 Hello everyone and welcome to the launch of the Loi Institute Indonesia poll. My name is Ben Bland and I'm the director of the Southeast Asia program here at the Loi Institute. I want to start by acknowledging the traditional custodians of the land on which I'm speaking, the Gadigal people of the Eora nation, and I pay my respect to their elders past, present and emerging. Today is a day of mixed emotions for me personally. I'm really delighted to be launching our new poll of Indonesian attitudes to the world, the first time we've done this in a decade. But I'm also sad because this is actually my last Loi Institute event. Next month, I'm going to be heading back to London to join Chatham House as the head of their Asia Pacific program, and I'm looking forward to continuing my work on Indonesia and Southeast Asia from my new old home. Now on to today's main event and I'm really pleased to be joined by the co-authors of our Indonesia poll, Natasha Kasam and Evan Laksmana, as well as the top Indonesian foreign policy analyst, Lena Alexandra. So Natasha, my colleague is the director of the public opinion and foreign policy program here at the Loi Institute. Evan is a senior research fellow with the Center on Asia and globalization at the Lee Kuan Yew School of public policy in Singapore, and Lena joins us from Jakarta from and she is the head of the Department of International Relations at the Center for Strategic and International Studies CSIS. Indonesia seeks to play a larger role on the global stage and an increasing number of outside powers try to woo Indonesia. I think there's a pressing need to better understand how Indonesians themselves see the world. And I think our poll offers some fascinating insights. So do check out all the results online, which are there in interactive and PDF format. We really want to make this an engaging discussion today. So do send us your questions through the Q&A function on Zoom and we're going to spare a lot of time at the end for your questions. But first I want to come to Natasha, who runs the polling program at Loi and has a lot of experience polling in Australia and Loi has run polls in other countries around the world before too. So Natasha, I want to ask about why we did this poll. Many analysts would say that foreign policy is ultimately an elite pastime and that public attitudes aren't really that relevant. So why do you think it's important to ask the Indonesian people how they feel about the world. Thanks so much for that and thanks so much for working with me on this project and to Evan as well. I'm really thrilled that we were able to get it over the line before you leave us. A lot of people will say that foreign policy is the domain of elites that you know in Australia it's held by this tight circle in Canberra, in Jakarta, it's the same story and really you hear the same thing over and over again. No matter what country you're in, you know what would your average person know about the issues of foreign policy, how informed could they possibly be. I push back strongly to that sentiment. I think that public opinion regardless of whether it's about domestic or foreign policy is incredibly important because they are the voters they are the people who decide what are the parameters of policy that is available to their government. It's even important in authoritarian countries where perhaps they don't vote but there is at least on some level accountability to the government and the government needs to be seen to responding to the public. I'm not suggesting that governments can't use public opinion that they're in the various purposes, and that they can't shift it in certain ways. There's obviously back and forth here. But ultimately, I believe that we have a responsibility to understand what people think, and to have that informed policy, and where we do identify a lack of awareness. There is a responsibility on behalf of the government, academics think tanks and other institutions to raise awareness in the community. We live in very interesting and confusing and it's sometimes dangerous times. I think that there is a real need for more engagement and I think people really do want to know and they do really care. So that's why I'm really committed to this kind of work committed to feeding these views into various capitals, and I hope that they take them seriously. Thanks for that. I just want to come back to you quickly on kind of the structure of how we organize this poll because increasingly elsewhere in the world we see online polls becoming more and more popular. I think they're a lot cheaper generally an easier to do, but we conducted this poll face to face across 33 of Indonesia's 34 provinces. I'm sorry to the people of North Kalimantan 3000 people. Why is it important in Indonesia to go face to face, and how confident can we be that these results are actually representative of public opinion in Indonesia. Well, in a way you've answered your own question. The reason we have that confidence in our results is because of the methods that we use we do apply a very high level of regard to our polls. And that is one of the reasons why we refuse to do exclusively online polls, because they simply can't reach a broad enough sample of the population. They can't have the random selection that we're looking for for that high quality of response. So the way we did this was 3000 Indonesians between 18 and 65 were interviewed, and they would interviewed face to face, and we stratified random door to door sampling I won't get into the details but essentially these interviews were up to about 40 minutes with, you know a professional interviewer, ensuring that they were getting the responses to the questions that the people met. Now I do think that face to face surveys continue to be the most reliable means of achieving accurate samples in Indonesia. There's a question of internet access there's questions of phone access it's a large and dispersed population. You know different methods of being used in different countries now in Australia we're using a mix of online and telephone sampling because face to face is no longer viable in terms of the costs involved, but where it is viable, it's still achieving a really high quality sample, particularly because we put in place quotas for each province for age groups and for gender so we really do feel confident that we have a good sample that includes both rural and urban residents of Indonesia. Yeah, thanks, thanks, Tash, and Evan, I want to come to you next. And I guess explain a bit of the context of when we did this poll that was mostly conducted in December, and really in the mid in between two pandemic waves I guess in Indonesia but really in the midst of a global pandemic, which has hit Indonesia pretty hard, Indonesia is also in the first recession it suffered since the Asian financial crisis of 1998, and we also at a time of intensifying global competition between great powers that's obviously been pretty apparent across the Asian region. But what strikes me despite this climate is how confident Indonesians feel about the direction of their country about how