Strategic Centrality: Indonesia's Changing Role in ASEAN

"Dr Smith's book is a valuable resource, identifying a number of key issues involving Indonesia and ASEAN that will remain for some time yet" (New Zealand International Review).

This monograph seeks to assess the role that Indonesia has played in ASEAN following the serious economic and political crisis that engulfed the state from late 1997. The paper gives an overview of Indonesian foreign policy since independence, its subsequent relation to ASEAN, and looks at a host of recent challenges, inter alia, the financial crisis, membership expansion, security issues, forest fires and East Timor. It is argued that Indonesia has been unable to maintain the proactive leadership of ASEAN that was a feature of the Soeharto administration.