Indonesia–United Kingdom relations
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Indonesia Indonesia, officially the Republic of Indonesia, is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania between the Indian and Pacific oceans. It consists of over 17,000 islands, including Sumatra, Java, Sulawesi, and parts of Borneo and New Guine ...
and the
United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the European mainland, continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotlan ...
or Anglo-Indonesian relations established diplomatic relations in 1949 and have maintained strong relations since then.UK-Indonesia relations
/ref> Indonesia has an embassy in
London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...
News-Indonesianembassy
 while the
United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the European mainland, continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotlan ...
has an embassy in Jakarta. The United Kingdom considers Indonesia an increasingly important partner globally and is committed to efforts to take bilateral relations to new heights. Both nations are members of
G-20 major economies The G20 or Group of Twenty is an intergovernmental forum comprising 19 countries and the European Union (EU). It works to address major issues related to the global economy, such as international financial stability, climate change mitigation ...
. According to a 2013
BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board exam. ...
...
World Service Poll, 65% of Indonesians view the United Kingdom's influence positively, with only 15% expressing a negative view, which makes Indonesia the country with the second most favourable perception of the United Kingdom in Asia after South Korea.


History

English sailors first reached what is now Indonesia in the 16th century, when
Sir Francis Drake Sir Francis Drake ( – 28 January 1596) was an English explorer, sea captain, privateer, slave trader, naval officer, and politician. Drake is best known for his circumnavigation of the world in a single expedition, from 1577 to 1580 ( ...
reached
Moluccas The Maluku Islands (; Indonesian: ''Kepulauan Maluku'') or the Moluccas () are an archipelago in the east of Indonesia. Tectonically they are located on the Halmahera Plate within the Molucca Sea Collision Zone. Geographically they are located ...
in 1579 on his circum-globe journey. The British
East India Company The East India Company (EIC) was an English, and later British, joint-stock company founded in 1600 and dissolved in 1874. It was formed to trade in the Indian Ocean region, initially with the East Indies (the Indian subcontinent and South ...
opened a
trading post A trading post, trading station, or trading house, also known as a factory, is an establishment or settlement where goods and services could be traded. Typically the location of the trading post would allow people from one geographic area to tr ...
in Bantam on the first voyage in 1601 and imports of
pepper Pepper or peppers may refer to: Food and spice * Piperaceae or the pepper family, a large family of flowering plant ** Black pepper * ''Capsicum'' or pepper, a genus of flowering plants in the nightshade family Solanaceae ** Bell pepper ** Chili ...
from
Java Java (; id, Jawa, ; jv, ꦗꦮ; su, ) is one of the Greater Sunda Islands in Indonesia. It is bordered by the Indian Ocean to the south and the Java Sea to the north. With a population of 151.6 million people, Java is the world's mos ...
were an important part of the Company's trade for twenty years. However, because of heavy competition with the
Dutch East India Company The United East India Company ( nl, Verenigde Oostindische Compagnie, the VOC) was a chartered company established on the 20th March 1602 by the States General of the Netherlands amalgamating existing companies into the first joint-stock ...
, the British trade post in Bantam was closed in 1683. The British shifted their attention to the
Indian subcontinent The Indian subcontinent is a list of the physiographic regions of the world, physiographical region in United Nations geoscheme for Asia#Southern Asia, Southern Asia. It is situated on the Indian Plate, projecting southwards into the Indian O ...
while the Dutch began to establish themselves more firmly in Java and later expanded to most of the Indonesian archipelago. The British established their garrison at Bencoolen in 1685 and in 1714 built Fort Marlborough in the city. They also established a trading post in
Riau Riau is a province of Indonesia. It is located on the central eastern coast of Sumatra along the Strait of Malacca. The province shares land borders with North Sumatra to the northwest, West Sumatra to the west, and Jambi to the south. Acco ...
, others in the region being the Strait Settlements in Penang and
Singapore Singapore (), officially the Republic of Singapore, is a sovereign island country and city-state in maritime Southeast Asia. It lies about one degree of latitude () north of the equator, off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, bor ...
, while the Dutch wrestled the port of Malacca from the Portuguese in 1641. During the