optimistic they are about the direction of their economy and how safe they feel and on all these measures, they're basically feeling much more optimistic than a decade ago when we blasted the survey, and even more so than the previous survey in 2006 so Evan do you think that Indonesians are right to have such a rosy outlook on the world at this time. It's certainly noteworthy that in the midst of global pandemic intensing a global rivalry that we are more optimistic, but if we look at the polls as a whole and not the individual questions and you start to see a different picture which is maybe just maybe that optimism may not be fully warranted for a couple of reasons. Number one, I think Indonesians in general are less internationalized or plugged in to the outside world as we would like to. In terms of travel, of course as you said because of the pandemic, international travel is small but in general I think the lack of international travel is a serious issue regarding exposure. And secondly, we also asked the question of how closely do you follow international events, and actually about 17% suggest they somewhat closely or very closely and that tells me that most Indonesians are not exactly tuned in to what's going on on the outside world from an objective standpoint. So if you look at our other questions which is how do you get your sources of information, you see that authority figures like the president like the military, actually seen as the top, more trusted sources of information so what Indonesians get in terms of a sense of optimism is for me, somewhat like an echo chamber it's what the elites tell them to and not based on their own objective assessment independently of what the elites tell them. So for me, this sense of optimism and self confidence is certainly seen as a positive thing but do we really have strong warranted grounds for that optimism. The information that you get your, your exposure to the outside world is also very limited and hardly independent from what the elites like to tell us so for me, I think this is where we are right now. Thanks, thanks Evan, I mean I know from our many discussions over the last year when we knew in the weeds of this, we probably take have a slightly different stance there where I tend to think obviously there's a synergy between public opinion and kind of elite political opinion on any issue, and including foreign policy but I tend to think that public opinion drives how the elites act as much as the other way around but we're going to get into the weeds of some of these discussions in a bit, which is going to be interesting and I come to you next Lena, you're an outsider you weren't involved in this project but you're a long time observer of Indonesia's place in the world, and how Indonesians feel about the world so I'm wondering what surprised you most in this poll. Well, I think there are three things. The first thing is really the result that is actually people in Indonesia are actually in favor with the Arabic Prince, the MES and MZ. That's very interesting, but in my analysis it's not really related to religious reason, but rather because the media has been covering news that these Prince are quite generous in terms of investing in Indonesia so it's probably more likely related to economic rationale, because as you see in the poll as well, the issue of job security, the issue of economic, the need to overcome the economic crisis, economic needs, that's still the most priority issue for the Indonesian public. If I could just jump in very quickly, just just explain to our viewers you haven't read the survey yet, so the data that you're referring to was when we asked which global leaders Indonesians have the most confidence in, and actually the person who came out top was Indonesia's President Joko Widodo, and he was far and away at the top, and then the top most trusted foreign leaders were, as you said, MBS of Saudi Arabia and MBZ of the UAE, so I just wanted to clarify that for people who haven't read, but sorry to interrupt and back to you. No worries, Ben. Second thing is the better perception toward the neighboring countries. I remember a decade ago, the perception against the neighboring countries quite the negative in the sense that we are quite worrying about our neighboring countries, especially like Malaysia and Singapore. But in this poll is a lot much better, from 63% into 23% of, like, in terms of distrust, so like the trust is getting higher actually to these neighboring countries. I sense this probably because of the last incidents in terms of Indonesian migrant workers in Malaysia, and also last cultural incidences between the two countries. The third thing that quite stuck me the most is the fact that the polling says that the government or Indonesia should act to become more an aid provider. That's quite interesting because I think a decade ago when you asked the people, they will say, I think it's better to satisfy the domestic needs first rather than being an aid provider. I think that's the three most quite interesting finding that I find that I find from the poll. Next, and I think that last point you make will be interesting to the Indonesian government which has launched its own aid agency in the last couple of years and it's in the early stages of starting to look for its first project so I think it's interesting to see that there's a degree of support for that. I want to come next to the question of democracy because right now in our world we see a lot of talk about democracy back in the West because of a lot of unity in opposition to Russia's invasion of Ukraine. And one thing that struck me about the results of our poll is that Indonesians really value their own democracy. I think something like 60% of Indonesians say that democracy is the best system, and that's almost unchanged from a decade ago. But importantly when we asked Indonesians where they see their place in the world. I think around 90% said that being part of the democratic world was really important to their sense of self identity. But at the same time when we asked which leaders and countries, people have confidence in and trust. And the question that where MBS and MBZ came out very well, what we find is that Indonesians don't use democracy as a barometer by which to assess other countries and leaders. And that's quite different from I think polling data in Australia and elsewhere in the Western world where generally people in liberal Western liberal democracies like other Western liberal democratic leaders. Simon, what do you think is going on here? I mean what explains the fact that Indonesians see themselves as democratic and that's important to them, but they don't really see it as a useful way to kind of divide up the world or measure trust in other countries and leaders. Well, there's a couple of potential interpretations there but first of all I think it needs to be acknowledged up front that a poll of this size involving multiple questions will not always be 100% coherent. There will be contradictions here and there so I think that needs to be said. Secondly, I think what's interesting