On 29 July, Ambassador Lu Kang gave an exclusive interview to TVRI’s Talking Point Program on China-Indonesia relations, President Joko Widodo’s successful visit to China, and Indonesia’s presidency of G20, etc., which was broadcast on 10 August. Following is the full text of the transcript.

    Host: Hello, everybody. Welcome to Talking Point. I’m Cisca Becker. I’ll be your host for this edition of Talking Point where I’ll be talking with a very special guest, His Excellency, Lu Kang, the Ambassador of the People’s Republic of China. Hello, Your Excellency.

Ambassador Lu Kang: Good morning, Cisca.

Host: Good morning. First of all, please allow me to express my gratitude. Thank you so much for this amazing opportunity to talk with you in your residence. Thank you for having us here.

Ambassador Lu Kang: It’s good to have you here.

   Segment I: Indonesia’s Presidency of G20

Host: Now I want to talk to you about your take on one of the biggest role of Indonesia in the diplomatic relations right now, the presidency of the G20. Now, based on your geopolitical knowledge and also your diplomatic experience, how do you see Indonesia’s role as it is now called the presidency of the G20?

Ambassador Lu Kang: The first sentence I might say is that it’s not an easy year for Indonesia to host G20. The second sentence I would like to say is that we congratulate Indonesia for all its efforts to proceed with the agenda agreed upon by all members of G20 this year. Especially you know that just in the beginning of this month, Indonesia very successfully hosted the G20 Foreign Ministers’ Meeting in Bali. It was for the first time, according to my memory, that Indonesia managed to get all members sit down together under the same roof and discuss about all those important issues. So you know that actually, this year is not easy for Indonesia and for all members of G20 because of the geopolitical issue in Europe and all its impact on the international arena. And secondly, the economic recovery from pandemic has not been easy for the vast majority of the world, especially for the developing countries. So it’s a very tough job for Indonesia this year, but Indonesia has got the support from almost all members of G20, especially from China.

Host: Now, as you said, we do have many challenges ahead. Everywhere on the world, we are facing so many challenges because of the pandemic and also the geopolitical instability. But when people say there are challenges, there’s also opportunity. Now, based on your experience, what do you think would be the best way of Indonesia to cement their position in the global diplomatic relationship with its presidency of the G20?

Ambassador Lu Kang: Stick to the principles. Indonesia is very famous for its traditional principle in its foreign policy. That’s independent policy. So from the very beginning, I think the Indonesian Government was quite right in sticking to the principles of G20. For example, on the participation, all members are equal. So it should include the representation of all members, whether they have different opinions on this or other issues. And secondly, stick to the main theme, not only agreed upon by the members already, but also exactly address what are the pressing issues for today’s world. The main theme designed and decided by Indonesian Government for this year’s G20—Recover Together, Recover Stronger—is very, very relevant. So in spite of what happened, actually during the whole process, and in spite of different opinions, I think Indonesian Government was very good in sticking to this main theme.

Host: Now, one of the main challenges, as you also mentioned before, is the economic recovery, especially post-pandemic. How do you think the role of Indonesia, as it holds the G20 presidency, on the global economic recovery?

Ambassador Lu Kang: Indonesia is not only the host of G20 for this year. Indonesia is also a very important emerging economy and also a very important developing country. So it understands and shares a lot of common interests and common grounds with those who need most help in capacity building, in addressing their difficulties, and in lack of sufficient capacity in getting out of the difficulties from the pandemic. So that’s why if you look at the agenda set for not only the ministerial meetings, but even for the coming summit, I think all those topics are quite relevant for the developing countries. So this is a very special role. This is a very unique role that Indonesian Government could play. And China supports that.

Host: I could tell from your assessment so far that you follow the G20 and all the meetings and what’s been happening around it. Maybe you also know about one of the most talked about talking point of the G20 and Indonesia’s role in it, that Indonesia is determined to bring all the G20 members to come to the summit in mid-November this year. How do you think Indonesia should do in order to get all the 20 members of the G20 to attend?

