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The controversy over President Joko Widodo’s statement of intention that Indonesia wants to join the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) is yet to calm down. The sentence, practically crammed in the middle of a joint statement between President Widodo and President Barack Obama on the 26th of October, 2015, triggers a debate that almost neglects various achievements that President Widodo has brought home from Washington, D.C.
When I was working on my undergraduate thesis, one of the key concepts that I attempted to define was “Asia-Pacific.” Indeed, this is more than just a name of a region. There are different ways to define this region, and indeed, there are different names used in reference to this very same region. On this post, I will mention some of the definitions that I manage to gather, just to give a comparison on how defining one region may be very different (a form of construction, maybe?).
Earlier this morning I saw this very interesting post at CSIS’ blog, regarding the Sino-Indonesian relations. The writing circulates last month’s Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Summit at Bali. The summit was interesting for both countries: for China, since it becomes the prima donna of the conference, by the presence of President Xi Jinping and notable absence of President Barack Obama; and for Indonesia, for the success of the conference.
During my research (for my thesis), it is important to know how many trips (and days) are spent by three U.S. secretaries of state, Colin Powell (2001-2005), Condoleezza Rice (2005-2009) and Hillary Clinton (2009-2013). As many of us know, Secretary Clinton, under President Obama, is doing this ‘pivot’ strategy, otherwise known today as ‘rebalancing,’ toward the Asia-Pacific region. The intention is to signal an increasing attention to this growing region, and the United States finds it important.
