Indonesia in 2015 seized the opportunity to use China’s Belt and Road Initiative to develop its infrastructure, but the Jakarta-Bandung high-speed railway, a central project of China’s Southeast Asia investment, has encountered a series of problems.
Most recently, the derailment of a work train killed two Chinese workers and injured four.
The 142km railway line is to connect the capital, Jakarta, and Indonesia’s fourth-largest city, Bandung, in West Java. After completion of the Indonesian system, travel time between the cities is to be shortened from three-and-a-half hours to 45 minutes.
The project is already US$7.5 billion over budget. Worse, safety concerns have continuously been raised, and construction is behind schedule. The launch for the railway has been repeatedly postponed.
Indonesians are unhappy about the project.
Only 43 percent of Indonesian respondents in a poll released by an Australian think tank said that Chinese investment is beneficial to their country, while more than half said they believed China would pose the largest global threat for the next 10 years.
China’s powerful presence in Indonesia has brought about a sense of crisis in the country. Some Indonesians have even proposed that the government ask Japan to complete the second half of the project, the Bandung-Surabaya section. That proposal is too far-fetched, given that it would be impossible to integrate and connect the two sections.
The Jakarta-Bandung high-speed railway project started years ago. In 2005, Japan showed interest in developing the railway, with an aim to export its Shinkansen techniques to Indonesia. At that time, China’s first high-speed railway, the Beijing-Tianjin intercity railway, had not yet opened.
Later, China and Japan began to compete to build Indonesia’s high-speed railway, both trying to export their own technology.
The contest between China and Japan was not only economic, but also geopolitical. The Jakarta-Bandung high-speed railway epitomizes the power struggle between the countries in Southeast Asia.
Different from Japan’s method of strict budgeting for later management, China regards the Jakarta-Bandung high-speed railway a touchstone of its “complete industry chain.” Seizing the investment opportunity, China aims to replicate its construction model in other Southeast Asian countries — and even farther afield — in the near future.
For China, Indonesia was one of the founding countries of the Non-Alignment Movement, and there are no territorial disputes between them. Beijing put great effort into bidding for the project, with which China has moved a step forward in initiating its high-speed railway industry.
Meanwhile, Taiwan High Speed Rail Corp (THSRC) has not found a bidder for the procurement of new trains. It was revealed that Japan’s sales quote was much more expensive than the domestic prices in Japan. A THSRC official said that an airplane could be bought for the price of a new train.
Yet, as Japan-Taiwan Exchange Association Representative Hiroyasu Izumi has rightly put: “The operation of the THSR system has always been safe and sound. It symbolizes the friendship between Japan and Taiwan.”
Taiwan’s high-speed railway is the only successful model of Japan’s plan to export its Shinkansen techniques. It has linked Taiwan with Japan, and that link requires maintenance from both sides. A win-win situation can only be created through ongoing collaboration.
Taiwan must work harder and have more officials involved in the decisionmaking process. The Taiwan-Japan relationship should not be damaged by train procurement bidding.
Chen Yung-chang is a company manager.
Translated by Liu Yi-hung
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