Ambassador Lu Kang: As I told you just now, actually Indonesia has already succeeded in getting all members under the same roof discussing the same topic just in this month, in Bali, during the Foreign Ministers’ Meeting. So it’s very important that Indonesian Government and all those supporting this idea should make the idea that all members are equal members of G20, and make this perception prevailing among all the multilateral arena.

Host: Okay. Maybe you also heard about how the whole world watched President Joko Widodo when he visited Russia and also Ukraine. What is your take on that?

Ambassador Lu Kang: We appreciate that a lot. Actually, during President Jokowi’s recent visit to China, he also received great thumbs up from the Chinese leadership on this. He is not easy to mediate on this very difficult and tough issue. But President Jokowi was courageous enough to do so. And he did get some achievements on this.

Host: Okay. Because as we discussed earlier, there’s a lot of political instability going on around the world right now. In every part of the world, there are parts of the world where they have people from opposing ideology, in conflict and other parts of the world are also facing a lot of difficulties. How do you think Indonesia can help in shaping the stability to be back in the world, especially with its role as the G20 presidency?

Ambassador Lu Kang: To advocate kind of inclusiveness on all today’s topical issues. In today’s world, in this great international community, you have countries from various backgrounds, have different priorities in their development, and might have different preferences in their own way of development.   But we always believe that, and I think that’s also the perception of the Indonesian Government, only the people in one country know what best fits into their own interests, what is the best way of development. So we always believe that we should respect the legitimate and equal rights of each people to choose their own way of development. And on the international arena, we should also respect the legitimate and equal rights for all members of international community to participate in the equal way on all the international issues. So this is something, I think Indonesian Government, in light of its principled position of independent policy, is still pursuing.

Host: Thank you so much, Ambassador. It’s been very enlightening so far. We’re going to take a little bit break, but we’ll be back soon.

Ambassador Lu Kang: OK.

Host: Everybody. Please stay right here at Talking Point. We’ll be right back with His Excellency Lu Kang, the Ambassador of the People’s Republic of China.

   Segment II: Ambassador Lu’s Experience Living in Indonesia

Host: You’re still watching Talking Point, and I’ll continue my discussion with His Excellency Lu Kang, the Ambassador of the People’s Republic of China. Now, first, I would like to give you also a belated welcome to Jakarta.

Ambassador Lu Kang: Thank you very much.

Host: Since you’ve been here for about five months.

Ambassador Lu Kang: A little bit more than five months.

Host: Now I just want to ask you, how are you enjoying your post so far in Indonesia?

Ambassador Lu Kang: It’s a great pleasure for me to serve as China’s Ambassador to Indonesia. In the past 5 months, I also enjoyed my life, my acquaintance with all the colleagues and friends here. The only problem is that my friends here kept me very busy. I did not spare much time actually for leisure and touring around.

Host: Ooh. I was just gonna ask, do you have time to visit any tourist destinations or maybe learn about the culture here in Indonesia?

Ambassador Lu Kang: I tried. But as I said the schedule has been very busy, but it’s good, because these busy schedules reflect or demonstrate the very close relationship and the interaction between our two countries. But I did try with my colleagues in the Embassy. I had a travel to Bogor. And also I did have some chance to travel to Bali Island. And I actually I love the paintings in Ubud very much.

Host: Yeah. Now I must say that one of my most favorite food in the world is Chinese food.

Ambassador Lu Kang: Thank you.

Host: But because I’m Indonesian. I’ve lived in Indonesia my whole life. When I say Chinese food, of course I mean Indonesian Chinese food. I’m just wondering have you tried Indonesian Chinese food? And how does it compare to Chinese food back home?

