China and Indonesia have not always had smooth economic relations. One of the reasons is because there has been a history of hostility towards communism – the ideology adopted by China – in Indonesia, the world’s most populous Muslim majority nation. Communism in Indonesia has been banned since an alleged coup attempt by the country’s Communist Party (PKI) in the late 1960s.
But in recent years, China-Indonesia relations have deepened significantly, with the Chinese-backed Jakarta-Bandung High-Speed Railway (HSR) becoming one of the most obvious projects highlighting increased engagement between the two countries.