Napoleonic Wars The Napoleonic Wars (1803–1815) were a series of major global conflicts pitting the French Empire and its allies, led by Napoleon I, against a fluctuating array of European states formed into various coalitions. It produced a period of Fren ...
in Europe, the
Kingdom of Holland The Kingdom of Holland ( nl, Holland (contemporary), (modern); french: Royaume de Hollande) was created by Napoleon Bonaparte, overthrowing the Batavian Republic in March 1806 in order to better control the Netherlands. Since becoming Empero ...
and their colonies in East Indies fell to the French Republic. The British launched a military campaign against Dutch and French hold in Java and establishing British rule in Java. From 1811 to 1815, Indonesia was administrated by the British.
Stamford Raffles Sir Thomas Stamford Bingley Raffles (5 July 1781 – 5 July 1826) was a British statesman who served as the Lieutenant-Governor of the Dutch East Indies between 1811 and 1816, and Lieutenant-Governor of Bencoolen between 1818 and 1824. He is ...
served as the Governor of the East Indies from 1811 to 1816. He was an enthusiast of Javanese culture and history that during his administration he led expeditions that discovered
Borobudur Borobudur, also transcribed Barabudur ( id, Candi Borobudur, jv, ꦕꦤ꧀ꦝꦶꦧꦫꦧꦸꦝꦸꦂ, Candhi Barabudhur) is a 9th-century Mahayana Buddhist temple in Magelang Regency, not far from the town of Muntilan, in Central Java, Indone ...
,
Trowulan Trowulan is an archaeological site in Trowulan Subdistrict, Mojokerto Regency, in the Indonesian province of East Java. It includes approximately 100 square kilometres and has been theorized to be the site of the eponymous capital city of the ...
and other archaeological sites in Java, subsequently writing ''
The History of Java ''The History of Java'' is a book written by Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles, and published in 1817. It describes the history of the island of Java from ancient times. It was reprinted from a digital master by the Cambridge University Press in 2010. ...
'' and publishing it in 1817. Hester Needham (1843–1897), was a British women missionary who was sent by the
Rhenish Missionary Society The Rhenish Missionary Society (''Rhenish'' of the river Rhine) was one of the largest Protestant missionary societies in Germany. Formed from smaller missions founded as far back as 1799, the Society was amalgamated on 23 September 1828, and it ...
to the North Sumatra, namely in
Sibolga Sibolga (formerly sometimes Siboga) is a city and a port located in the natural harbor of Sibolga Bay on the west coast of North Sumatra province, in Indonesia. It is located on the western side of North Sumatra, facing the Indian Ocean and is ...
, , and
Mandailing The Mandailing is an ethnic group in Sumatera, Indonesia that is commonly associated with the Batak people. They are found mainly in the northern section of the island of Sumatra in Indonesia. They came under the influence of the Kaum Padri who ...
. Hester Needham spent the last 7 years of her life as a missionary in the Batak Lands from 8 January 1890 to 12 May 1897. The British and the Dutch signed the Anglo-Dutch Treaty of 1824 which defined the boundary of British and Dutch realms in Southeast Asia and India. The boundaries were later inherited by modern
Brunei Brunei ( , ), formally Brunei Darussalam ( ms, Negara Brunei Darussalam, Jawi: , ), is a country located on the north coast of the island of Borneo in Southeast Asia. Apart from its South China Sea coast, it is completely surrounded by t ...
,
Indonesia Indonesia, officially the Republic of Indonesia, is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania between the Indian and Pacific oceans. It consists of over 17,000 islands, including Sumatra, Java, Sulawesi, and parts of Borneo and New Guine ...
,
Malaysia Malaysia ( ; ) is a country in Southeast Asia. The federation, federal constitutional monarchy consists of States and federal territories of Malaysia, thirteen states and three federal territories, separated by the South China Sea into two r ...
, and
Singapore Singapore (), officially the Republic of Singapore, is a sovereign island country and city-state in maritime Southeast Asia. It lies about one degree of latitude () north of the equator, off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, bor ...
. The name "Indonesia" was first coined in 1850, when
George Windsor Earl George Windsor Earl (1813–1865), was an English navigator and author of works on the Indian Archipelago. He coined the term 'Indu-nesian', later adopted as the name for Indonesia. Biography Earl was born in London around 1813. He travelled to ...
, the British
ethnologist Ethnology (from the grc-gre, ἔθνος, meaning 'nation') is an academic field that compares and analyzes the characteristics of different peoples and the relationships between them (compare cultural, social, or sociocultural anthropology) ...
, proposed the terms ''Indunesians'' — and, his preference, ''Malayunesians'' — for the inhabitants of the "Indian Archipelago or Malayan Archipelago". In the same publication, a student of Earl's, James Richardson Logan, used ''Indonesia'' as a synonym for the ''Indian Archipelago''. The British ruled the Malay Peninsula ( British Malaya) and Northern Borneo, while the Dutch controlled Java, Sumatra, and most of the Indonesian archipelago until the Japanese invasion in 1942. During the aftermath of
