China Test Looms for Widodo as Indonesia Faces Xi’s Campaign

Chinese President Xi Jinping last month congratulated Joko Widodo for winning an Indonesian presidential election whose results have yet to be endorsed by the supreme court. Their next interaction may not be so warm.

Widodo will face a China that’s pushing its claims in the neighboring South China Sea with an aggressiveness unprecedented since Indonesia’s independence. For Jokowi, as the Jakarta governor is known and whose election win awaits validation later this month, ties with Xi loom as one of his biggest foreign-policy challenges.