China and Indonesia Make up: Reflections on a Troubled Relationship

Abstract

In February 1989 I was in Jakarta covering JIM II, the second Jakarta informal meeting on Cambodia, for the BBC World Service. Like so many other peace initiatives on that troubled country in recent years, the meeting ended in dismal failure on the night of February 22. Feeling weary and despondent I retired to my hotel. To my surprise, there was a message to telephone a long-standing contact in the foreign ministry. We spoke about the failure of the peace talks, my contact ending the conversation by saying cryptically, Be prepared for a big story tomorrow. In the morning, before an early flight to Singapore, I rang a friend on Suara Pembaruan. After coaxing, she told me that President Suharto would meet that day in Tokyo with Qian Qichen, the Chinese foreign minister. On reaching Singapore, I filed the story, pleasing editors in London when the BBC was the first to break the news that Indonesia and China had agreed to normalize their relations after a break of almost a quarter of a century.