingya issue, he noted that TNI had the duty to secure the country's borders, and so anyone entering the country illegally would be arrested, including the Rohingya refugees.

"The border is manned not only by the TNI, but also the immigration and customs officials," he said.

Antara
 
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Pemerintah Tarik Utang Rp 11,7 Triliun untuk Belanja Alutsista
Hendra Kusuma - detikFinance

e248a893-8ab7-4bc0-a88b-87ce962448df_169.jpg
Foto: Maikel Jefriando
FOKUS BERITA:APBN Jokowi Rp 2.200 Triliun
Jakarta - Pemerintah masih akan menambah utang untuk tahun depan. Khususnya untuk proyek, pemerintah akan menarik utang Rp 38 triliun dengan porsi terbesar pada alutsista.

Direktur Jenderal Pengelolaan Pembiayaan dan Risiko (DJPPR) Kementerian Keuangan, Robert Pakpahan menyatakan ada lima kementerian/lembaga yang telah menyerap kurang lebih 90% dari pinjaman proyek, yang paling besar oleh Kementerian Pertahanan untuk alutsista sekitar Rp 11,7 triliun.

"Beberapa pengguna yang besar untuk pinjaman luar negeri, 5 K/L terbesar pengguna pinjaman luar negeri adalah untuk alutsista Rp 11,7 triliun untuk Kemenhan, PUPR Rp 6,4 triliun, Polri Rp 3,3 triliun, Perhubungan Rp 2,4 triliun, dan Ristekdikti Rp 1,5 triliun," ungkap Robert di Ruang Rapat Komisi XI DPR, Jakarta, Senin (11/9/2017).

lg.php


Sedangkan untuk pinjaman dalam negeri, lanjut Robert, nettonya sebesar Rp 3,1 triliun yang terdiri dari penarikan utang sebesar Rp 4,5 triliun dan pembayaran cicilan pokok utang sebesar Rp 1,4 triliun.

"Ini difokuskan untuk alutsista dan alumatsus (alat material khusus) yang diproduksi industri Hankam (pertahanan dan keamanan) dalam negeri, sementara pemberi pinjaman dalam negeri adalah bank BUMN dan BUMD," tukas dia. (mkj/mkj)
https://m.detik.com/finance/berita-...-utang-rp-117-triliun-untuk-belanja-alutsista

Almost 900 million US dollar
 
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Indonesia, Long on Sidelines, Starts to Confront China’s Territorial Claims

Security ship crew members of the Ministry of Maritime Affairs and Fisheries prepare for a patrol along Indonesia’s exclusive economic zone in the Natuna Islands.
ULET IFANSASTI / GETTY IMAGES
By JOE COCHRANE
SEPTEMBER 10, 2017



JAKARTA, Indonesia — When Indonesia recently — and quite publicly — renamed the northernmost waters of its exclusive economic zone in the South China Sea despite China’s claims to the area, Beijing quickly dismissed the move as “meaningless.”

It is proving to be anything but.

Indonesia’s increasingly aggressive posture in the region — including a military buildup in its nearby Natuna Islands and the planned deployment of naval warships — comes as other nations are being more accommodating to China’s broad territorial claims in the South China Sea.

The two countries had three maritime skirmishes in 2016 involving warning shots, including one in which Indonesian warships seized a Chinese fishing boat and its crew.


Indonesia is challenging China, one of its biggest investors and trading partners, as it seeks to assert control over a waterway that has abundant resources, particularly oil and natural gas reserves and fish stocks.


The pushback from Indonesia takes direct aim at Beijing’s claims within the so-called “nine-dash line,” which on Chinese maps delineates the vast area that China claims in the South China Sea. It also adds a new player to the volatile situation, in which the United States Navy has been challenging China’s claims with naval maneuvers through waters claimed by Beijing.


The coastline at Ranai, the administrative center of the Natuna islands.
ULET IFANSASTI / GETTY IMAGES
Indonesia “is already a party to the disputes — and the sooner it acknowledges this reality the better,” saidIan J. Storey, a senior fellow at the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies in Singapore, where he researches South China Sea issues.


The dispute largely centers on the Natuna Sea, a resource-rich waterway north of Indonesia that also lies close to Vietnam’s exclusive economic zone.

Before naming part of the contested waterway the North Natuna Sea “to make it sound more Indonesian,” Mr. Storey said, Indonesia last year began beefing up its military presence in the Natunas. That included expanding its naval port on the main island to handle bigger ships and lengthening the runway at its air force base there to accommodate larger aircraft.