is that if you look at the poll collectively and Lena mentioned earlier about how we still prioritize economic limited benefits rather than you know global order and all that I think that tells us also that the Indonesian public are much more pragmatic in terms of their measurement of what is influence of what is good what is bad what is priority. And in this case I think the key measurement for acknowledgement of understanding of trust and even favorability may have to do with economic profile and engagement rather than whether or not that country is democracy or not. I think despite Indonesia's strong support for democracy for our own political system, we're not really necessarily instinctively in the habit of exporting that voice of democracy yes we have the Bali democracy forum but that's more as a lessons sharing platform so we're not super excited in general to measure other countries based on their democracies because we don't like it when people measure our democracy and mostly because I think deep down we also realize that our own democracy is flooding somehow. So it will be a mistake to measure other countries, democratic performance or quality and then assess trust, I think we are much more interested in assessing trust based on behavior. I think we are facing as seemingly a contradictory to Indonesia's interest, for example, in terms of fisheries in the Natuna. Are they investing in Indonesia to they invest a lot we trade a lot, do we travel to see each other a lot that I think for me is a much stronger measurement of how we assess regional trust as well as their leaders. I want to take this in the direction of Russia and Ukraine a bit and to be clear our poll was done in December so before the invasion. But it's interesting to me that Vladimir Putin the Russian leader and Russia, you know come out of this sort of somewhere in the you know, Indonesians aren't very hostile and actually, I think it's interesting to note that that Scott Morrison, Indonesians have less confidence in him than they do in Vladimir Putin, although I think the data also shows that there's probably more name recognition for Putin compared compared to Morrison so that might be playing a factor. But I just want to ask you a more general question not related to the poll. Maybe this is for you Lena. What explains Indonesia's response at an elite level, and maybe even in terms of public opinion to Russia's invasion of Ukraine I mean we've seen the Indonesian government sign on to the UN General Assembly resolution condemning the invasion. But the government's own commentary from the president and from the foreign ministry has been pretty restrained. I haven't seen Indonesia take a strong position against the invasion in the way that Singapore its neighbor has. So why, why has Indonesia been so quiet, given that the Indonesian government itself often talks about wanting to have a greater role in world affairs and be a peacemaker. Here you have you know one country clearly invading another violating their sovereignty committing war crimes now. Why do you think the government's been pretty restrained in its public commentary. I think in a certain extent Indonesia is very aware that this is a very complex issue compared to the 2014 was an example when Russia attack the Crimean peninsula at that time. So I think, because especially because Indonesia is the current chair of G20 and there's certainly strong interest for the G20 agenda not to be diverted into other agenda especially becoming a battleground to talk about this crisis between Russia and Ukraine. So this crisis comes kind of a big kind of a surprise for the Indonesian government the Indonesians added to some extent. And the other hand on the other hand also, we also see in the social media quite kind of strong support to the Russia policy against Ukraine. To some extent, I don't really know how to make sense of all this because some segment of the society they try to link this with the Russian support to the Palestine you know turning it into kind of a religious conflict things like that which doesn't really make sense for me. But I think to some extent the government might monitor this kind of trend among the majority that's why they are quite cautious to make certain move. But at the end of the day we know the pressure is getting higher you know some countries already threatening that they won't come to the summit. If the Russia is there. So that creates like a larger and bigger pressure for Indonesia as the chair. I think this is something that Indonesia need to face. And Evan do you think this is something that has the potential to affect Australia Indonesia relations, because we know I think the Scott Morrison is among the leaders who's who said that's that Putin shouldn't be at the G20 summit. We know that Jacoey himself as a leader generally doesn't like formal summits he hasn't gone in person to the UN General Assembly. He doesn't really like the formality of asian meetings, but the one sort of event he likes is G20, because it is informal it is framed around the economy and investment, which is the things that he really cares about and focuses on so do you think this issue if Australia and other Western countries continue to push for Putin not to be there or threaten to boycott if he is there. Does it have the potential to disrupt Australia Indonesia relations which otherwise I'd have to say I probably you know in the best shape they've been for quite a long time. Yeah, I think the short answer is yes it has the potential, but we cannot just measure it based on this particular issue of Russia's aggression to the to Ukraine. In general, when it comes to Indonesia Australia relations, when it comes to bilateral side of things whether it's a free trade agreement security cooperation, people to people education, everything is running top notch right I think a bilaterally things between Indonesia and Australia are probably at its best since over a decade. So the issue starts to emerge I think when Australia and Indonesia have different conceptions of regional order. I think Australia's views on China is certainly not all shared by Indonesia as well and vice versa. So his questions that are broader than the bilateral side that I think we have enough track on the bilateral side. The first is that for Jokowi G20 is not just an economic summit but it is a platform by which to promote Indonesia as an investment destination which is why G20 is such a big deal in Indonesia. All the preparations in Bali have been ongoing, and in fact most of the agenda is about that side of the investment so I think this is where Indonesia needs to step up. Indonesia needs to change its outlook of seeing G20 as just another venue to get investors to Indonesia and see it as a genuine school to shape regional and global economic order to benefit of all and not just Indonesia and this is where I think we miss a big huge opportunity at the beginning of the invasion where we could have stated our principles much more strongly which would allow us to have some capital and some room to discuss how we can negotiate so that under Indonesia's