International Journal of Indonesian Studies Volume 1, Issue 2 | Page 5

International Journal of Indonesian Studies

Autumn 2015

The period of 1949-1955 was a period after the Round Table Conference in which
Indonesia’s governance structure was arranged and the geographic spatial structure of the
Republic of Indonesia defined. At the same time, between April 18-24th 1955 under the
leadership of Ir.Soekarno, Prime Minister, Ali Sastroamidjojo supervised the inaugural AsianAfrican Conference/Bandung Conference and changed Indonesia’s foreign politics in the
direction of developing its status as a new leading power in the anti-colonialism-racialism
movement based around newly independent Asian-African nations. It brought Indonesia
closer to the Soviet Union and the People’s Republic of China/PRC obtaining these
superpowers’ support to press the United Nations on Indonesia’s West Irian problems and
the campaign to reduce the influence in the region of the economic-political power of the
Western Bloc.
However, a contradictory situation occurred after the PRC-Soviet Union was involved
in conflict, leading to the Sino-Soviet split in 1962-1964. It caused turbulence in Indonesia’s
diplomacy and then pressed Ir.Soekarno’s power along with the Indonesian Communist
Party/PKI (Partai Komunis Indonesia) as his support base. At the same time, opposition
groups and the army were backed by the Western Bloc to organize themselves to overthrow
Ir.Soekarno’s leadership.
This paper’s aims are to establish the reason for Indonesia’s declaration as a new
power between the Eastern and Western Bloc in 1955-1965, what was the internal
condition of Indonesia when holding this line in the international political sphere and, what
was the risk of these choices? Finally, the paper looks to understand what was the main
factor which shaped the direction of Indonesia’s foreign politics at this time?
Dynamic of Indonesia in the period of 1949-1955

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From the political perspective and from the perspective of governance, at the
beginning of 1955, Indonesia’s cabinet was marked by many changes of leadership. The

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1949-1955 was the period that positioned the Indonesian Government in a transitional
phase. The international political situation had clearly changed since the Cold War.
Indonesia itself stood between those polarities, namely the Western and Eastern Blocs.
There were challenges which in the post World War II period had not yet been resolved in
the region, such as West Irian. For this reason, Indonesia needed extensive international
support in United Nations’ forums to repulse the Dutch. Similar to its action in relation to
Egypt and the Suez Crisis in 1956, the Soviet Union through its leader Nikita Kruschev
showed its support to Indonesia’s movement to decolonise and in relation to West Irian.
This support included promotion of ‘zones of peace’, announced by Khrushchev at the
Twentieth Party Congress in 1956, coupled with his strong endorsement of the Bandung
Conference the year before. These displays of solidarity were intended to “steer the
emerging anti-Western Afro-Asian political identity along lines favorable to the socialist
bloc” (Allison,1988; Crockatt,1995, 172).