Ambassador Lu Kang: Okay. The food I take the most of course is Chinese food in my residence in the Chinese embassy. But I do find whenever I traveled around, especially outside Jakarta, actually I did have a lot of chance to try some local food here. I find a lot of similarities between the Indonesian food and Chinese food. For example, people take a lot of rice, both in China and here Indonesia. And there are some food and some cuisine that are almost the same, like tofu, noodle, and the spring roll. You can find them almost everywhere in China as well.

Host: The cuisine here is actually very much influenced by Chinese cuisine and we cannot live without rice. So we have that also in common. Can you tell us what’s your favorite Indonesian food so far?

Ambassador Lu Kang: I hope I could try more, but so far according to a very limited experience, when I was in Bali, I tried the Bebek Bengil (sorry for my pronunciation), and also the oxtail soup.

Host: Sop Buntut.

Ambassador Lu: Yeah. Sorry for my pronunciation. I try to catch up with my Bahasa.

Host: Okay. The fastest way, the easiest way to get to Indonesian’s hearts are through the stomachs. I think it’s the same way with Chinese people. We all love to eat, we all love to feast. So maybe food diplomacy can also be a way to get closer to the Indonesian people. Now, I also want to tell you about a personal experience of mine. When I visited China back in 2011, it was a long time ago, I visited Xi’an. It was very interesting. There was like a very famous historical site, the terracotta warriors. But what caught my attention is how all the majority of people there were Muslims. And it was very fascinating to see there were a lot of similarities as well, with the cultural dancing, the culture. It’s very similar to Indonesia. And I was wondering, did you notice the same thing when you came to Indonesia and saw the culture here？

Ambassador Lu Kang:Yeah. Actually during the past five months, I did have some chance to visit some mosques and also to visit some Muslim groups here. Many of them told me that, for those who have been to China, they were very impressed about the Muslim groups, the mosques and the life, just the routine life of their Muslim brothers and sisters in China. So I don’t find too much differences between all those routine life, normal practice, and also the Muslim rules here in Indonesia and also in China. But as I told you, hopefully after G20 this year, I could spend more time to travel more around.

Host: I wish you have the chance as well. So there’s actually a lot of opportunities for collaborations between China and Indonesia. But there’s actually one project that is still is going on right now and is taking a lot of attention between Indonesia and china, which is the Jakarta Bandung High Speed Train. Could you please tell us what’s the progress on that project? And how do you think Indonesia can take advantage of this project?

Ambassador Lu Kang: I have visited this project on site for a couple of times already. This one has been what we call a flagship project in the whole process of cooperation between China and Indonesia. Definitely that will benefit people a lot. I found that the whole project has been going very recently now and almost over 91 % of the construction are already there, and we already witnessed the breakthrough of all the thirteen tunnels along the railroad. So it seems that all relevant agencies in charge of that on both sides and all the participating companies, the workers, they cooperate very well. I think, after talking to all my counterparts from the Indonesian Government and also the participating companies, we found that we have sufficient confidence that it will be completed on schedule by June next year. That’s already announced by President Jokowi. All the participating workers have such confidence.

Host: Okay. That’s very exciting to hear. We look forward to more advancements on this project. So everyone can benefit.

Ambassador Lu Kang: Definitely, that will actually very much shorten the commuting time from more than 3 hours now between these two may metropolitans to around just 40 minutes. That will create at least 5,000 jobs along the line. And definitely that will facilitate the flow of people and flow of goods. And that will create a lot of more potentials for the business and tourism around this region. This part, so far as I understand, is the most densely populated part of Indonesia.

Host: That’s true. Now, when we talk about this project, everybody is so optimistic. And I just want to ask that, with the geopolitical landscape now shifting a bit where China is becoming more and more at the front of technological investments, what do you think of the chances of more projects like this happening between China and Indonesia?