the G20 does not become G19 or even worse G10. Yeah and I think there's an even bigger concern yeah that as you say it might go the way of G10 or basically split along lines between the West and the rest or rich countries and poor countries it's almost harks back to the Cold War, which is quite concerning on some levels. But I do think Natasha I want to come to you on this question next. Despite what Evan says about the bilateral relationship kind of being stronger than these broader questions, there is going to be a growing tension it seems to me here because the world is dividing into blocks. And we've seen increasingly strong language from from the Australian leadership in the US and in the UK and Europe, talking about things like an arc of autocracy or some sort of deep battle between democracies and autocracies. So what's your sense Natasha of you know, whether Western leaders are thinking about how this plays in places like Indonesia, and from your reading of the data you know what does, what does the poll tell us about how Indonesians feel about this kind of division of the world into blocks and where they might stand. Okay, I think we may have lost Natasha for now but yeah Evan I'll maybe throw that question back to you. If you heard it and yeah how did Indonesians feel about the division of world into into blocks, and do you worry that all this kind of rhetoric about autocracy, etc, is going to leave Indonesia and other Southeast Asian developing countries pretty cold. So, this is an interesting question because I think I'll piggybacking on what Lena was saying a part of the debate in the elites and the public in Indonesia is that the more the West tries to promote their version of things the more it is seen as well we don't have to condemn Russia because that would just mean that we are on the same camp with the West so the anti Western undertones, I think does play a role on how we look at this issue. Secondly, I understand that for the purposes of what's going on in Ukraine that there needs to be a narrative that this is a mortal death battle between democracy and autocracy. I think people in Indonesia actually don't see it that way. It is not about the superior type of regime over the other it is about a particular set of interests, whether that interest is about NATO expansion whether that interest is about historical revisionism. But the, but the issue is essentially not whether or not you're a democracy versus autocracy because otherwise, one of the first places to invade would probably somewhere in the Middle East. So for me, the issue isn't so much about regime type, but it's what extent can these conflicts be seen as accommodating both interests and values and this is where I think the value space approach to framing the global rivalry is not very resonant inside Indonesia I think. And one thing that fascinates me is that our polls show that the Indonesian people actually weren't very familiar with the Bebastan active free and independent foreign policy approach, which has been there since since Indonesia's independence, only a quarter of people knew what it was. And actually what what the data show is that people feel kind of that sense of neutrality and non alignment, and they share the government's view so when we ask people in the event of a US China conflict. What should Indonesia do should it side with the US side with China will stay neutral 84% 84% of people said neutral, and it was just 4% who would side with the US and 1.4% with China. And the government really striking and a lot of wariness across the survey towards both the US and China, although maybe quite a few indicators showing this, there's rising concern about China, and perhaps in response to its assertive policies in the region. Now Lena I want to ask you a bit about why Indonesians feel like that obviously the government and the people are at one in this sense of kind of neutrality and non alignment. So what's that about is that is that about principles, or is that about Indonesia's history. Why is Indonesia so committed, and it's really important to answer this question because I think there are many people in Washington in Canberra, and in Beijing, who would actually like to try and pull Indonesia over to their side so I think it's really important for them to understand just why Indonesians are so committed to this position of neutrality and non alignment. And I think it's something that is very intrinsic, you know, very deep inside the Indonesian population Indonesian society of big of, well, to some extent it's also related of course to our history in the past that we were colonized for three and half century and with Japan at that time. So basically, basically there's a strong nationalistic sentiment that we don't want to be colonized again by any major powers, those kind of stuff basically. So, but, of course, in terms of when you ask whether it's a principle standpoint. To some extent, probably I don't really see it's a principle. It's because of the principle itself, but it's a pragmatic thing. It's because of the history because of our culture, you know, the lesson that we learn from our history in the past. So it's just there so when you ask people, do you know about the independent or free and active doctrine, they will say definitely but in terms of gesture itself. I think it really reflects that we don't want a very strong presence because a strong presence major powers will definitely imply a kind of intention to intervene into our domestic affairs and this is something that none of the Indonesians would like to see. And Evan, if I could ask you a hypothetical I mean what, what would it take to change Indonesia's mind I'm sure this is a question. Again, a lot of people in in Canberra DC and Beijing are asking but what might it take, could you see anything. You know Chinese aggression or a Chinese sort of attack against an Indonesian fishing boat, are there things that would potentially shift Indonesia's position to decide with anyone any outside power do you think and what might those things be. So if we focus on the public opinion side of things. What would it take to change that for me the main filter of external events is the domestic political elite. If the president or the military or the other authority figures present a particularly stark choices I think that's where the public goes. In terms of a specific scenario in which that might change it's a bit difficult because as Lena said historically is not just China but also the United States that has sort of metal into the domestic affairs of Indonesia we still remember in the 1950s how the US supported a regional conflict that was sought to succeed from Indonesia. So if we're talking about a future scenario, I cannot think of something more stark, other than a potential hostile takeover of Indonesian, let's say islands or you know, natural gas or or resource facilities, for example, in the event of a regional war involving the US and China, if let's say the Western side and China were to fight over who can get to the Taiwan straight sooner, and therefore, you know, attack parts of