From The Perspective Of Structural Realism, Indonesia's Joko Government's "Global Ocean Pivot" Strategy

The Global Maritime Fulcrum strategy is the cornerstone of Indonesia Joko government's middle-power strategy,with the aim of building Indonesia into a major maritime power in the Indo-Pacific region.Exploring the motivations of the Global Maritime Fulcrum strategy proposed by the Joko government is helpful to understand the strategic considerations of the Joko government,carry out the cooperation between China and Indonesia in a targeted way,and promote the in-depth development of bilateral relations.The analysis using structural realism theory and middle power theory found that,compared with the great powers which are very sensitive to the changes of the international system structure,the middle powers pay more attention to the changes of the regional power structure.Their strategy has its own features.It takes independence and regional dominance as the fundamental goal,and makes comprehensive use of multilateral cooperation,balanced diplomacy of great powers and coordinated participation to achieve the goal.This paper argues that the relative decline of the US and the rise of China have caused the change of international system structure,Sino-US strategic competition and the rise of India have made the Indo-Pacific region become the center of global geopolitics,and the geographical importance of Southeast Asia has also increased.The change of regional power structure prompted the Joko government to adjust the middle power strategy.Coupled with the increasingly fierce geostrategic competition between China and the United States on the ocean,the Joko government followed the trend and shifted the focus of the national strategy to the ocean,borrowed from both sides of China and the United States to develop maritime forces,and proposed the strategy of Global Maritime Fulcrum.