[INTERVIEW] Indonesia sees growing room for partnership on defense and tech with Korea

Mohammad Mahfud MD, coordinating minister for political, legal and security affairs of Indonesia, speaks with the Korea JoongAng Daily in Seoul on Thursday. [PARK SANG-MOON]

Korea and Indonesia are pursuing a future-oriented partnership, with deeper defense cooperation just one example of the growing relationship, a senior Indonesian government minister said Thursday.

“We have ongoing cooperations in the military and defense industry, such as our joint production on fighter jets,” said Mohammad Mahfud MD, coordinating minister for political, legal and security affairs of Indonesia, speaking with the Korea JoongAng Daily at the Lotte Hotel in central Seoul.

Visiting Korea last week on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of Indonesia-Korea relations and the 78th anniversary of the Indonesian Independence, Mahfud MD met with members of the Yoon Suk Yeol administration, including Prime Minister Han Duck-soo, to discuss ways to expand the bilateral relations on defense, trade and investment, as well as people-to-people ties.

On the ongoing joint production of KF-21 fighter jets between Indonesia and Korea, Mahfud MD kept his comments short but positive.

“Indonesia has the resources and Korea the technology to develop our cooperation in the military further,” he said.

Indonesia and Korea have been engaged in a joint KF-21 fighter jet project since 2015, in which the Southeast Asian country agreed to shoulder about 20 percent of the project's total cost of 8.8 trillion won ($6.7 billion). It had halted payments from January 2019 before resuming last November.

Tangible developments on people-to-people ties, including measures to expand visas for Indonesian workers in Korea, were discussed with the prime minister of Korea, said Mahfud MD.

“There are to be visa extensions for Indonesian migrant workers,” he said, quoting his conversation with Han earlier on Thursday. “With the extension, the workers who were able to stay for four years and 10 months would be able to stay and work for 10 years.”

Around 50,000 Indonesians live in Korea, according to the Ministry of Justice, of whom around 32,800 are estimated to be workers on the E-9 visa for non-professional workers. Indonesians account for the fourth-largest group on E-9 visa according to the Justice Ministry, after Nepalis, Cambodians and Vietnamese.

The visa adjustments may also allow more Indonesian workers to bring their family members in Indonesia to Korea, added Mahfud MD.

“Indonesia is a country of 275 million people, and I believe there are many ways we can optimize our cooperation based on our human resources,” he said.

Indonesia boasts a fertility rate of 2.19 as of 2020, whereas Korea’s population has been shrinking and aging rapidly in recent years. The fertility rate, or the number of times a woman is expected to give birth in her lifetime, was 0.78 last year in Korea.

Indonesia’s offer of its young talents in its partnership with Korea can be quite organic, given the natural affinity many young Indonesians feel towards Korea and its culture, said the minister.

“Indonesians have a lot of interest on Korean films, dramas and music. One can say the Korean Wave, Hallyu, has caught us,” Mahfud MD said.

Speaking from his years of experience both as an academic and a policymaker, Mahfud MD also highlighted the importance of a future-oriented partnership not only between Indonesia and Korea but also with other states in the region.

“Both Indonesia and Korea have experienced colonization by Japan, and we have similar scars in our past,” he said. “But we want to move forward into the future, we don’t want to dwell in the past and its problems. We hope that Korea also has the same mindset.”

Indonesia is the only Asean member state to have a special strategic partnership with Korea, established between the two countries during their presidential summit in Indonesia in November 2017.

BY ESTHER CHUNG [chung.juhee@joongang.co.kr]