ABSTRACT
Chapter 9 investigates the BRI in Indonesia in the context of historic colonialism legacy and modern developmental aspirations. The Dutch and Japanese historic involvement offer insights that enrich the local perspective of the BRI. The chapter discusses Jakarta’s rail mass-transit megaprojects, the BRI Jakarta-Bandung HSR and the planning of the Garuda Seawall – a major flood-mitigation infrastructure and new city project that strongly reflects the aspirations of the Indonesian government and politicians, especially for Jakarta as a modern metropolis that can compete with other South-East Asian urban hubs. These projects provide a sense of the country’s ‘infrastructure deficit’ and the context for the involvement of and investments from various foreign governments and consultants. This includes the Dutch on the Garuda Seawall project and the Japanese – who provided planning and development expertise via JICA, particularly on rail development – and the more recent and increasing influence of China, in their wide-ranging infrastructure projects across the archipelago. Significantly, the competition for the Jakarta-Bandung High-Speed Rail (HSR) between the Japanese and the Chinese is consistent with geopolitical contestations elsewhere. The chapter interrogates whether Chinese BRI in Indonesia is comparable/has parallels to past colonial Dutch and present Dutch government involvement in major infrastructure development in Indonesia, sustaining the ‘colonial gaze’ upon the country.
