Why Indonesia joins BRICS and still remains independent
In January 2025, Indonesia surprisingly joined the BRICS community of states. This raised concerns among Western observers that Indonesia could abandon its traditional foreign policy position of ‘non-alignment’ and move closer to China and Russia. However, the accession is actually part of the Indonesian government's strategy to integrate its own country into the most important multilateral formats. It is therefore not a contradiction for Indonesia to push for its own accession to the OECD at the same time. The Western international community should support Indonesia's integration efforts and make concrete offers of cooperation to the Indonesian government. Indonesia's BRICS accession could then even have a positive effect for the West and strengthen the balance within the BRICS - and thus weaken China's dominant influence in the group.