World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...
, the Allied Forces led by the British were involved in warfare with Republican Indonesian soldiers and militia during the
Battle of Surabaya The Battle of Surabaya was fought between regular infantry and militia of the Indonesian nationalist movement and British and British Indian troops as a part of the Indonesian National Revolution against the re-imposition of Dutch colonial r ...
in 1945. The Indian troops successfully conquered Surabaya on behalf of the Netherlands, but faced some fierce resistance from Indonesian troops and militias. Again in 1962 the British army and the
Indonesian Armed Forces , founded = as the ('People's Security Forces') , current_form = , disbanded = , branches = , headquarters = Cilangkap, Jakarta , website = , commander-in-chief = Joko Widodo , ...
were locked in undeclared warfare in Northern Borneo (
Sabah Sabah () is a state of Malaysia located in northern Borneo, in the region of East Malaysia. Sabah borders the Malaysian state of Sarawak to the southwest and the North Kalimantan province of Indonesia to the south. The Federal Territory o ...
and
Sarawak Sarawak (; ) is a state of Malaysia. The largest among the 13 states, with an area almost equal to that of Peninsular Malaysia, Sarawak is located in northwest Borneo Island, and is bordered by the Malaysian state of Sabah to the northeast, ...
) during the Indonesia–Malaysia confrontation. The Indonesian Sukarno administration was against the British decolonisation initiative on the formation of
Malaysia Malaysia ( ; ) is a country in Southeast Asia. The federation, federal constitutional monarchy consists of States and federal territories of Malaysia, thirteen states and three federal territories, separated by the South China Sea into two r ...
, the amalgamation of the Federation of Malaya (now
West Malaysia Peninsular Malaysia ( ms, Semenanjung Malaysia; Jawi: سمننجڠ مليسيا), or the States of Malaya ( ms, Negeri-negeri Tanah Melayu; Jawi: نڬري-نڬري تانه ملايو), also known as West Malaysia or the Malaysian Peninsula, ...
), Singapore and the crown colony/British protectorates of Sabah and Sarawak (collectively known as British Borneo, now East Malaysia). The British assisted the Malaysian armed forces against Indonesian campaigns and operations on Northern Borneo. With the fall of Sukarno and plagued with internal problems, Indonesia lost their intention to continue the fight and the hostilities ceased. Indonesia finally agreed to the formation of the Malaysian Federation. After the turbulent years of the 1960s, relations between Indonesia and the United Kingdom have been improving ever since. Because of the importance of English as an international language, the Indonesian government has been promoting the education of English as the most important foreign language taught in Indonesian schools since the 1970s. The
British Council The British Council is a British organisation specialising in international cultural and educational opportunities. It works in over 100 countries: promoting a wider knowledge of the United Kingdom and the English language (and the Welsh lan ...
was established in 1948 in Jakarta to promote British culture in Indonesia through nurturing the core areas: English, arts, education and society. In 1974, Queen Elizabeth II visited Indonesia, and became the first British monarch to make an official visit to the country. In 1989, the
Prince A prince is a male ruler (ranked below a king, grand prince, and grand duke) or a male member of a monarch's or former monarch's family. ''Prince'' is also a title of nobility (often highest), often hereditary, in some European states. T ...
and
Princess Princess is a regal rank and the feminine equivalent of prince (from Latin '' princeps'', meaning principal citizen). Most often, the term has been used for the consort of a prince, or for the daughter of a king or prince. Princess as a subs ...
of Wales visited Indonesia. The royal couple visited Sitanala Leprosy Hospital in Tangerang,
Taman Mini Indonesia Indah Taman Mini "Indonesia Indah" (literally ''"Beautiful Indonesia" Mini Park''—the apostrophes are in the name—abbreviated as TMII) is a culture-based recreational area located in East Jakarta, Indonesia. Since July 2021, it is operated by the G ...
in Jakarta,
Kraton Yogyakarta The Royal Palace of Yogyakarta ( id, Keraton Ngayogyakarta Hadiningrat, jv, ꦏꦿꦠꦺꦴꦤ꧀ꦔꦪꦺꦴꦒꦾꦏꦂꦠꦲꦢꦶꦤꦶꦔꦿꦠ꧀) is a palace complex in the city of Yogyakarta, Yogyakarta Special Region, Indonesia. It i ...
,
Borobudur Borobudur, also transcribed Barabudur ( id, Candi Borobudur, jv, ꦕꦤ꧀ꦝꦶꦧꦫꦧꦸꦝꦸꦂ, Candhi Barabudhur) is a 9th-century Mahayana Buddhist temple in Magelang Regency, not far from the town of Muntilan, in Central Java, Indone ...
and Bali. The Prince of Wales later revisited Yogyakarta and Borobudur in 2008. In October 2012, Indonesian President Yudhoyono received the prestigious Honorary Knights Grand Cross of the Order of the Bath awarded by Queen Elizabeth II.


