February 6, 2025
JAKARTA – The Defense Ministry plans to deploy two high-speed patrol boats donated by Japan off the coast of Nusantara, the country’s future capital in East Kalimantan.
“The Navy chief of staff told me that the patrol boats are to be deployed in Nusantara [waters] to secure our [maritime] choke points,” Defense Minister Sjafrie Samsoeddin told a meeting with House of Representatives Commission I overseeing defense on Wednesday, as quoted by Kompas.com.
Sjafrie said the vessels, “brand-new and made in Japan”, were each 5 meters wide and 18 meters long, had a diesel engine with a top speed of 40 knots and the capacity to carry 16 people.
“Japan wants to show its capability to produce [patrol boats] domestically, and we respect that,” he said, adding that the government planned to install weaponry on the boats.
Commission I chair Utut Adianto of the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) closed Wednesday’s meeting by saying, “House Commission I approves the patrol boats as part of Japan’s Official Security Assistance [OSA], as detailed in the letter from the Defense Minister to the House Speaker,” as quoted by Kompas.com.
President Prabowo Subianto and Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba struck the deal on Tokyo’s donating the two patrol boats to Jakarta during their bilateral meeting last month.
The two leaders also agreed to maintain the so-called two-plus-two meetings between their foreign and defense ministers, and to establish a forum on maritime security that seeks to have practitioners discuss defense equipment cooperation and transfer of technology.
The patrol boat deal with Jakarta is part of Tokyo’s strategy to boost regional maritime security cooperation in view of Beijing’s territorial claim in the Indo-Pacific.
Japan is a close ally of the United States and has expressed concern over China’s increasing activity in the South China Sea, one of the world’s busiest waterways and which Beijing claims almost in its entirety.
Indonesia is a non-claimant in the long-standing dispute in the South China Sea, though it has had several run-ins Chinese naval and fishing vessels in adjacent waters. (dds)