Ambassador Lu Kang: First of all, I think both governments, both sides would like to have this one accomplished on schedule. That could set a very good example. And then when people see the benefits, I think more and more people will be more enthusiastic about this kind of projects. We appreciate very much the determination and efforts by the Indonesian Government to upgrade its industry, to speed up economic growth and to march better off people’s livelihood here. So there are lots of potentials. And for me, after my discussion with many of the Chinese investors here, we also see the enthusiasm of coming to Indonesia. Just a couple of days ago, when President Jokowi was in Beijing, both governments agreed that we should extend the cooperation within the framework of China’s Belt and Road Initiative and also Indonesian Government’s advocating for the  Global Maritime Fulcrum. Those are very important strategic frameworks.

Host: All right. Mr. Ambassador, thank you so much for sharing with us your personal experience and very valuable insights. I wanna talk to you more about the relation between China and Indonesia. But first we’re going to take another little break. Don’t go anywhere. We’ll be right back right after this. 

   Segment III: China-Indonesia Relations

Host: You are still watching Talking Point. And now we’ll be talking about China-Indonesia relations with His Excellency Lu Kang, the People’s Republic of China’s Ambassador. Your Excellency, everybody is so excited to know that President Joko Widodo has finally arrived in China two days ago to meet with President Xi Jinping and hold a meeting there. Now, how do you see the progress between our two nations in terms of bilateral relations?

Ambassador Lu Kang: Actually, he has been the first ever foreign head of state visiting Beijing ever since the Beijing Winter Olympic Games. I would rather say, actually, he has been the first one in the past two and half years visiting China. It’s a very special arrangement. The hospitality he received in Beijing is very warming. This was a very important visit. And if you look at the readouts from both sides, a lot of deliverables have been reached in a very short visit, just within one day.

I think there are three dimensions that we should pay attention to.

First, after the discussion of the two heads of state, both Governments commit themselves to building a China-Indonesia community with a shared future. We have already been comprehensive strategic partners ever since the year 2013. That already laid a good basis for our cooperation on all fronts. And this framework, when it’s in place, I mean the community with a shared future, will definitely provide even broader and sounder framework to strengthen our bilateral cooperation and make our ties and bonds even tighter.

The second dimension we should look at is the areas that both Governments agree to explore more opportunities for cooperation, not only, for example, on those traditional areas, like infrastructure, like agriculture. We make some further commitments that China would like to import more not only pineapple, but also other agricultural goods. We also commit to importing 1 million additional tons of crude palm oil, but also in some new areas, like what President Jokowi and the Indonesian Government attach importance to, for example, the digital economy, the green economy. Actually, they outlined all those areas that both parties have interests and potential of the capacity to work on. Besides a joint press statement, covering the agreements of our two heads of state, both governments also signed several documents governing the cooperation in all the areas.

And the third dimension I think we have to look at is both Governments agree that in today’s world, China and Indonesia, as two major developing countries and emerging economies, we share a lot of common grounds. We share a lot of common interest, and we share a lot of common responsibilities that we should work together and mobilize the international forces to address those pressing issues in today’s world, especially for the interests and benefits of developing countries, which as I said might be in lack of sufficient capacity in getting out of poverty, in building up their own capacities, in dressing today’s problems.

Host: Okay. Thank you for laying out all the basic principles that were discussed in the meeting. But I have a follow-up question that might be the most sought after by economists, especially in Indonesia. Do you think there is any chance to review Indonesia’s debt since China is one of the donor countries for Indonesia?