Indonesian territory to secure those airways and space that might shift public opinion but it depends on who's the aggressor because I think that's going to be the main angle in which the domestic political elites can frame if the Indonesian elites frame it as China as the aggressor or the US as the aggressor. That's where a public opinion will shift. Thanks, thanks Evan and I'm going to come to questions from the audience so we've got loads of good ones already but keep them coming but I want to come to you Tash I think you've rejoined us which is which is great. I wonder what this means for Australia because Australia's position on China but really its whole foreign policy alignment has shifted quite significantly in the last three or four years. As Scott Morrison and other key leaders were talking about Australia, not choosing between its relationship with China as a key economic partner in the US as its security alliance partner, and now Australia is kind of fully down with the kind of push back against China if not if not leading it, but obviously we see Indonesia and probably quite a few other countries in Southeast Asia, very wary about this, even though they're concerned about China. They're concerned about the US they don't want to pick a side I mean, do you think it's worrying for for camera and for Australia, that there seems to be a kind of strategic divergence taking place here, and it's one that we don't often see recognized in official statements where the Australian government likes to talk about the opposite strategic convergence with Southeast Asia. And I think I've lost Natasha, just at that very point. No question so Lena maybe I'll come to you to answer that question. Do you think that yeah there is an issue I guess not just for Australia but for the wider Western world that the kind of full on pushback and balancing against China is going to potentially bring tensions their relationships with with Indonesia and other Asian nations who really don't want to have to choose. Well, I think, well it's kind of a difficult because, well, I tried to put it back to the Indonesian context in this sense. I think that's quite interesting finding that there's quite alarming result where China is being seen as a more threatening country. Among the among the among the society while the elites actually. And there is there has been a perception that the elite is actually getting closer with China. I think to some extent I would like to point out the point that influx or incoming of Chinese Chinese migrant workers, especially during the COVID-19 restriction that really influence I think the perception from the majority of the public, because as you see in another result of the falling about the job protection as the the most important priority for Indonesia. And also I think the immediate coverage as much as Indonesia is not a party to the conflict in South China Sea. China aggressiveness in in Natuna. I think that really something that picked the tension of the Indonesian society, the Indonesian people that they see China is like more threatening to Indonesia and to some extent I think interestingly, I should also admit that the Hong Kong issue, the way China treats the Hong Kong issue is also influencing some segment of the society in Indonesia, because there has been a strong pressure against the pro democracy group there. But on the other hand, of course, in terms of the investment things like that. I think the elites still quite strong having a strong position on that. And Evan, I want to pick up this point of Chinese investment a bit further with you because it strikes me across the pole that that President jacoi actually comes out in line with Indonesian public opinion on many things right he's talked about wanting the foreign ministry to focus on economic diplomacy and Indonesian seem to share his, his view that Kamlo the foreign ministry should in a way have limited aimed support economic development, protect Indonesians overseas, not wanting to choose side so on many issues jacoi is in line with public opinion, we can debate later who's following whom, but anyway he's in line but the one issue where he's really kind of out of line, or diverging from public opinion is on Chinese investment. I think that during his time in office, there's been a significant turnover of really high profile Chinese projects like the Jakarta to abandon high speed railway, lots of resources projects, look at panjaitan his key investment minister, he's been a frequent visitor to China trying to attract other investors from China, but at the same time, when we asked Indonesians how they felt about investment from different countries. China was the country to which they were least favorable Saudi Arabia was the most favorable and I think Japan, Malaysia, Singapore, US and Australia. Is there a bit of a risk here is there something of a political time bomb that jacoi and Indonesia more generally, you know seems to be having deepening its economic ties with China, but Indonesians are still really skeptical or wary of Chinese investment. Yes, absolutely. I think Indonesia's relationship with China is perhaps the most polarizing foreign policy we have right now. The issue of Chinese investment is a lot more problematic politically on the domestic scene compared to, let's say investment from Australia, or the United States I think has to do with how the domestic elites often frame and criticize jacoi's relationship with China. It is very easy to play the anti communist card domestically for example, or even making it seem as if jacoi stating instructions from Beijing, because then it sort of become a domestically politically contentious issue, because of the long history of anti communism and when you mix that with some in the elites who would like to paint. If you are pro communist you must be anti Islam that makes it even harder for jacoi, I think to keep up with that kind of economic profile engagement with China so I think if you look at the trend despite some of the more signature projects like the high speed rail, if you look at the totality of Chinese investments and economic cooperation with Indonesia, a lot more is actually not covered by the China. And this is precisely because of the concern that the more the government highlights investment projects with China, the more the domestic political opponents of the president would like to use it as a way to to paint the president as being too pro China and therefore pro communist and therefore anti Islam and that sequence of domestic political attacks is why the relationship with China will always be one of the most domestically polarizing relationship we have And it's interesting when you also break down kind of how that polarization occurs in Indonesia because across our whole survey we look for kind of variations in viewpoints depending on gender on age, rural versus urban income levels, and we actually found so much consensus among most questions and most answers. It didn't matter whether you're rich or poor from the campaign from Jakarta, people had very similar views. But one of the areas where we did