Giving the Floor to the Responsible Great Power: China as the Key Player to Solve Myanmar Crisis

Giving the Floor to the Responsible Great Power: China as the Key Player to Solve Myanmar Crisis

Vol. II / No. 4 | April 2021

Authors:
Mireille Marcia Karman, Rizky Widian
(Lecturers at the Department of International Relations, Parahyangan Catholic University)

Summary

The ongoing crisis in Myanmar has attracted various negative responses from the international community. As a fellow member of ASEAN, Indonesia has tried to solve the problem by persuading ASEAN member states and ASEAN’s partners, including the United States and China, to bring this issue to the upcoming ASEAN meeting. While seeking to maintain the ASEAN centrality, this effort is also seen as a strategy to prevent the possibility of turning the Myanmar crisis into a proxy battle between the United States and China. In this article, we offer an alternative suggestion that Indonesia should not only rely on ASEAN mechanism but also allow China to be the responsible great power by solving the crisis in Myanmar through a more involved direct diplomacy with Myanmar. In doing so, China would be the key player in maintaining the regional stability. By offering such suggestion, we believe that first, it is improbable to turn Myanmar’s issue into proxy battle between the 2 great powers since both countries have different level of interest in Myanmar. While China has a rather a lot at stake in Myanmar, United States does not partake any vital interest in or related to Myanmar. Moreover, Myanmar is not perceived as the most significant actor in the region and hence, encouraging China to play a bigger role in solving this crisis may not be seen as an immense threat to the United States’ position in the region.

Keywords: Myanmar, ASEAN, China, great power competition, regional stability

Giving the Floor to the Responsible Great Power: China as the Key Player to Solve Myanmar Crisis

A Cartography of Overseas Indonesians: Preliminary Mapping of Diaspora Actors, Their Positionalities to the State and Implications for Protection

Vol. II No. 3 | March 2021

Authors:
Ani W. Soetjipto (Lecturer, Department of International Relations, Universitas Indonesia)
Dwi Ardhanariswari Sundrijo (Lecturer, Department of International Relations, Universitas Indonesia)
Muhammad Arif (Lecturer, Department of International Relations, Universitas Indonesia)
Arivia T. D. Yulestiana (Lecturer, Department of International Relations, Universitas Indonesia)
Annisa D. Amalia (Lecturer, Department of International Relations, Universitas Indonesia)

Summary
This commentary provides an overview of the evolution and landscape of the Indonesian diaspora, highlighting diversity of actors (in terms of demographic make-up and political inclinations) as well as acknowledging how our history of mobility has predated national history. Against the backdrop of a global trend, in which we see a proliferation of diaspora institutions, this mapping exercise contends that in the Indonesian case, contemporary diaspora engagement has been championed more by the society rather than the state. It considers the emergence of the Indonesian Diaspora Network as a diaspora organization, and the significant break it represents from previous diasporic animosity toward the state, and its evident national basis. An important reflection advanced here is how class  factors in diaspora formation and engagement, which leads to the subsequent question of inclusion/exclusion. What are the limits of diaspora membership, and what is low-wage migrant workers’ position in the diaspora? While diaspora engagement policies are mostly pre-occupied with attracting global talent (their capital, resources and network), this commentary canvasses early questions about the possibility of harnessing diaspora potentials in protecting migrant workers as one of the most vulnerable sub-population of Indonesians abroad. Protection efforts nevertheless need to take into account the workers’ own agency and organization, which have become more pronounced in recent years.

Keywords: diaspora, IDN, migrant workers, protection

Giving the Floor to the Responsible Great Power: China as the Key Player to Solve Myanmar Crisis

‘Bottom Up’ Paris Agreement and the New Era of Climate Actions

Vol. II / No. 02 | March 2021

Authors:
Cazadira Fediva Tamzil (Asia Group Advisors [a Southeast Asia-focused public policy and strategic advisory firm])

Summary

Virtually all recent, major climate actions are associated with the Paris Agreement. While previous international climate agreements like the Kyoto Protocol issued a ‘top down’ mandate for developed countries to meet certain standard emission reduction targets under a specific timeframe, the Paris
Agreement hinged on a ‘bottom up’ logic of voluntary climate pledges (Nationally-Determined Contributions) from all countries without specific pre-requisites or deadlines. What happened in, or in the run-up to, Paris? Why does the Paris Agreement hold considerable strength despite its voluntary
nature, and what does it mean for global climate actions?

