Indonesia joined seven other Muslim-majority nations Tuesday in signing onto President Donald Trump's newly announced "Board of Peace," a move that tests Jakarta's traditional foreign policy balance and raises questions about ASEAN's commitment to non-alignment.
The White House announcement, confirmed by Reuters, listed Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Egypt, Jordan, Indonesia, Pakistan, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates as founding members of the initiative, which Trump described as aimed at "bringing stability to troubled regions."
For Indonesia - a founding member of the Non-Aligned Movement and ASEAN's largest economy - joining a U.S.-led geopolitical initiative marks a significant departure from President Prabowo Subianto's stated commitment to bebas-aktif foreign policy, the doctrine of "free and active" neutrality that has guided Indonesian diplomacy since independence.
"This is unprecedented," said Evan Laksmana, a senior fellow at the National University of Singapore's Centre for Strategic Futures. "Indonesia has spent decades avoiding exactly this kind of alignment. The question is whether Prabowo sees this as complementary to ASEAN or a hedge against regional irrelevance."
Ten countries, 700 million people, one region - and for decades, ASEAN's strength has come from collective non-alignment. Individual members pursuing bilateral arrangements with great powers threatens that unity.
