British Prime Minister David Cameron is visiting Jakarta Wednesday where the sale of arms is high on the agenda. As China deepens its defense spending and India emerges as the world's largest importer of arms, Southeast Asia's largest economy is heading in the same direction.
The British prime minister, who is seeing sluggish growth at home, is traveling with an entourage of 30 business delegates during his five-day trip to Asia.
Hoping to capitalize on strong economic growth and ballooning defense budgets in the region, Prime Minister David Cameron told local media that Britain produces some of the "best defense equipment in the world."
Reports last year suggested that Britain and Indonesia were negotiating the sale of 24 Eurofighter Typhoons in a $2 billion deal.
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Indonesia, the world's fourth most populous country, has launched an ambitious plan to modernize its under-equipped military and defense industry.
But Yohannes Sulaiman, a defense specialist from the University of Indonesia, said the country's military equipment is so dilapidated that even a large deal with Britain would be a akin to a 'drop of water in an empty bucket.'
"Many of these ships are very old, like the Hercules, most of them dated from the 1970s," said Sulaiman. "So they really want to modernize the army and the entire military, everything, but the problem is that because they have to upgrade everything, they don't have money. And to make the situation worse, there is still a lot of problems in the arms procurement, lots of corruption bribes, graft."
Following allegations of human rights abuses in East Timor, Papua and Aceh, both the U.S. and Britain banned the sales of defense equipment to Indonesia in the 1990s.
A decade of embargoes coupled with rampant corruption in the military have significantly weakened the country's defense capabilities.
Despite territorial disputes in the nearby South China Sea, Yohannes Sulaiman said the Indonesian military is not in a position to exert influence in the strategic zone.
"For Indonesia, we don't even have enough of anything to even control our own seas. Our military is totally on the defensive," Sulaiman said. "We just need to maintain our national security. They don't look at projecting the powe They don't think about regional strategy, they are just a protector of Indonesian territory."
Non-governmental organizations have criticized Indonesia's human rights record and lack of accountability for soldiers accused of abusing their power in the restive region of West Papua. But Prime Minister Cameron is enthusiastic about expanding economic ties with Indonesia, and says the Asian nation has moved on from its tarnished human rights record.
After sealing a defense agreement with Japan Tuesday, the British prime minister is expected to announce a $2.5 billion deal Wednesday between British plane maker Airbus and Indonesian carrier Garuda Indonesia.
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