Chinese leaders were prepared to make a distinction between state-to-
state and party-to-party relations in their pursuit of China’s national
interests. This provided a space which worried some Southeast Asian
leaders, but in which others learned to move.
Indonesia, the other newly independent state in Southeast Asia to
recognise the PRC, did so with some reluctance, and with very different
motives. Like Burma, Indonesia was preoccupied with its own internal
affairs. Like Burma, it sought to create a strong and unified state out of
the wreckage of war and division. Both countries were multi-ethnic and
both were vulnerable to regional and ethnic separatism. There similari-
ties ended, however. Indonesia might be spread across more than 16 000
islands, but its frontiers were not in question (except with respect to
West Irian), and did not abut China. Nor did Indonesia have to contend
with a communist insurgency, though it did still have a small but active
communist party. From an Indonesian point of view, therefore, China
did not pose an immediate security threat.
From its inception, Indonesian security concerns were internal
rather than external. The first priority was to build a nation. President
Sukarno worked tirelessly to promote an ‘archipelagic outlook’, incor-
porating islands and waters in a single political whole that subsumed
all ethnic and cultural differences. But differences remained. ‘Unity in
Diversity’ was an appropriate national motto, but the unity had con-
tinuously to be constructed. Nationalist historiography harked back to
the great Javanese kingdom of Majapahit to provide historical legit-
imisation for the modern Indonesian state. But though Javanese
kingdoms had dominated parts of the archipelago, Majapahit had
never extended its sway across all of Indonesia’s islands, many of which
resented Javanese domination. Territorial integrity was thus threat-
ened more by the prospect of internal secession than by external
aggression.
‘Unity in Diversity’ applied not only to ethnic and cultural
divisions, but religious divisions as well. Though Indonesia was over-
whelmingly Muslim, like India its nationalism was largely secular.
Communism and the Cold War