By Asia Society Australia Policy Fellow, Dominique Fraser and Maitri Fellow, Dr. Premesha Saha

Indonesia recently joined BRICS as a full member, making it the first Southeast Asian country in a grouping some observers consider to be the most powerful and potentially consequential framework not led by the United States. But Indonesia’s move should not be seen as choosing a side in an increasingly bifurcated world.

Newly inaugurated President Prabowo Subianto envisions Indonesia taking on a global leadership role in championing the Global South. Domestically, Prabowo hopes to make Indonesia one of the fastest growing developing nations, which will require a clever hedging strategy in an increasingly complex and fraught global context. In this context, Indonesia’s motivation behind joining BRICS is to further its global and domestic ambitions, rather than throw its lot in with a particular side. However, being a member of BRICS might prove to be more of a headache than it is worth and could draw Indonesia closer into China’s orbit.

Indonesia as a Global South leader

According to a statement from Indonesia’s Foreign Ministry, known as Kemlu, joining BRICS “reflects Indonesia's increasing active role in global issues” as well as Prabowo’s desire to “grow Indonesia beyond its role as Southeast Asia's natural leader". As one of the leading voices in the Global South, Prabowo’s Indonesia can serve as a bridge between developed and developing nations, and advocate for a “rebalanc[ing] of the multilateral system in favour of developing nations”.

Indonesia will need to ensure that it carefully balances its commitments to BRICS alongside its responsibilities and obligations within ASEAN and its existing relationships with Western nations like the US and the EU.

To achieve this, Prabowo wants to be present in as many forums as possible — what he calls choosing “the path of friendship with all countries”. This, as Indonesian scholar Fitriani has pointed out, is not new: “Indonesia’s decision to join BRICS is...a continuation of its multi-alignment foreign policy”. As such, Indonesia continues to seek OECD membership (Prabowo has set an ambitious goal of becoming a full member within the next three years) and aims for closer cooperation with the Quad, which includes BRICS founding member India. In a joint statement, Prabowo and Modi recently referred to the Australia-India-Indonesia Trilateral as further evidence of Indonesia seeking to play a role in various minilaterals in the Indo-Pacific and beyond.

Gaining the respect of the Global South, Prabowo has said, starts with developing the economy at home. Prabowo will continue with former President Jokowi’s Golden Indonesia 2045 Vision, which aims to achieve economic prosperity and national resilience by Indonesia’s centennial. He has also set an ambitious goal of achieving 8 per cent annual GDP growth, which would make Indonesia one of the fastest growing global economies. This will require a mammoth effort; according to the IMF, Indonesia is currently growing at approximately 5 per cent per annum.

Given these goals, Prabowo sees BRICS — established to drive economic growth in developing countries and counterbalance the Western-led economic order — as a natural partner. With Indonesia’s membership, BRICS now represents nearly half of the world’s population and 39 per cent of global GDP in PPP terms (compared to the G7’s 29 per cent). In addition, being a full member of BRICS allows Indonesia to have a greater role in shaping its agenda on issues like climate change, energy transition, food security, development financing, and digital innovation — all areas in which Prabowo seeks to assert greater influence.

Economic opportunities or “hedge-mony”?

Some Indonesian analysts have stressed that Indonesia’s BRICS membership will open access to low-cost financing through the New Development Bank (NDB), thus allowing investment in infrastructure development, which will be key for Indonesia to achieve its growth target. As some in Kemlu have highlighted, “With its focus on green energy projects, the NDB can help Indonesia reduce its reliance on traditional financial institutions that often impose restrictive conditions”.

Others have argued that joining BRICS could allow Indonesia to grow and diversify trade with new partners. Indonesia’s Minister of Energy Bahlil Lahadalia was quick to call attention to Russia’s offer to provide oil to Indonesia shortly after it joined BRICS. However, BRICS membership was likely not a prerequisite. While fellow BRICS members China and Brazil have benefitted from discounted Russian oil, so too have non-members like Turkey, Pakistan, and Taiwan, to name a few.

It is also doubtful whether joining BRICS can offer other significant trade benefits to Indonesia. China, which makes up half of BRICS’ combined GDP, is already Indonesia’s largest trading partner. Trade volume between China and Indonesia is greater than that between Indonesia and the US and Japan combined (Indonesia’s second and third largest trading partners). India, the only other BRICS member with a significant and growing economy, is already Indonesia’s fourth largest trading partner.

Intra-BRICS trade has not grown alongside the mounting political importance of the grouping, and it remains centred around China. The same is true for the economic relationship between BRICS and Southeast Asia. Nearly a quarter of BRICS’ trade in goods with the region comes from China, and most of the growth in trade was also driven by China — trade with China saw a 90 per cent increase over the past decade, compared with just 22 per cent on average with other BRICS countries. Claims that joining BRICS offers significant economic benefits are thus overstated.

Rather, Prabowo's decision to join BRICS should be viewed in the context of Southeast Asia’s desire to hedge. Besides choosing partners based on what they can offer, the region also chooses its partners and the extent of cooperation to avoid the perception that Southeast Asia is leaning too closely toward either the US or China. Sarang Shidore, Director of the Quincy Institute’s Global South Program, has termed this approach "hedge-mony". Several Southeast Asian scholars have argued that Southeast Asia largely sees BRICS as a way to leverage its relationships with the West, which will look to Indonesia’s industrial metals to support its green transition.

Indonesia’s difficult way forward

Notwithstanding its reasons for joining, now that Indonesia is an official member of BRICS, it will have to contend with a group that is not only highly diverse in its composition and aims, but is also economically and politically dominated by China. “With its strong diplomatic experience in ASEAN, Indonesia is well positioned to bridge internal divides within BRICS”, a recent Jakarta Post op-ed stated optimistically. That, however, underestimates the vast ideological differences between BRICS members, who cannot even agree on what BRICS is: a platform, a group, a family?

Geopolitically, its members have diverse aims. While Jakarta is in good company with pragmatic Delhi and Brasília, which seek to maximise their diplomatic freedom in a contested global order, Beijing and Moscow strive for BRICS to be a more openly anti-Western bloc.

Iran’s membership last year deepened the impression of BRICS as an adversary of the West. The fact that there are a number of active disputes between BRICS members (India-China, Egypt-Ethiopia, and Iran-UAE) also does not bode well for a unified purpose. Furthermore, there are significant domestic differences within the group: while six of the BRICS governments are authoritarian, Indonesia joins democracies in Brazil, India, and South Africa. Economically, BRICS is heavily lopsided and dominated by China.

Indonesia will need to ensure that it carefully balances its commitments to BRICS alongside its responsibilities and obligations within ASEAN and its existing relationships with Western nations like the US and the EU. Indonesia may find itself in a tough spot in stretching its resources too thin by trying to manage its commitments to BRICS and fulfilling its de-facto leadership role within ASEAN.

While the accession of new members, particularly “a quintessentially pragmatic” Southeast Asian country like Indonesia, can be seen as diluting China’s outsized political and economic influence within BRICS, it might well be the other way around. For example, Indian analysts have previously commented that as the grouping takes an anti-Western tilt, “India is becoming increasingly aloof in the BRICS”. And others have pointed out that BRICS countries appear to be gradually aligning with China’s positions at the United Nations. For Indonesia, fears are growing that the new president has made concessions to China, which might be compounded with BRICS membership. In becoming a member of BRICS, Indonesia may have just bitten off more than it can chew as it needs to carefully navigate internal and external challenges for few tangible gains.

This article originally appeared in 9DASHLINE.