find some divergence was on attitudes to the US and China to the two great powers, where we found that Muslims were much more likely to be wary of both the US and China, the non Muslims, and also some of the Islamic political parties supporters, they were more likely to be wary of US and China, say the supporters of PDIP. What do you think is going on there Evan do you have any sense of why Muslims will be more wary of both the US and China the non Muslims. This is something that is actually a bit hard to analyze we need deeper research into this but my sense, my impression of this is because there is a sense of the fact that despite us despite Muslims being the majority in Indonesia. They always feel like they are the victim of great power politics and they're always trying to move Indonesia one way or the other and then sacrifice Muslims along the way. We can debate whether this is because of Israel Palestine issues or whether this is something a lot more closer to the Indonesian psyche itself but I think that sense of great powers as you know potentially doing Indonesia wrong basically is why there's a huge sense of distrust and if you want to tie it into, you know, if you want to cherry pick a historical example in 1965. A lot of people would still say that Muslims were also the victim of the attempted coup by the Communist Party. So I think the sense of being the majority but also being wronged by great powers is still pretty much still within the Indonesian psyche but this I think requires much deeper data and much deeper analysis this is just my impression briefly. Thanks, thanks Evan and yes sorry we've lost Natasha she's been having some internet gremlins hopefully we'll get her back soon because I do have a number of questions from the audience for her. And as our polling expert, I will put them to her when hopefully she joins us, but first I'm going to pass on a question from Alexander at if you enter of RSIS in Singapore. And I'll maybe ask Lena first and then Evan if you have anything to add. So Alex asks, what do you think of the role of Indonesia's national education system in contributing to Indonesia's lack of IR or foreign policy awareness in this survey. And this emphasis of nationalism in the education curriculum is reinforced in Pancasila, Indonesian language and other official history. Is it that that's not giving much space to IR is that what's contributing to this lack of awareness and some of the hyper nationalist rhetoric that we've seen. It really depends on how which level of the education system that we are talking here. On the one hand, we in Indonesia we see a surge in terms of the opening of international relations department in many universities in Indonesia. So, indeed, on that particular side, we can actually see there's actually a kind of an increasing interest on international like studying about international relations international studies and so on and so forth. But I'm not really confident to say this, but I'm pretty sure that at lower than that I mean like in the elementary school up to high school, I don't think there is so much exposure on social sciences, particularly international relations. Most of the education system on that level still focusing on much more science things like that, instead of on IR issues. So I think while on the other hand, actually you see the young people, of course, because of the advancement of social media, you know, communication technology, things like that, they can pick up a lot of international relations issues from social media, even from, for example, so they learn from those media. So I think in terms of national education system, I'm not really sure how this can be actually a tool to inform or mainstream people to understand more about international relations, because there are other outlets I think how people pick up IR issues. And what's what's your sense Evan do you think there is something about education or even the ideology, the panchistil ideology that leaves people inward looking or less interested in the outside world or do you think that there are other factors at play. It's not necessarily about panchistila for sure, I mean in terms of the Constitution and all that, we actually have a pretty internationalist outlook. In fact, one of the mandates of the Constitution was that we fight for decolonization right. In that sense, we're not necessarily at a position where our Constitution and panchistila makes us very inward looking, but it's, it's more about how the regimes actually have a sort of mental in how history is taught in schools that certainly a key factor social science scholars would tell us that during so hard as rule, social science, both as a field of study but as well as a curriculum standpoint including history and the humanities were very much skewed towards serving a particular vision of Indonesia. And I think there's certainly something there to be said, regarding, you know, perhaps one of the more undertones of why we're so inward looking but what the data actually also tells us is that, you know, it's not necessarily related to education because as you said that across all different education levels it's consistent. It's not like the more educated ones have a better view of IR versus the less educated ones, as you said, the data is consistent with that. I think what's interesting for me is the exposure part. As Leena said, IR is actually one of the fastest growing majors in Indonesia. So by logic, there should be much more people who understands about the world but and yet we don't. So for me this is an exposure question to what extent you get your source of news regarding the world from the media versus your, your authority figures, and whether you travel or not. So for me, I think this is a much more important key measurement but of course there is something about the education that we need to talk about but it's not the content itself but it's how the regime would like to manipulate it or not and whether or not we're allowed to think critically about what we are given. Thanks, Evan. And on that point Sandra Hamid has asked about Natasha's comments saying that people's views on foreign policy do matter. And she's asking how Natasha came to that conclusion and did we ask about it in the survey? I think Natasha has got some internet issues so I'm not sure if she'll be able to rejoin us. But I can talk a bit about the survey because we did ask how closely people follow world affairs and the answer is that there aren't many people who follow these issues very closely. But when you look at other measures like whether they know the world leaders we were asking about, for most of them there was between 30 to 40% of people who didn't know who each of those individual leaders were, less for some of them. And I think the flip side of that is obviously 60% or two thirds in many cases did know who those world leaders were. And I guess my sense would be maybe similar to Natasha, just that public opinion does matter in a democracy because people vote and politicians want to do popular things that get them elected and they're aware of the overton window