Indonesia’s foreign policy has long rested on the simple idea of “bebas aktif”: i.e., to remain free and active, avoid permanent alignment, and keep relations open with competing powers. President Prabowo Subianto has expressed that instinct through a familiar proverb: “A thousand friends are too few, one enemy is too many.”
In diplomacy, the formula is attractive. However, building an air force is a much more difficult proposition. Indonesia publicly announced plans in October 2025 to acquire at least 42 Chinese-made J-10C fighters. A few months later, Jakarta was also reported to be in advanced talks with Pakistan over more than 40 JF-17s, a fighter jointly developed by Pakistan and China. The practical status of these possible acquisitions remains unclear. Still, together they show that Chinese-origin combat aircraft have moved beyond the realm of speculation and now play a serious role in Indonesia’s military modernization plans.
This comes while Indonesia is already receiving French Rafales and has agreed to acquire Turkish KAAN fighters over the longer term, while the proposed F-15EX program with Boeing has fallen away. Still, the wider pattern remains: Jakarta is searching across Europe, the United States, Türkiye, China, and Pakistan for platforms that can modernize an ageing force without leaving Indonesia dependent on any single supplier. Politically, that approach makes sense. However, it is an unusually active form of hedging.
Indonesia joined BRICS in 2025, deepened its defense ties with Japan, and participated in the U.S.-led exercises Talisman Sabre and Super Garuda Shield. It is now joining Australia’s Pitch Black 2026 alongside the United States, Japan, France, the Philippines, and South Korea. In tandem with this increased cooperation with the West, Jakarta has broadened security engagement with Beijing. For instance, Indonesia and China agreed to resume joint military training. In addition, in April 2025, Indonesia became the first recipient of China’s new “2+2” dialogue format, which brings together the countries’ foreign and defense ministers. This was no routine diplomatic meeting; Beijing itself described it as the first such mechanism China has created with another nation.
Jakarta is performing the same balancing act on the economic front. Chinese capital underlies Indonesia’s boom in nickel processing, EV supply chain plans, and its ambitions to become an EV battery powerhouse. Chinese companies currently dominate Indonesia’s nickel-refining capacity, while a CATL-backed project spans mining, processing, EV battery manufacturing, and battery recycling. China also financed and constructed the Jakarta-Bandung high-speed railway. However, even as Indonesia engages China on the economic front, it is also acting as a maritime rival in its immediate neighborhood around the Natuna Islands. Although Jakarta denies the legal basis of Beijing’s expansive maritime claims in the South China Sea and does not officially recognize that there even is a dispute, it has still chosen to manage the situation peacefully and avoid turning this issue into the defining issue of the relationship.
Prabowo’s solution to Indonesia’s strategic situation is to cast a wide net. To that effect, he is engaging with the United States and Australia, acquiring fighters from Türkiye and France, partnering on defense technology with Japan, enhancing his dialogue with China, and joining BRICS. He is also treating disputes as momentary hiccups rather than permanent headaches.
However, the main concern is that such diplomatic prowess may not translate into a coherent military capability. Fighter aircraft are complex weapon systems with maintenance, engine support, armaments, simulators, mission planning, electronic warfare libraries, and training systems. Adding fighters from China and Türkiye to the current Indonesian inventory, which is composed of Russian, American, French, and Korean-origin equipment, would lead to a profusion of disparate combat systems.
Further exacerbating this challenge is the feasibility of teaching Indonesian pilots to operate another fighter jet from a completely different supplier. But the real challenge is to have enough spare parts, technicians, and weapons, and to ensure that secure data links are in place to keep all these aircraft effective and combat-ready during a prolonged crisis.
Interoperability issues can also be politically delicate. In common with its allies, Indonesia carries out many military exercises on sophisticated Western aircraft and on Western military networks. Some of its allies might be less willing to give Jakarta details of their electronic signature or mission information, or to share their technical or voice communications equipment, if Jakarta acquires Chinese aircraft. That would leave Jakarta contemplating the prospect of compartmentalizing systems within its own Air Force: those used to interoperate with the West, others used to work with systems made in China, and a national system layered on top, all with the goal of achieving interoperability without revealing sensitive systems.
None of this is to say that either the J-10 or the JF-17 would be inherently bad choices, because at reasonable prices you have potentially quite potent aircraft with the J-10, or with the JF-17 you at least have a potentially less expensive means of acquiring a fleet of fighters, along with weapons and training via Pakistan. Having several suppliers does bring benefits such as bargaining power and less risk should one nation impose sanctions on Indonesia’s Air Force.
But there comes a tipping point when diversification goes to an extreme, when dependence on one supplier becomes reliance on too many. In this scenario, some of the cost savings the Air Force might achieve during procurement are outweighed by redundant infrastructure, separate maintenance facilities, smaller spare parts pools, and less efficient economies of scale. Thus, an expanded inventory can be a show of force on an order sheet, but it can also mean fewer mission-ready planes delivered when compared with a smaller, more integrated force.
The regional message that such a purchase would send is perhaps more consequential than the logistical hurdles that the Indonesians might face. The Philippines, Vietnam, and Malaysia, all of which have maritime border issues with China, are not likely to perceive an Indonesian purchase the same way. None of them are entirely committed to opposing Beijing; each has its own threat perception and relational dynamics with China.
Therefore, when Indonesia purchases Chinese fighter jets, each of these countries is likely to come to different conclusions about where Jakarta stands on China and its reliability as a partner during a crisis in Southeast Asia. For instance, they might be worried about whether Jakarta would confront China and support another regional partner such as the Philippines, which is frustrated with repeated maritime incursions by China, and whether sensitive mission data could be freely exchanged if Jakarta is operating Chinese planes for a joint exercise.
Vietnam would probably make a more subtle critique, as Hanoi is known to be committed to strategic autonomy and to operating equipment from different suppliers. Similarly, Malaysia’s political response would probably be the mildest of the three; it is adept at hedging. However, the precedent of a major regional player successfully balancing pressure from Chinese maritime activity with deepening defense-industrial relations with Beijing could fuel fear in both Hanoi and Kuala Lumpur that such partnerships could lead China to insist that maritime disputes shouldn’t impede deeper Chinese integration into regional security.
Both could also assume that Jakarta is not following a cohesive defense approach, but is instead just taking advantage of several tempting offers. If Indonesia’s partners can no longer discern its strategic direction, the eventual result would be a gradual erosion of confidence in Indonesia as a reliable security partner.
Perhaps the only other similar example of a country that operated like Indonesia was Finland during the Cold War, but that is a rather limited comparison. Helsinki, too, juggled relationships and acquired arms from both East and West. However, mixed procurements were a facet of its dogmatic neutrality, and after the Cold War, Finland eventually consolidated its principal fighter fleet around a single Western platform. The lesson here is not that it’s unwise to purchase arms from opposing blocs; rather, the pursuit of diverse military procurements should be subordinate to a clear and coherent force structure.
All things considered, purchasing Chinese fighters will not be an issue as long as Jakarta clearly articulates the role of each fighter, how many different combat systems it can sustainably maintain, how those aircraft will integrate with a common command-and-control system, and sends a clear signal to ASEAN partners about Indonesia’s strategic orientation and regional intentions. In a nutshell, Prabowo’s proverb might sound good diplomatically speaking, but an effective air force cannot be assembled like a diplomatic guest list. Strategic autonomy is ultimately about whether Indonesia can develop a single coordinated system that can train, communicate, and fight simultaneously.
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