China–US Strategic Competition and Indonesia’s Status Anxiety

Indonesia has been actively seeking to improve its status and has gradually developed a trinity of national–regional–world status, consisting of independent status, regional leadership status and middle power status. In the context of China–US strategic competition, Indonesia is more sensitive to the consolidation and pursuit of its status. In response, Indonesia not only inherits the traditional diplomatic policy of “rowing between two rocks” and refuses to take sides between China and the US, but also tries to lead the ASEAN countries to develop a “third way” in the Indo-Pacific region. This paper analyzes Indonesia’s perception of and response to China–US strategic competition from the perspective of status politics, arguing that status politics plays a key role as the underlying logic of Indonesia’s “free and active” diplomacy — maintaining close relations with both China and the United States at the material level can enhance Indonesia’s economic and military status, and maintaining autonomy at the social level can gain international recognition of its status.