Indonesia’s Joko Widodo urges China to ‘use its influence’ to prevent rise in conflict in Middle East

Indonesia’s President Joko Widodo has urged China to use its influence to prevent an escalation of the conflict in the Middle East, as both nations voiced support for Palestinian membership in the United Nations.

Widodo met Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi on Thursday, with China’s top diplomat on a two-day visit to the Southeast Asian nation, where he is set to attend the China-Indonesia High-level Dialogue Cooperation Mechanism in Labuan Bajo in East Nusa Tenggara on Friday.

On Thursday, Wang also held a meeting with his Indonesian counterpart Retno Marsudi and defence minister and president-elect Prabowo Subianto.

“The president emphasised that no party wants to see an escalation [of the conflict in the Middle East], and Mr President said that Indonesia continues to carry out diplomatic communications with various parties including Iran and the United States,” Retno told reporters after the Widodo-Wang meeting.

“Mr President also expressed his confidence that China would also use its influence so that escalation could be prevented,” Retno said, adding that Indonesia and China “fully support Palestine’s membership in the UN”.

In the meeting, Widodo also encouraged China to invest in the 466 trillion rupiah (US$28 billion) new capital city currently being built in East Kalimantan, particularly in developing modes of transport there, as well as investing the North Kalimantan industrial park, especially in the petrochemical sector, Retno said.

China is Indonesia’s biggest trade partner, as trade volume between the two countries last year reached US$127 billion, and its second-biggest foreign investor last year with realised investment of US$7.4 billion, behind Singapore’s US$15.4 billion.

Both sides agreed on focused areas in