Cooperation

In 2006, the then British prime minister
Tony Blair Sir Anthony Charles Lynton Blair (born 6 May 1953) is a British former politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1997 to 2007 and Leader of the Labour Party from 1994 to 2007. He previously served as Leader of th ...
met with then Indonesian president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, where they agreed upon "the establishment of a regular Indonesia-UK Partnership Forum to be chaired by the Foreign Ministers, to promote strategic dialogue on bilateral, multilateral and global issues". The first Indonesia-UK forum was held in 2007, and was chaired by British foreign secretary
Margaret Beckett Dame Margaret Mary Beckett (''née'' Jackson; born 15 January 1943) is a British politician who has served as the Member of Parliament (MP) for Derby South since 1983. A member of the Labour Party, she became Britain's first female Foreign S ...
and Indonesian foreign minister
Hassan Wirajuda Noer Hassan Wirajuda (born July 9, 1948 in Tangerang, West Java, Indonesia) is an Indonesian politician who was the foreign minister of Indonesia from 2001 to 2009. He served during the presidencies of Megawati Sukarnoputri and Susilo Bambang Yu ...
. In March 2010, members of the
House of Lords The House of Lords, also known as the House of Peers, is the upper house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Membership is by appointment, heredity or official function. Like the House of Commons, it meets in the Palace of Westminste ...
praised Indonesia for their progress in democratising society, media freedom and environmental protection.Ministry of Foreign Affairs - Members of the UK’s House of Lords praised Indonesia’s achievements
 In a meeting with Indonesian MP Hayono Isman, the Lords stated that they wanted to improve the relationship between the two countries. In 2010, the Culture and Tourism Ministry of
Indonesia Indonesia, officially the Republic of Indonesia, is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania between the Indian and Pacific oceans. It consists of over 17,000 islands, including Sumatra, Java, Sulawesi, and parts of Borneo and New Guine ...
launched a campaign to boost the number of tourists from the UK entering Indonesia. In 2009, 160,000 British tourists had visited Indonesia, and the aim of the campaign was to boost this number to 200,000.


Trade and investment

Exports of UK goods to Indonesia in 2010 were worth £438.9 million, an increase of 25% over the previous year, whilst imports of goods to the UK from Indonesia saw an increase of 13% to £1.3 billion. British companies operating in Indonesia include energy giant BP, lenders Standard Chartered Bank and HSBC and tobacco group British American Tobacco, while Indonesian company operating in the UK is Bank Negara Indonesia.


See also

*
Foreign relations of Indonesia Since independence, Indonesian foreign relations have adhered to a "free and active" foreign policy, seeking to play a role in regional affairs commensurate with its size and location but avoiding involvement in conflicts among major powe ...
*
Foreign relations of the United Kingdom The diplomatic foreign relations of the United Kingdom are conducted by the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, headed by the Foreign Secretary. The prime minister and numerous other agencies play a role in setting policy, and many ...


References


Further reading

* The British Occupation of Indonesia: 1945-1946: Britain, The Netherlands and the Indonesian Revolution by Richard McMillan. /
Google Books
{{DEFAULTSORT:Indonesia-United Kingdom relations
United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the European mainland, continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotlan ...
Bilateral relations of the United Kingdom