Impacts of China-Taiwan Tensions on Indonesia Must Be Anticipated: Official

TheIndonesia.id - An official at the Central Statistics Agency (BPS) has warned the Indonesian government to be wary of the impacts of tensions between China and Taiwan on national economy and trade.

Deputy for distribution and service statistics at BPS Setianto said since both China and Taiwan are Indonesia’s trading partners, it needs to anticipate how the rising tensions could affect trade.

“We need to watch out [how the situation] develops because China and Taiwan are both important for Indonesia’s international trade,” Setianto warned on Monday, August 15, as reported by Antara.

According to BPS, China’s contribution to Indonesia’s export and import is more than 20 percent, making it one of the country’s main strategic trade partners. BPS also reported that Indonesia’s export to Taiwan continued to increase.

“We know that China and Taiwan are world’s main electronic components exporters,” Setianto added.

China is the biggest exporter of computer devices (including office machine parts) and second biggest exporter of integrated circuit in the world. Meanwhile, Taiwan is world’s biggest integrated circuit exporter and fourth largest exporter of office machine parts.

Head of Fiscal Policy Agency (BKF) at the Ministry of Finance Febrio Kacaribu shared the same view and considered it important that Indonesia continues to beware of the current global affairs.

“So far, there is no significant impacts in sight, but we continue to be careful,” he said.

Tensions have been raising in the past few weeks between the East Asian countries after the United States House of Representatives’ speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visited Taiwan on August 2.

The Chinese government released statements against the visit, and the spokesperson for China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs Hua Chunying said, “[We] have repeatedly and unmistakably expressed to the US side our firm opposition to Speaker Pelosi’s potential visit to Taiwan. And we hope that the US officials are clear about the importance and sensitivity of this issue and the potential danger in the event of this visit.”