Tag: Indonesia

Reason to be (emotionally) proud

Last night was quite emotional—not just for me, but for many Indonesians. Just a few minutes short of midnight, 17 August 2016, a day celebrated for Indonesia’s 71st Independence Day, its mixed doubles badminton pair Ahmad/Natsir won a gold medal for the country at the Summer Olympics 2016. It continued an almost continuous run of…

18 August 2016
The most hostile place to watch badminton is…

In the last ten years, the world of international badminton is dominated by one country—not seen thirty years ago: China. With 1.5 billion people, it is safe to say that China can easily pick one kid from every village from his or her earliest age and it will be able to supply the world with…

7 June 2016
For Indonesia, Maintaining Zero Enemies is Harder Than You Think

International Relations has not been very kind to Indonesia lately. This article, written by no less than my professor (and my thesis advisor) highlights one of the latest problem to Indonesia’s ‘a million friends, zero enemies‘ foreign policy. To add more insult, the problem happens to one of Indonesia’s closest friends: Singapore. In many respects,…

21 February 2014
2013 SEA Games, Lesson Learned

The 27th SEA Games has just been closed in Myanmar, with Thailand once again showing who are the masters of the region by becoming the grand champions with 107 gold medals. There are, of course, some lessons that can be learned from this SEA Games, especially facing the next iteration of the regional multi-event competition…

22 December 2013
Can these two powers co-reign Asia?

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…

25 November 2013