Foreign Policy Talks

COVID-19 is making it painfully clear just how interconnected our social, economic, and political challenges are. The spread of the coronavirus disease has changed and affected everything including our environment. A recent poll conducted by the IPSOS MORI, a global market research company also found that 71% of the world population thinks climate change is as serious as coronavirus. Wha...

Since the death of George Floyd in police custody on May 25, public opinion on race, criminal justice, and the Black Lives Matter movement has leaped leftward and the recent protests in the United States have opened our eyes everywhere in this world. How does the death of George Floyd resulted this situation? How to understand the roots of systemic racism in the USA? What kind of transformational...

In this episode, I talked to Prof. Andrew Yeo, the Associate Professor and Director of Asian Studies at Catholic University of America on the New Southern Policy, a strategy of South Korea under President Moon Jae-in’s government to elevate its relations with the Southeast Asian nations and India. We discussed on the objectives of this policy, and the ways South Korea achieve the goals of this NSP...

In this episode, I am talking to Angelo Wijaya, the advisor of Universitas Gadjah Mada (UGM) ASEAN Society and the future foreign policy expert on the challenges and opportunities of ASEAN cooperation amidst the U.S. and China rivalry. The rivalry that is not only on the political level but spread over the security and economic sphere. I explore of his views on the most pressing problems experienc...

As we know, economic diplomacy has been the foremost priority of Indonesia’s foreign policy. One of the Minister Retno’s foreign policy priorities is to strengthen our economic diplomacy and enhancing our economic partnership with more countries worldwide. However, the COVID-19 pandemic has caused an inevitable disruption to the Indonesia’s economic partnership plans, experts argued that there wil...

This is a special farewell interview with Ambassador Kim Chang-beom, the South Korean Ambassador to Indonesia. He is going to end his tenure as an Ambassador here in Jakarta, so I asked him on the development of Indonesia-Korea relationship. Moreover, President Moon Jae-in and President Joko Widodo have made some important visits to both countries during his time, therefore I asked him on what is...

Along with the rising cases of coronavirus infection around the world, the political tensions between global major powers are also growing significantly. Experts from all over the world start to discuss the geopolitical and geo-economics aspects of the COVID-19 outbreak. From the fragility of the globalized system, the changes in global economic directions until the analysis of U.S.-China power ra...

I talked to Azalea Johannes, an Indonesian Diaspora living in Washington D.C. about the ongoing protests and riots in the United States. What is #blacklivesmatter? What are some of the key historical events of systemic racism there? Does it give any transformational changes for the black American community? What does this mean for racial discrimination in the world and Indonesia? 

Trump administration is attacked by the huge storm of COVID-19 pandemic and not only affecting its domestic politics but also the direction of U.S. foreign policy. The world is expecting the active U.S. leadership in fighting against COVID-19, however, the facts show the opposite. The pandemic also has revealed flaws in geopolitical structures as well as domestic political systems around the world...

As we know, the COVID-19 pandemic is not only affecting the health and economic situation specifically to the Southeast Asian region, but it has also tested the political leadership of ASEAN leaders. Some of them have been criticized for not taking swift action in combatting the COVID-19, many also criticized of doing some authoritarian measures in their efforts to battle the pandemic. The politic...

In the name of protecting public health during this COVID-19 pandemic, ASEAN governments are reportedly have imposed more restrictive measures in containing the effect of this unprecedented health crisis. Many human rights activists stated that governments have gone so far as to utilize the crisis to limit civil and democratic rights. What are the implications of COVID-19 pandemic on human rights...

During this COVID-19 pandemic, we can see a different trend of Chinese diplomacy- from conservative, passive, and low-key to assertive, proactive, and high-profile diplomacy. Many called it as “Wolf-Warrior Diplomacy”. Why China is resorting to that type of diplomacy? What would be the implication for China’s foreign policy in the future? and is it an effective way to counter what called by the Ch...

According to the United Nations World Food Programme (UNWFP) report and analysis of the economic and food security implications of the pandemic publicly released in April 2020, almost 212 million people are chronically food-insecure. The large majority of those people are in Africa and another region of concern is the Middle East, with countries such as Yemen, Iran, Iraq, Lebanon and Syria who all...

In this episode, I talked to Niwa Dwitama, an outstanding diplomat at the Department of ASEAN Cooperation of Indonesian Ministry of Foreign Affairs to discuss what exactly diplomats do, the streotypes around the diplomat's work, and the set of skills and knowledge that diplomats should have in the modern era of international relations. We also discuss the most challenging experience and the most u...

The Indonesian government has reallocated some parts of the national budget to fund the economic secure package and to fund the containment policies of the COVID-19 pandemic. Obviously, it is affecting the ambitious infrastructure development in Indonesia. Moreover, the continuity of infrastructure projects in Indonesia has become a political commodity to attack President Jokowi and his government...

Taiwan is deemed as one of the few countries in the world which have successfully stemmed the spread of the coronavirus without resorting to draconian measures. President Tsai Ing-Wen stated that the success story of Taiwan in battling the COVID-19 is because of the good combination efforts by medical professionals, government, private sectors and society at large. How does it practically happen o...

On this episode, I talked to Jessica N. Widjaja, a foreign policy activist and the Head of Indonesian Delegation to the G20 Women Leaders Summit (W20). We discussed the importance of understanding foreign policy for young people, the relation between women and leadership especially at the time of this pandemic and the investment for youth to be more engaged in foreign affairs.

India is one of the first countries to impose the lockdown policies to curb the spread of COVID-19, as obviously there are some socio-economic impacts after the lockdown applied to entire India. Many news reported the possibility of a humanitarian crisis occurred in India particularly among the vulnerable groups (poor people and migrants). I talked with Praket Arya, a Senior Research Fellow and Ec...

This episode presents my conversation with Ambassador Curtis S. Chin, the US former Ambassador to the Asian Development Bank (ADB) and Asia Fellow at the Milken Institute. We explored the impact of COVID-19 on the Trump’s possibility to be re-elected this year as the US President, the tension between the US and World Health Organization and also the dynamics and future relationship between the US...

Hypothetically, if there is a leadership change occurred in North Korea by the death of Kim Jong Un, a big question then, is it going to affect the peace process on the Korean Peninsula? I talked with Shawn Ho, an expert of the Korean Peninsula affairs to get his opinion on the future development of Korean peace process, with or without Kim Jong Un. 

The unconfirmed rumors of Kim Jong Un’s declining health status or even his death immediately triggered the discussion and debates on who would be leading North Korea if he died? What is the most likely scenario for the North Korean regime and the future of peace process with South Korea? This episode is discussing those questions with a Korean Peninsula expert, Prof. Lee Sang Shin who is also inv...