[A year ago, in June 2025], China imposed a 20% anti-dumping tariff on stainless steel from Indonesia … The penalty will remain in place for five years. But the real story isn’t the tariff. It’s the reckoning behind it: Indonesia is losing control of its most prized asset. And it has only itself to blame …
The country may sit on the world’s largest nickel reserves, but China holds the value—and the power. That imbalance didn’t happen by accident. It was the result of weak governance, poor planning, and a political system too eager to please investors rather than protect national interests …
The recent tariff from Beijing underscores just how exposed Jakarta has become. “The anti-dumping duty will erode the competitiveness of Indonesian products due to shrinking profit margins,” said Sudirman Widhy Hartono, chair of the Indonesian Mining Experts Association (Perhapi) …
Around a quarter of Indonesia’s exports go to China (mainly commodities such as Nickel, mineral fuels, steel), and 36% of its imports come from China (machinery, electronic equipment, vehicles, plastics). Indonesia’s trade volume with China is higher than with the entire ASEAN.
With more debt owed to China (the bond buyers are China-linked investors only), Indonesia’s dependence on China is likely set to rise, the island country’s industrial development about to slow down.
Why? The article linked in this comment says it clear, using the Nickel industry as an example as Indonesia has the world’s largest nickel reserves:
This isn’t the end stage of Indonesia’s nickel policy. It’s the middle. For all the talk of “downstreaming,” most of what Indonesia produces—nickel pig iron (NPI), ferronickel, and stainless steel billets—are still intermediate products. “They’re not the final products of nickel downstreaming,” Sudirman noted. “The domestic downstream industry is still not developed. Nearly all NPI and stainless steel is still exported abroad.”
Why didn’t Indonesia develop those downstream industries? The answer, in part, is corruption.
From sweetheart land deals to opaque tax incentives, many of the major industrial projects were fast-tracked with little transparency and minimal safeguards. Environmental and labor regulations were ignored. Licensing became transactional. Strategic decisions were too often made behind closed doors, benefiting a narrow circle of elites rather than the broader public.
Chinese companies, predictably, capitalized. They responded to the incentives they were given—cheap land, tax holidays, and a compliant regulatory environment. They brought capital and technology, but on their terms. Indonesia never set the rules of the game. It simply played along …
This bond will not cut dependence on the US dollar, it will increase dependence on China’s coercive policies, making Indonesia more vulnerable for Beijing’s coercion such as tariffs and other punishable trade measure.
It’s almost funny that whenever the Florida man imposes tariffs, the media is full of (absolutely justified) critique. If China creates the same trade restrictions, the media is largely silent. As if it made any difference.
As it has long been reported, Indonesia’s over-reliance on China is a warning for other Global South countries,
Around a quarter of Indonesia’s exports go to China (mainly commodities such as Nickel, mineral fuels, steel), and 36% of its imports come from China (machinery, electronic equipment, vehicles, plastics). Indonesia’s trade volume with China is higher than with the entire ASEAN.
With more debt owed to China (the bond buyers are China-linked investors only), Indonesia’s dependence on China is likely set to rise, the island country’s industrial development about to slow down.
Why? The article linked in this comment says it clear, using the Nickel industry as an example as Indonesia has the world’s largest nickel reserves:
This bond will not cut dependence on the US dollar, it will increase dependence on China’s coercive policies, making Indonesia more vulnerable for Beijing’s coercion such as tariffs and other punishable trade measure.
It’s almost funny that whenever the Florida man imposes tariffs, the media is full of (absolutely justified) critique. If China creates the same trade restrictions, the media is largely silent. As if it made any difference.