of things that are possible that the public will accept. Of course they want to influence public opinion to move that window in line with the things they want to do. But I think politicians do care what people will accept. And I don't think it's a surprise or an accident that kind of Jacoes view of the world and many Indonesian voters views of the world are very similar. And I think that says something about Jacoes leadership, but also how he's able to kind of instinctively pick up and respond to public opinion. Now Evan, I know there's a big piece in compass, Indonesia's top quality newspaper today, kind of examining this question and you were talking them to them about it as well. So what's your sense on, on sort of, I guess not just the cause of maybe a lack of interest in the outside world but what can be done about it. I mean, you're you and Lena are leading Indonesian think tank and foreign policy experts. I mean, what do you think government, what do you think universities think tanks should be doing in the media to try and get Indonesians to care more and understand more about the world and I think that's a challenge that I guess think tanks and governments would have in many countries trying to keep people engaged but what what do you think the government should be doing and others to all of us. I think first of all, there's more short term ones and then there are long term one short term ones I think certainly the foreign ministry needs to step up its public diplomacy, domestically towards its own people, certainly because of the pandemic, some of the facts have been put on hold and all of that but the fact that in our survey we also show that the military is seen as the better defender of Indonesia strategic interest and not the foreign ministry also tells us something the fact that we don't know about the fact that foreign policy or that Asia is not the most important regional organization for Indonesia also tells us the fact that foreign policy concepts and issues are not something that's close to the Indonesian so certainly I believe the foreign ministry should do more in that sense in the short but the second long term part is the facilitation of international travel and education I think this is key. Sure, over the last few years there's been much more of that because of the endowment from the Ministry of Finance for scholarships but we need more of those we need a much more open much more diverse pool of scholarship applicants and certainly from outside of Java as well. I think education and exposure is the key long term one to increase that sense of awareness and this is not a one stop solution that's going to be done within one regime or more I think it's going to take a multi year effort. Anything to add Lena. I absolutely agree with what Evan mentioned I think the foreign ministry really need to shape up really this public diplomacy so not only image making, but really translate what Indonesia's foreign policy is doing for the sake of the benefit of the people. It's not always the direct connection but really frame it in a way that this really brings benefit for the overall national interest of the people itself. And of course I think at the society level, the university think tanks I think to generate more discussions I think, of course once again, with the social media we can easily pick up the issues like in Russia and Ukraine quite quite rapidly now, and then we generate discussions internally things like that, you know, that really helped to make people really look at international issues in more strategically, rather than only focusing on domestic issues because nowadays in global globalized world, I think everything is actually interconnected. The Russia Ukraine crisis certainly bring impact to the domestic conditions in Indonesia. Yeah, that's certainly true. And that's a really important point you know Russia itself is geographically in Asia, it has a Pacific fleet it has key relationships with quite a number of Asian countries as well so I agree. Yeah, these things aren't just disconnected, we are part of a globalized world and so it's important for all of us to understand more about those connections. I want to come back to you Evan with a question from Ahmad Sokasono. He says he agrees with you on kind of, I guess maybe the frustration with the inward looking approach, and also, you know, a lack of ambition maybe about the G20. He asks about Indonesian selective attitudes to different Muslim issues or different issues relating to the global Muslim community. So from our survey we see quite a high degree of concern about supporting statehood for Palestine, but a lot less concern about the condition of Muslim Uighurs in China, or the situation affecting the Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar and the refugee camps in Bangladesh. What's behind that Evan Ahmad wants to know why are Indonesians quite selective, even on these kind of religious related questions where people might think if Islam is more important in foreign policy, why do people care about Palestine, but not the Uighurs. I think that's a good point and I think there are some things that our survey can reveal and there are more things that it cannot, but if you look at the questions as a whole, you actually see as Lina mentioned earlier on a very pragmatic and limited approach to measuring things that are important, particularly in terms of economic benefits. So my sense is that, you know, Islam as a religion isn't particularly high in terms of foreign policy outlook. The economic stuff is a lot more higher I think, which is why you see, you know, despite identifying as part of the Muslim world is not the top one right the top one is how these Asia and then to democratic world. Despite that, the OIC is not high on the list of important international institutions, it's the UN and ASEAN. Even on issues that are, you know, within the realm of what we might consider as conflict resolution. And this is really because the Uighur is not top as well. So for me, it's hard to conclude from that that Islam is seen as or should be seen as the primary driver of Indonesian foreign policy outlook. I think economic engagement is still one and this actually ties in to the question about the Uighurs, which is not every issue has the same set of domestic constituents in Indonesia. I think there's a lot more domestic constituents for Israel Palestine than there is for Uighur. And certainly, when it comes to Uighur, we have to consider the fact that China's engagement on this issue is a lot more proactive as well, where there is no Israel engagement in Indonesia over Israel Palestine. So I think the variety of domestic stakeholders and interests also help explain why some issues get airwave and others do not. But in general, what the survey tells us is that Islam in itself is not or should not be the primary driver of Indonesian foreign policy and outlook. Thanks, Evan. And we've got a really good question from Dan Montgomery Hunt. And he's asking really how much the government's outlook on foreign policy and Indonesia's place in the world is driven by