{"id":608196,"date":"2026-04-15T09:50:08","date_gmt":"2026-04-15T09:50:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/608196\/"},"modified":"2026-04-15T09:50:08","modified_gmt":"2026-04-15T09:50:08","slug":"indonesia-france-agree-to-boost-defence-industry-ties","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/608196\/","title":{"rendered":"Indonesia, France agree to boost defence industry ties"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Jakarta, while defending a non-aligned diplomatic posture, last year joined the BRICS bloc of emerging economies that includes Russia and US-rival China.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Prabowo has also signed a trade deal with US President Donald Trump and joined his so-called &#8220;Board of Peace&#8221;, although has insisted his country would not pay the US$1 billion joining fee for permanent membership.<\/p>\n<p>Indonesia is a major arms buyer from France, with then-Defence Minister Prabowo inking a US$8.1 billion deal in 2022 to purchase 42 French-made Rafale jets.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Prabowo, a former military general who was elected president in 2024, has sought to modernise Indonesia&#8217;s ageing military assets.<\/p>\n<p>On Monday, US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth hosted Indonesian counterpart Sjafrie Sjamsoeddin and announced a &#8220;Major Defence Cooperation Partnership&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>A joint statement underlined the countries&#8217; &#8220;shared commitment to maintaining peace and stability in the Indo-Pacific&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>Indonesia is strategically located on the Malacca Strait &#8211; the world&#8217;s busiest chokepoint for oil and petroleum liquids, according to the US Energy Information Administration (EIA).<\/p>\n<p>The vast majority of China-bound oil travels through Malacca Strait.<\/p>\n<p>Jakarta on Tuesday said it was still considering a US request for &#8220;overflight clearance&#8221; which, if approved, analysts say could be seen as an alignment with Washington over Beijing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jakarta, while defending a non-aligned diplomatic posture, last year joined the BRICS bloc of emerging economies that includes&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":608197,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[64,63,3403,75,2592,4805,49944,128],"class_list":{"0":"post-608196","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-environment","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-defence","11":"tag-environment","12":"tag-france","13":"tag-indonesia","14":"tag-prabowo-subianto","15":"tag-science"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/608196","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=608196"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/608196\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/608197"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=608196"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=608196"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=608196"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}