The Paris Agreement ushered in a new era of climate actions by blurring the outdated differentiation between ‘developed countries responsible for reducing emissions’ and ‘developing countries with the right to development’. Amid a climate crisis, the Agreement rightly compels all countries to take actions, albeit with flexibility in targets, action steps, and timelines, in recognition of sovereign policy space and unique development trajectories. Through domestic deliberations to compose NDCs, countries are conditioned to take stronger climate ownership and accountability – making the Agreement less of a superficial, ‘forced-from-above’ commitment. While it has yet generated sufficient climate actions to achieve global net zero emissions by 2050, the Agreement laid the architecture for increased climate ambitions over time, primarily through a periodic review system where climate laggards are vulnerable to being ‘named-and-shamed’. Global momentum for substantially stronger climate actions is building, as development and sustainability become increasingly recognized as complementary, not contradictory, goals.

Keywords: Paris Agreement, bottom up, Nationally-Determined Contributions, climate actions,
naming-and-shaming

Giving the Floor to the Responsible Great Power: China as the Key Player to Solve Myanmar Crisis

Human Security in Border Area: Security or Welfare?

Vol. II / No. 1 | January 2021

Authors:
Sandy Nur Ikfal Raharjo (Researcher, Research Center for Politics – Indonesian Institute of Science [P2P-LIPI])
Yuni R. Intarti (Lecturer, Department of International Relations, Universitas Indonesia)

Summary
This article aims to briefly discuss the issues related to Indonesia’s land and maritime borders. The state border issue is not only based on the state security approach but also human security, as the dynamics at Indonesia’s borders also affect welfare, social conditions, and even legal protection for Indonesians residing around these areas. This article was then ended with a reflection on the management of human security issues at the Indonesian Border.

Keywords: agreement, border, conflict, indigenous people, transnational crime

Giving the Floor to the Responsible Great Power: China as the Key Player to Solve Myanmar Crisis

Where Human Security Meets International Political Economy: The Layers Beneath NorthSouth Development Partnership

Vol. I / No. 14 | December 2020

Authors:
Annisa D. Amalia (Lecturer, Department of International Relations, Universitas Indonesia)
Saiti Gusrini ( Program Manager Democracy & Human Rights (EIDHR/ASEAN), EU Delegation to Indonesia and Brunei Darussalam)
Shofwan Al-Banna Choiruzzad (Lecturer, Department of International Relations, Universitas Indonesia)

Summary
The debate on human security generally revolves around how multilateral and intergovernmental institutions formulate all kinds of initiatives, principles, guidelines to promote and protect human security and convince member states to adopt such agreements as well as conversation about the potential consequences for states by ratifying, or not ratifying certain agreements. In this increasingly heightened debate, non-state actors continue to assert their relevance. The role of business consultants in shaping human security-friendly corporate policies remains largely unheard but has become increasingly important. Through business assessments and advocacy of ‘profit, planet, and people’, business consultants continue to make sure that profit-maximizing corporations make necessary efforts to protect environmental sustainability and social harmony.

Keywords: human rights, development, North-South, norms, global political economy

Giving the Floor to the Responsible Great Power: China as the Key Player to Solve Myanmar Crisis

Locating the Human in Film: the Politics and Aesthetics of A Capitalistic Global Industry

Vol. I / No. 13 | November 2020

Authors:
Avyanthi Aziz (Lecturer, Department of International Relations, Universitas Indonesia)
Lisabona Rahman (Consultant, Film Preservation and Restoration)

Summary
For those trained in International Relations (IR), the world of cinema might be highly relatable, in particular because the structure of the film domain itself is reminiscent of the abstracted
international system we learned in classrooms. Film is situated, where politics, capital, and culture meet. This entanglement means that film embodies several things at once. In this respect, to practice film in IR also means to seriously regard, and bring back into play, critical perspectives that the discipline has largely ignored following the triumph of liberalism in the aftermath of the Cold War. We explicitly offer Indonesia as a positionality, in navigating the spatial dimensions and various levels of the global industry. We assert its use a lens to clarify the potentials and challenges in doing film and IR.

Keywords: film industry, postcolonial, visual International Relations

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