ABSTRACT
The increased maritime cooperation under the revival of the Silk Road theme has been initiated since President Jokowi’s leadership of Indonesia. Many controversial efforts have been implemented since then to materialise this cooperation with China. Yet Indonesian Small Medium Enterprises (SMEs) and cooperatives have been worried by the influx of Chinese products due to their low price. This is not cooperation but the opposite, they compete with one another. However, both Indonesia and Chinese SMEs and cooperatives are donor recipients of European Union (EU) funding, some of which are disbursed through IFIs (International Financial Institutions) in cooperation with both governments. As stated in the Fragile States Index these recipient countries are considered by donor countries to be fragile States. The Triangular Cooperation (TrC) of Indonesia, China and the EU has existed as additional to the South-South cooperation between Indonesia and China. This paper will evaluate the relevance of the EU’s point of view as the donor country using their ten principles to cope with Fragile States, especially in assisting the TheySMEs and cooperatives in both Indonesia and China. Despite the upper position of the EU as the donor country in the lending scheme to China and Indonesia, this higher position of EU has been labelled only ‘normative power’ not the real power, especially when dealing with China as the world’s new superpower.
