It takes two to tango in Indonesia-US diplomacy and so far only Jakarta is dancing: The Jakarta Post

File picture of people wearing masks depicting the faces of Indonesian President Joko Widodo and then-US President-elect Joe Biden pose in Surakarta, Central Java on Jan 20, 2020, ahead of Biden's presidential inauguration. - AFP

JAKARTA (The Jakarta Post/ANN): Diplomacy, more than any other human endeavour, is steeped in symbolism. And no one understands symbolism like President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo, a Javanese par excellence who grew up in the Javanese cultural heartland of Surakarta.

Policymakers in the United States may not understand this, but since the late 2020 presidential election, Indonesia has been speaking in codes to what it expected to be the Democratic Joe Biden administration.