ABSTRACT
It has been argued in Chapter 4 that Indonesian foreign policy under Suharto’s New Order regime was reoriented to serve domestic political and economic interests of the state. In that context, the presence of Islamic dimensions in Indonesian foreign policy during the most part of Suharto’s New Order period had been cautiously managed and subject to the government’s control. It also reflected the tension between Islam and the state whose origins can be traced back to the process of state-identity formation prior to independence and then during the first decade of the post-colonial period. Fearing that Islam could pose a significant challenge to the New Order regime, President Suharto and the military sought to “sterilise” politics of Islamic content. The government, however, realised also that Islam could not be disregarded entirely. For that reason, the presence of the Islamic factor in foreign policy, albeit limited, was only allowed when it served the interests of the ruling regime.