Ambassador Lu Kang: The debt issue is something people talk a lot these days, but I don’t think Indonesia people should be very much worried about that. According to what I learn from the data, from the stats, promulgated by World Bank and IMF, actually the economic and financial situation of Indonesia is in very good shape. Even we look at the past two quarters of this year, the increase rate of your foreign debt is much lower than your GDP growth rate. If we come to the specific national proportion of your foreign debt, China is holding no more than 1%. It’s just some 0.7 or 0.8 % of Indonesia’s foreign debt. And I think the number one is Singapore and the number two, number three are the U.S. and Japan. So I don’t think that’s a big problem for Indonesian people to worry about. And when we come to the foreign debt, I know that actually it’s already a topical issue on headlines of quite a few media. And some people also talk about what’s China’s responsibility on this foreign debt when they talk about Africa and some other developing countries. I have to say that people should look at exact data, and should not just follow what people might allege for whatever reason. For example, let’s come to Africa. According to what has been already promulgated by the World Bank, for all the foreign debts from Africa, china only accounted for no more than 12 % of that, but more than one third,  more than 35 % of that were held by the Western financing agencies. So that’s why, among all the international and multilateral frameworks, like G20, China has always advocated with many other developing countries’ governments that the Western government should urge those financing agencies to participate in the debt relief initiative within the G20 framework. That’s much more important.

Host: Thank you for that very valuable insight, Ambassador. Now I wanna go back to president Joko Widodo’s visit to China. We saw that the China Daily, which is one of the biggest newspapers in China reported on the meeting and actually put it on the front page for two days in a row. How big is this meeting gonna have as an impact between the China-Indonesia relations and President Joko Widodo’s profile in China?

Ambassador Lu Kang: Actually, I saw that on the Chinese media and also here, the coverage on President Jokowi’s visit to China has also been on almost all the media in these couple of days. This is a very important visit. We always believe that the visit by or the exchanges between the heads of state could always give a strategic guidance and strong impetus to our bilateral relationship. So you see what came out from this visit. As I said, both presidents agree that we should work together to build a community for share future. That provides a very sound and very broad framework to explore all the possibilities and potentials of our bilateral relationship. And also, you see, people are quite enthusiastic in Beijing about President Jokowi’s visit. You can see the national flag of our two countries along the many roads, along the high speed way connecting the capital and also the airport. And that also keep people’s awareness again about the importance of this bilateral relationship. Because in today’s world, in the context of the difficulties of economic recovery for almost all countries, our two countries have a lot of potentials to carry out more cooperation that could benefit our two peoples and even this region at large. And also that will bring about the awareness of our two peoples that how important it will be for our two Governments and our two countries to work together on all the international arena to address all those global challenges. That could much better benefit not only Chinese people and Indonesian people, but all the developing countries.

Host: Okay, now I’m sure you agree that in both of our countries, the media plays a really important role in informing the people on what happenings would benefit them and how they can be up to date with everything that is going on. Now, do you think there’s a chance for the media, from both of our countries from Indonesia and China to have more synergy in collaboration? So we both can maybe celebrate our similarities and cultural similarities that we have, and through the media that we have. Do you think there’s a chance for that?

Ambassador Lu Kang: There’s a lot of chance. Actually, we did have a lot of cooperation before COVID-19. And you could see that we had very frequent and close people-people exchanges, including the media people from both sides. Unfortunately, COVID-19 did have some impact, but even in that context, against that background, we could still see the interest from both sides, I mean from the media people to try to carry out some joint projects, workshops, and try to also carry out some cooperation. Even you have to use ZOOM. But now I already see a lot of requests from the Chinese media group to come to Indonesia in person to have those exchanges and cooperation offline, especially in the context of Indonesia’s hosting of G20. That would be a big event, especially for the media people.

Host: Yes. That would be a great chance for the media to meet up. And think of other collaborations that might happen in the future, TVRI will be more than happy to go to China, to see for ourselves all the beautiful culture, all the delicious food and meet the Chinese people ourselves.

Ambassador Lu Kang: That will happen.

Host: Mr. Ambassador, thank you so much for this amazing opportunity. Thank you for having us in your residence. Hopefully we get to meet again in future events held by the China and Indonesia platform network in global relations. And I wish you all the best for your tenure here in Jakarta, Indonesia.

Ambassador Lu: Thank you very much, Cisca.

Host: Thank you. Thank you for watching Talking Point.