For decades, Indonesia’s official policy has been that it is not a party to any territorial disputes with China in the South China Sea, unlike its regional neighbors Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines and Vietnam. Last year, however, Indonesia and China had the three maritime skirmishes within Indonesia’s 200-nautical-mile exclusive economic zone off its Natuna Islands, which lie northwest of Borneo.

After the third skirmish, in June 2016, China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs issued a statement in which it claimed for the first time that its controversial nine-dash line included “traditional fishing grounds” within Indonesia’s exclusive economic zone.

The administration of the Indonesian president, Joko Widodo, whose top administrative priorities since taking office in October 2014 include transforming his country into a maritime power, has ordered the authorities to blow up hundreds of foreign fishing vessels seized while illegally fishing in Indonesian waters.

Mr. Joko, during a visit to Japan in 2015, said in a newspaper interview that China’s nine-dash line had no basis in international law. He also chaired a cabinet meeting on a warship off the Natunas just days after last year’s third naval skirmish — a move analysts viewed as a show of resolve to Beijing.


On July 14, Indonesia’s Ministry of Maritime Affairs and Fisheries held a conspicuously high-profile news conference to release its first national territorial map since 2005, including the unveiling of the newly named North Natuna Sea. The new map also included new maritime boundaries with Singapore and the Philippines, with which Indonesia had concluded agreements in 2015.


Arif Havas Oegroseno, a deputy minister at Indonesia’s Coordinating Ministry of Maritime Affairs, told journalists that the new Indonesian map offered “clarity on natural resources exploration areas.”

That same day, Indonesia’s Armed Forces and Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources signed a memorandum for warships to provide security for the highly profitable fishing grounds and offshore oil and gas production and exploration activities within the country’s exclusive economic zone near the Natunas.


Susi Pudjiastuti, Indonesia’s minister of maritime affairs and fisheries, attending an Independence Day ceremony in Natuna on Aug. 17.
ULET IFANSASTI / GETTY IMAGES
Gen. Gatot Nurmantyo, the commander of the Indonesian Armed Forces, said at the time that offshore energy exploration and production activities “have often been disturbed by foreign-flagged vessels” — which some analysts took as a reference to China.

Although several countries take issue with China’s territorial claims in the South China Sea, few do so publicly, and the Trump administration has recently sent mixed signals about how willing it is to challenge China on its claims. That has made the Indonesian pushback more intriguing.


Frega Ferdinand Wenas Inkiriwang, a lecturer at the Indonesian Defense University, said Indonesia’s public naming of the North Natuna Sea “means that Indonesia indirectly becomes a claimant state in the area, perhaps due to territorial integrity issues.”

“It’s in the vicinity of the Natunas,” he said, “and the Natunas contain natural resources which are inherited and will be beneficial for Indonesia’s development.”


Analysts say that the Indonesian Navy would be no match for the Chinese Navy in a fight, although the first of last year’s clashes involved only a Chinese Coast Guard ship and an Indonesian maritime ministry patrol boat. It is unlikely that the two countries’ navies would clash within Indonesia’s exclusive economic zone, according to analysts.


A fisherman repairing his boat at a fishing village in Teluk Buton in the Natuna Islands.
ULET IFANSASTI / GETTY IMAGES
Members of the 10-state Association of Southeast Asian Nations, or Asean, have repeatedly expressed concern about China’s aggressive posture in the South China Sea, including its naval standoffs and land reclamation projects in disputed areas, and the stationing of military personnel and surface-to-air missiles in the Paracel Islands — which are controlled by China but are also claimed by Taiwan and Vietnam.


Indonesia, the grouping’s largest member and de facto leader, had in the past remained on the sidelines of the various South China Sea disputes and offered to help mediate between Asean claimant states and Beijing.


Given that China is among Indonesia’s biggest investors and trade partners, some analysts say Jakarta will go only so far in challenging China’s territorial claims, at least publicly. But its more aggressive military posture and other moves regarding the Natunas are nonetheless sending signals to China.

“It doesn’t make Indonesia a claimant state,” said Aaron Connelly, a research fellow at the Lowy Institute for International Policy in Sydney, Australia, who follows the South China Sea disputes. “They’ve never accepted the legitimacy of the nine-dash line, which is why they say there’s no overlap” with its exclusive economic zone.

“China says it has ‘traditional fishing rights,’ but Indonesia is doing things in a legalistic way right now,” Mr. Connelly said. “This is a more effective way of challenging it.”

Evan A. Laksmana, a senior researcher on security affairs at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Jakarta, agreed that the naming of the North Natuna Sea was not specifically done to trigger a dispute with China.


“But the international legal basis underpinning Indonesia’s new map is clear,” he said.

“We do not recognize China’s claims in the Natuna waters — we don’t feel like we should negotiate our map with Beijing or ask their consent,” Mr. Laksmana said.
 
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