When Indonesia joined this year’s BRICS Summit as a full member in Rio de Janeiro, it was stepping into a long-anticipated role. The Southeast Asian nation has long aspired to be more than a leading regional actor; it seeks to be a global leader, and BRICS membership offered the symbolism of arrival.
President Prabowo Subianto leveraged the moment to call for a revitalized multilateral order, greater South–South cooperation and fairer global governance. He invoked the spirit of Bandung — the 1955 conference Indonesia famously convened to unite newly independent nations under the banner of peace, solidarity and nonalignment.
But for all the talk of balance, Indonesia’s BRICS debut also raised fresh concerns about tilt as questions arise about whether Prabowo’s Indonesia is drifting into China and Russia’s orbit and away from the West.
The evidence is not conclusive, but the optics are striking. In one of his first diplomatic moves after winning the presidency, Prabowo flew to Beijing — even before formally taking office. He later signed a joint statement with China, which many in the region saw as overly conciliatory, particularly regarding the South China Sea, where the two nations have overlapping claims.
Meanwhile, at the St Petersburg International Economic Forum, Prabowo praised China and Russia as countries “without double standards,” raising eyebrows given both countries’ questionable records on sovereignty, repression and international norms. His absence from the G7 summit only deepened the perception of lean.
Indonesia has good reasons to challenge the dominance of Western institutions. Western powers have long wielded influence in ways that often ignore or exploit the interests of the Global South. The failures are real — from broken climate finance promises, to selective outrage over territorial violations, to a rules-based order applied unequally. Indonesia is right to demand reform.
But opposing Western hypocrisy should not mean excusing the same behaviors when they come from elsewhere.
This is the core danger of being seen as part of an “anti-Western axis”: it casts foreign policy not as a principled stand, but as an act of alignment — the very thing Indonesia’s bebas aktif doctrine was designed to avoid.
That doctrine, which has guided Indonesia since the Cold War, rests on two pillars: independence and active engagement. It allowed Indonesia to work with all sides without serving any. It’s what gave Jakarta the credibility to lead the Non-Aligned Movement and host the Bandung Conference. And it remains one of Indonesia’s most strategic diplomatic assets.
But independence is not neutrality. And active engagement means speaking up, especially when it’s inconvenient.
Indonesia’s foreign policy cannot succeed if it avoids difficult conversations. Jakarta must be willing to call out abuses of power wherever they occur: in the West, yes, but also in China, Russia and other BRICS members. Remaining silent on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine or downplaying China’s human rights violations in Xinjiang doesn’t look like independent diplomacy. It looks like avoidance.
Indonesia’s power lies in its ability to serve as a bridge — between the developed and developing world, between major powers and emerging ones. But bridges require trust. And trust comes from consistency.
Right now, that consistency is in question. If Indonesia speaks forcefully against Western double standards but not against the violations of its new BRICS partners, it risks being seen as selective rather than principled.
Indonesia should engage the West and the non-West. It should deepen cooperation with China and maintain strong ties with the US, Europe and Japan. It should continue playing an active role in ASEAN and take full advantage of its BRICS membership to promote reform of global governance.
But with every new partnership comes a harder obligation: the obligation to hold partners accountable. This is especially critical as BRICS – now expanded to include Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa, Egypt, Iran, the UAE and Indonesia, thus representing more than half the world’s population – itself evolves.
What started as an economic bloc is now drifting into the realm of political identity. With members like Russia and China in the fold, BRICS risks becoming more about opposition to the West than about offering meaningful alternatives. Indonesia’s job is not to amplify that drift — it’s to anchor the bloc in something more constructive.
At the Rio summit, Prabowo rightly invoked the legacy of Bandung. But Bandung was not about polite diplomacy. It was about bold leadership from the Global South — leadership that challenged colonialism, injustice and domination in all forms. That legacy only lives on if Indonesia is willing to confront power, not just shift its gaze from one pole to another.
The world doesn’t need another country choosing sides. It needs countries willing to speak honestly to all sides. That is the test Indonesia now faces.
At BRICS, Indonesia took a step onto a bigger stage. What it says next — and who it’s willing to say it to — will determine whether it becomes a global leader or just another cautious voice in a crowded room.
Muhammad Zulfikar Rakhmat is director of the China-Indonesia Desk at Center of Economic and Law Studies (CELIOS).