WHAT'S REALLY UP WITH THE RIOTS IN INDONESIA? [VIDEO]

 

WHAT'S REALLY UP WITH THE RIOTS IN INDONESIA?


America! Why?

Indonesia, the world’s 4th most populated country, has pursued industrialization, energy security, and technological independence. It ranks 12th in the world among Manufacturing Value Added (MVA) countries. In January, it officially became a full member of BRICS, joining the Global Majority in abandoning the U.S. dollar-dominated economic order. Indonesia has successfully rejected the Western neoliberal doctrines of de-industrialization and import dependency that have kept much of the region poor and underdeveloped. 

By adopting an independent foreign policy and refusing to follow Washington’s “Pivot” agenda to decouple from China, it has built a self-sufficient middle-class population in ASEAN. For the Americans, Indonesia is an obstacle, as it will not back them when they eventually decide to go to war with China over Taiwan.

Indonesian rights groups and media organizations such as Remotivi, Project Multatuli, and Jakarta Legal Aid, which back the riots against the year-old government of President Prabowo Subianto and condemn the police, are funded by the U.S. National Endowment for Democracy (NED), an NGO financed by the U.S. government. 

Allan Weinstein, one of NED’s co-founders, once admitted it was doing the work of the CIA, the premier U.S. spy agency. Project Multatuli even acknowledges on its website its collaboration with the liberal billionaire destabilizer George Soros–owned Open Society Foundations. In March, a report by Mongabay mentioned Remotivi and Project Multatuli losing funding as a result of freezes imposed by the Trump administration on NED programs. The International Republican Institute (IRI), headquartered in Washington, is a core component of NED and works hand-in-hand to destabilize governments that defy U.S. dictates.


Behind the appearance of organic protests by ordinary workers lies the hidden hand of neocolonial American destabilizers. Their agenda is to deploy useful idiots to disrupt peace and order, with the ultimate goal of crippling Indonesia’s economy and undermining its sovereignty. The playbook is simple: stir up a mob to attack the authorities, then have activist media, NGOs, and journalists frame law enforcement’s response as “abuses,” conditioning more unsuspecting civilians to join the protests. In this way, these subversive entities brand the riots as triumphs of democracy: civil society’s defiance of a supposed dictatorship.


Indonesia’s foreign policy balances regional interdependence and superpower trade relations while keeping national interest as the highest priority. Every negotiation is leveraged to benefit its people. Obsolete Cold War ideology, partisan politics, or Washington’s pressures do not dictate Jakarta’s decisions. As a modern, sovereign nation-state, Indonesia commands the respect it is owed. Its leaders are forward-thinking, visionary, competent, and possess strong political will; qualities the West finds threatening.


Indonesia banned raw nickel exports in 2020, ending decades of selling resources cheaply to the West. The new rule was clear: if you want Indonesian nickel, process it here and create jobs for Indonesians. This policy forced foreign companies to build smelters and EV battery factories on Indonesian soil. The EU sued them at the WTO. 

The U.S. quickly produced a report accusing Indonesia’s nickel industry of child labor abuses. Still, Jakarta stood its ground. Now, Indonesia is poised to become one of the world’s largest EV battery producers. China, the world’s biggest EV manufacturer, took the offer seriously. Giants like CATL and Tsingshan Holding Group invested billions to build smelters, cathode plants, and battery factories in Sulawesi and Morowali. These projects created thousands of jobs, transferred technology, trained local engineers, and built an entire EV ecosystem from mining to assembly.


Indonesia also negotiated a joint oil exploration deal with China in the Natuna Sea despite overlapping territorial claims. The result: a win-win solution enabling mutual development while avoiding military confrontation. Jakarta further partnered with Beijing to construct a high-speed rail line. Today, the Jakarta-Bandung bullet train runs at 350 km/h, cutting travel time from three hours to forty minutes. It is Southeast Asia’s first modernized public mass transit system.


Indonesia refused to join the U.S. sanctions regime against Russia. Instead, through its state-owned oil giant Pertamina, it purchased Russian oil at significant discounts, ensuring affordable fuel and steady energy security. Ignoring Western political pressure, Pertamina expanded refining capacity using cheap Russian crude, modernized refineries, exported fuel competitively, and shielded the economy from global price volatility. The Karimun oil hub in the Riau Islands became a transshipment center for Russian crude, with tankers offloading oil there for redistribution across ASEAN.


When the Trump administration threatened a 35% tariff on Indonesian exports, President Prabowo Subianto didn’t dispatch an entourage or beg Washington for concessions. He simply picked up the phone and spoke directly to Donald Trump. A single 17-minute call was enough to secure a deal lowering the tariff rate to 19%.


Jakarta is also staunchly pro-Palestine. Earlier this month, it condemned Israel’s plan to occupy Gaza, called on the UN Security Council to stop Israel’s genocide, and urged nations to recognize Palestine as a state. In April, President Subianto even announced that Indonesia was ready to shelter Palestinians displaced by the Zionist regime.


Finally, Jakarta stood up to Silicon Valley. It mandated that 30% of components for smartphones sold in Indonesia must be locally produced. This effectively banned new iPhones from entering the market. Apple, unwilling to lose access, invested in R&D centers in Jakarta, Surabaya, and Batam, launched training programs for local youth, and established assembly and production operations in the country. As a result, Indonesia developed a domestic manufacturing and tech ecosystem instead of remaining a mere importer.

The inorganic unrest in Indonesia is not about democracy, rights, or freedom but an example of Washington’s old imperial tricks. The United States cannot tolerate a Global South nation that refuses to kneel, develops its own industries, trades with China and Russia on equal footing, asserts its sovereignty in ASEAN, and refuses to be bullied into abandoning Palestine. Jakarta’s rise terrifies the West because it exposes the myth that prosperity can only come by following World Bank and IMF dictates. What America brands as “civil society movements” are in reality outsourced operations of destabilization designed to manufacture chaos and exploit real grievances.

What they are doing to Jakarta today, they already did to Manila forty years ago with EDSA. America cannot allow a region of sovereign states to rise outside its orbit. That is why Indonesia is under attack, and that is why all of ASEAN must see through the sham because if Jakarta falls, the rest of the region will be next: either in a war that will kill millions or  continued Western economic and industrial hegemony.

Daniel Long writes for various newspapers and journals on geopolitics, including the Manila Times and Asian Century Journal, he has represented the Philippines in multiple delegations to China—as a press, youth, and social media influencer delegate—and previously served as a speechwriter for Senator Imee Marcos.