| Abstrakt: |
The United States and its allies and partners should increase their focus on Borneo, as Indonesia begins breaking ground1 on its ambitious project to relocate its national capital to the Indonesian part of the island starting in 2024. The Indonesian government says it wants its new capital, Nusantara, to be environment-friendly, but skeptics fear that the capital relocation project could damage Borneo's matchless environment, symbolized by primordial rainforests and magnificent orangutans. Regardless, the project is proceeding and, once Indonesia moves its capital, Borneo will become the only island to be the home to national capitals of two different members (Indonesia and Brunei Darussalam) of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN.) For Malaysia too, Borneo will continue to be crucial, as shown by constitutional changes in 2021 affirming the unique status of Sabah and Sarawak as Malaysia's "Borneo States." The United States and its partners should continue to collaborate with Brunei, Indonesia, and Malaysia to apply in Borneo the kinds of ideas for enhanced regional engagement outlined by US Secretary of State Antony Blinken in his "A Free and Open Indo-Pacific" speech delivered on 14 December 2021 in Indonesia. Just as China is increasing its investments in Borneo, the United States and its partners should increase their investments and engagements in Borneo, with an emphasis on environmental, economic, and security issues, as a key part of the effort to achieve the strategic ends identified in the February 2022 US Indo-Pacific Strategy3: "advance a free and open Indo-Pacific that is more connected, prosperous, secure, and resilient." At the same time, Brunei, Indonesia, and Malaysia could, if they wished, use the East Asia Summit (EAS) process to arrange in the early 2030s to host the Indo-Pacific region's leaders--including those of Australia, China, India, Japan, Russia, and the United States--for an unprecedented three summits in five years on Borneo, as a way of highlighting Borneo's emerging role as a symbol of ASEAN centrality. Historically, Borneo was the island crucible in which ASEAN was forged, as a forward-looking regional diplomatic response to the tensions that had plagued Borneo and the surrounding areas during the Indonesia-Malaysia confrontation or "Konfrontasi" in the early 1960s. Now Borneo is emerging as another kind of crucible, one in which ASEAN's future will take shape. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] |