the specific personality of the president, and also the individual party chairs, particularly Megawati Sukuna Putri of PDIP, the biggest party in Indonesia's parliament. So yes, how much of a factor are they, Lina, do you think? And could we see a significant shift in Indonesia's kind of foreign policy outlook after 2024, presuming we end up with a different president, which I know is a bit of an open question right now. Well, I think for Indonesia's foreign policy, unfortunately, is still very much shaped by the idiosyncratic factor. So the leader really determined the course of the foreign policy issue. So when you see, as Evan mentioned earlier, even like international forum that like G20 is only being framed up until now is being framed as a forum to gain more investment for the country instead of looking at as a prestigious forum to actually like international economic forum. So I think in that sense that really tells that, because I think from the very beginning, we all know that President Jokowi is not really into foreign policy, foreign affairs issue. He's more into the domestic issues and that really tells that the priority agenda of the actual one, although in the beginning of his presidency, he proposed the idea of global maritime forum, global maritime falcon, things like that. But at the end of the day, we see now, he just picked the things that they are having direct connections with the domestic needs, like protection of migrant workers, investment, of course, that's the top priority. So I think in that sense, that really the most important factor. In terms of the party itself, I think it's pretty much PIP is very, I think, the kind of party that really looks into domestic issues more than foreign policy issues. I don't know, I might have a different reading from me, but I think it's pretty much the same with the President. Yeah, I mean, Evan, what's your sense? I mean, I might push back a bit personally again, it's kind of Lena's characterization, because I wonder if the differences between SBY, say, and Jokowi are more stylistic than substantive, and whether that kind of those non-aligned settings and the desire to go to a row between two reefs. To me, it seems that goes quite deep. And while Jokowi talks about, you know, having friends with benefits rather than a thousand friends and no enemies. At the end of the day, it doesn't look that different in concrete terms, all the other styles a bit different. But what's your, what's your take, Evan? I think what's different is the level of daily concern, right? I think, as you said, the major undertones of Indonesian foreign policy in terms of not wanting to choose and all of that I think has been consistent. But the issue is whether or not the President himself on a daily basis cares about a wide range of foreign policy issues and not just one out of many. I think that makes a huge difference because the personal investment and political support of the President does tell us how far we can get in terms of our foreign policy outlook, in terms of our diplomacy, in terms of a range of creative means to address global problems and in the global relationships that's necessary for Indonesia's foreign policy to move forward. But if you have a President who takes a somewhat of a laissez-faire attitude and only concern when there's investment involved, the other things sort of not get taken care of. And that means we all have to rely on the existing foreign policy system to pick up the slack. And as Lena said, we're not there yet. The foreign policy system, I think, is still in the process of trying to reform itself and try to be more institutionalized. So in that sense, I think I agree with Lena's overall argument that it is still very much dependent on the President and how whether or not the next President in 2024 will be more or less concerned to a wide range of foreign policy issues rather than just one. In terms of political parties, yes, I agree with Lena that in general, most political parties don't have a foreign policy platform that serious. There's a few maybe less than a dozen who I would consider senior political party officials with strong handle of international affairs. But on the other hand, there's also an increasing number of political parties that engage in international engagement. The national party to party ties between Indonesia and China has been growing in the past few years as well. So it remains to be seen. But for me, the role of the political parties through the national parliament in terms of shaping foreign policy has not been as strong as we would like it to be. So yes, in this sense, we are all left with whether or not the President pays close attention on a daily basis for a wide range of foreign policy issues. And just moving on from that, just the last question before we run out of time, given you said you're saying you're both saying the personality matters. In terms of 2024 we know there's a bunch of governors from Jakarta and other parts of Java in the race, maybe there'd be more domestic focus to perhaps because of their gubernatorial experience and then we have the Defense Minister Prabowo potentially as a candidate. How, how, Lena, do you think Prabowo might look at the world if he was to secure the presidency? How might he be different from Jakowi if he was in the number one seat? Very difficult question. I don't know how to answer this, Ben. Well, I think we might have to see the real action, you know, I mean, like, I think he's quite comfortable with his current position as the Defense Minister, you know. Probably, it really depends on the people surrounding him. He might have a bigger, the biggest say, of course, in foreign policy, but in terms of focus, he might be a little bit more outward looking. This is just my prediction. I don't really know. But on the other hand, also, I don't think because of the domestic pressure, the domestic needs as well. I think the majority of Indonesian population still want to see the leader that really answers to the needs of the people rather than enjoying himself or herself doing a lot of stuff outside the country, basically. And Evan, in 15 or 20 seconds, Prabowo presidency, what does it mean for foreign policy, if it were to happen? I think we will see him travel more than Jakowi. I think he's more comfortable in his skin overseas with foreign dignitaries than he is domestically. So I think I would see more activism, good or bad, we don't know, but I would see more activism of Indonesian foreign policy under Prabowo. Thanks. Thanks so much, Evan. And thanks so much, Nina. Thanks, Natasha, who unfortunately dropped off. And thanks everyone for watching. A lot of people have been asking about where they can see the poll. Go to the Lowey Institute website, loweyinstitute.org, and you can find it. It's all there in interactive form. You can print off the PDF. Look through the data and draw your own conclusions. And we hope this is kind of the start of a more regular program of polling and research on Indonesia. But thanks again, everyone, for watching and look me up when you come to London soon. Cheers and bye.