China floats submarine offer to Indonesia as geopolitical calculations weigh

Representatives from the China State Shipbuilding Corporation (CSSC) have been travelling to Jakarta in recent months, with the latest reported visit on July 4, to offer Indonesia’s defence ministry S26T diesel-electric submarines (SSK) and guided-missile destroyers at a discounted price.

The ministry was quoted in local media as confirming the submarine offer but said the process was still at the “proposal stage”.

The visits by the CSSC executives came after the Asia-Pacific Defence Journal reported that the Indonesian navy was said to have shown interest in January in procuring a Chinese-made YJ-12E coastal missile system.

If confirmed, the purchases would align with the third stage of Indonesia’s Minimum Essential Force plan (MEF), a blueprint outlined in 2009 to modernise the country’s ageing military hardware.

Despite China’s offer of new submarines and other defence equipment, Indonesia has been “lukewarm” in its interest in developing a defence-industrial partnership with Beijing even though the two countries established a strategic partnership in 2005, analysts say.

These new procurements, if confirmed, would mark a shift in Indonesia’s defence relations with China, particularly as Jakarta has previously only acquired minor equipment from Beijing, said Anastasia Febiola, a research coordinator and manager of consultancy firm Semar Sentinel Indonesia.

Thus far, Indonesia has procured C-705 and C-802 anti-ship missiles, uninhabited aerial vehicles and self-propelled air defence systems from China. According to the International Institute for Strategic Studies, these recent defence procurement programmes with China represented a mere 0.09 per cent of the total US$30 billion worth of defence-import deals signed by Jakarta