China and Indonesia have just shown us a sensible way to calm the waters

It’s been a busy week for Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto. The leader of the 280 million-strong nation has visited both China and the US, producing friendly photo ops with his fellow heads of state Xi Jinping and Joe Biden, and an admiring phone call with US president-elect Donald Trump. One commentator was so impressed with the last interaction – which Mr Prabowo’s team filmed and put up on his X account – that he called it “a master class in foreign policy”.

Despite Chinese and Indonesian firms signing business agreements worth more than $10 billion during his time in Beijing, not everyone was so complimentary about Mr Prabowo’s China visit. “Has Indonesia surrendered its position on the South China Sea?” asked Indonesian academic Ristian Supriyanto.

The cause of concern was half a sentence in a very warm joint statement released by the Chinese side on the final day of Mr Prabowo’s trip. Under a section headed “The two sides will jointly create more bright spots in maritime co-operation”, came these words: “The two sides reached important common understanding on joint development in areas of overlapping claims.” This clearly refers to the North Natuna Sea, an area in the greater South China Sea that lies within Indonesia’s Exclusive Economic Zone, which means Jakarta has exclusive rights to explore and exploit its natural resources.

The problem? Part of the North Natuna Sea lies within the “nine-dash line”, which China uses to demarcate its extensive claims in these waters. Critics claim that by allowing the joint statement to use the words “overlapping claims”, Mr Prabowo has made a “dramatic shift” in Indonesia’s stance that “has dazed and confused many foreign policy observers”, evidently including the Asia Times columnist who wrote those words.

Two days later, Indonesia’s Foreign Ministry denied that the statement was an acknowledgement of China’s nine-dash line, and it said: “This co-operation has no impact on Indonesia’s sovereignty, sovereign rights or the jurisdiction in the North Natuna Sea.”

So, which was it, asked one critic. A “slapdash slip”, or a shift in Indonesia’s geopolitical positioning towards China? It was neither. And in fact, Mr Prabowo may have made a move that other countries in the region would do well to consider following.

Let’s look at the bigger picture. Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, China, Taiwan and Vietnam are all involved in various conflicting island and maritime claims in the South China Sea. In 2016, an international court in The Hague made a ruling on a case the Philippines government of Benigno Aquino brought against China under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea. The court ruled against China, invalidated its claims and supported those of the Philippines, and said there was no legal basis for Beijing to assert rights to resources within the nine-dash line.

Unsurprisingly, China rejected the ruling. “What will everyone do?” was a much-asked question at the time in South-East Asian foreign policy circles, as this ruling potentially had huge consequences for a body of water through which about a third of global maritime trade passes. American officials have been among the loudest calling on Beijing to abide by the ruling, as US Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin did earlier this year, unperturbed by the paradox of insisting on the authority of the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, even though Washington has never signed up to it.

I remember the ruling well, as I worked at Malaysia’s national think tank at the time. One colleague wrote an account of the court case’s history and managed to make it as breath-taking as a Len Deighton thriller. My line then and now has always been that the only way round these disputes is a series of fudges – because no one is going to give up their claims in the South China Sea.

That includes China. There may be a considerable degree of scepticism about Beijing’s claims in the region, and irritation at what other countries regard as incursions into their waters, but when the nine-dash line is featured in Chinese passports there is zero prospect of it being willingly given up.

Hawks warn that this means there will be conflict at some point. I believe that what Mr Prabowo is doing, however, is providing a model to overcome these issues peaceably. Allowing that China has an “overlapping claim” with Indonesia is just acknowledging a fact. It does not mean that he agrees there is any validity to that claim at all. And that disagreement does not have to stand in the way of joint exploration that can lead to “win-win co-operation”, to use a term China likes.

As Mr Prabowo put it: “We will always safeguard our sovereignty. But I choose to always find possibilities of a partnership. Partnerships are better than conflicts.”

This is an approach that countries in the region ought to be able to live with, as they already have many territorial disputes that have mostly not caused conflict in any case. For instance, the Philippines will never give up its claim to a large part of Sabah in the Malaysian part of Borneo, but it doesn’t stop the two countries being very good neighbours and friends – even when just this week the Malaysian government announced it was sending a protest note over two new Philippine maritime laws that it says infringe Sabah’s boundaries.

Mr Prabowo’s approach isn’t kowtowing to China. He is implicitly recognising that when you have irreconcilable differences, you can choose to put them aside and take a course that will benefit everyone. Insisting that these differences are ironed out, and only then can development take place, is not only a dead-end road. It could also be a deadly one.

A country like the Philippines, which is being urged by the US to take a stronger line in the South China Sea that has already led to violent confrontations, should consider whether Washington truly has Manila’s best interests at heart. Isn’t Mr Prabowo right? Partnerships are surely better than conflicts.