Indonesia’s Trade Diplomacy Through FTA: Analysis on Actors, Processes, and Goals of Diplomacy

The purpose of this article is to examine the various FTAs that Indonesia has been involved in within the last 15 years by looking at the three core elements of trade diplomacy: actors, processes, and goals of FTAs. Based on these elements, this research finds that Indonesia’s FTA diplomacy tends to be dominated by foreign policy interests compared to economic ones, which can be observed through several elements. First, Indonesia’s FTA diplomacy is dominated by state actors and foreign policy players with little involvement from economic players and non-state actors. The numerous FTAs signed through ASEAN also reinforced this domination since ASEAN’s distribution of authority placed foreign policy players at a higher hierarchy than trade actors. Second, Indonesia’s FTA diplomacy tends to be inefficient and ineffective due to dualism in its diplomatic process, which involves collective negotiations through ASEAN and at the same time, individually through the national government. This resulted in a multiplicity of agreements, leading to the low number of FTA utilisation by private sectors. Third, Indonesia’s continued use of ASEAN as a medium for FTA negotiations leads to the strengthening of foreign policy goals relative to economic ones, due to ASEAN’s internal characteristics which focuses more on political-security relations, rather than economic ones. Based on these observations, Indonesia needs to reposition its FTA diplomacy to find a better balance between its foreign policy and trade goals.


INTRODUCTION
Until the mid-2020, Indonesia has been involved in several free trade agreements (FTAs) with multiple partners, ranging from countries, groups of countries, and regional organisations. According to a data from Asia Regional Integration Centre (ARIC) (2020a), Indonesia is currently involved in 11 FTAs which are already in effect (entry into force), 1  In general, Indonesia's active posture can be regarded as 'normal', considering Indonesia's position as one of the world's most populated and largest consumer markets, in addition to its export-oriented economy. Its enormous population allows Indonesia to become an attractive partner for prospective FTA partners and often receives FTA requests from external partners. The Indonesian government, as stated by the Ministry of Trade (MoT), has also realised the importance of FTAs and other regional/multilateral cooperation, which led to the incorporation of trade diplomacy as one of the working agendas of the 2014-2019 Strategic Plan (Kementerian Perdagangan Republik Indonesia, 2015). In essence, Indonesia's global trade activities are in line with the global trend, where nowadays, countries advance their foreign policies based on economic activities and conduct relations based on economic power (Gelb, 2010).
However, the potential benefits of these FTAs should be scrutinised, since the high number of Indonesian FTAs does not necessarily correlate with its economic or commercial benefit. For example, a study by Sitepu and Nurhidayat (2015) reported that the preference utilisation rates (PUR) of Indonesian FTAs are rather low compared to other states, estimated to be somewhere between 6% to 35%. PUR represents the percentage of actors from the business/private sector who have acquired the rights to use and have utilised these FTAs (The Federation of German Industries, 2018), meaning that these low rates indicate a highly underutilised trade instrument. Unfortunately, this situation is exacerbated by the lack of comprehensive studies regarding Indonesia's FTAs and its trade diplomatic strategy. The majority of studies on Indonesian FTAs focus more on the impact of a particular FTA for the economy or on a specific sector of the economy, rather than on the overall benefits of these FTAs (see for example Setiawan, 2012Setiawan, , 2015Nasrudin et al., 2015;Ningsih et al., 2018). Moreover, studies on the political-economic dimension of Indonesian FTAs are very limited and tend to be outdated (see, for example, Soesastro & Basri, 2005;Chandra, 2005;Chandra, 2008). Although previous research on Indonesian trade diplomacy at the multilateral, plurilateral, and unilateral levels exists (see for example Pradana, 2013;Falahi, 2015;Ismail, 2019), studies on Indonesia's diplomacy through its FTAs remain scarce.
Taking this background into account, this article has two main objectives. First, to analyse Indonesia's FTA strategy and second, contribute to literature on the political economic dimension of Indonesia's FTAs and offer a conceptual framework that explains trade diplomacy conducted by individual countries. This conceptual framework comprises three main elements, namely actors, processes, and goals of trade diplomacy, which are further categorised into several sub-elements. Based on the conceptual framework and the collected data, this article argues that Indonesia's FTA diplomacy tends to be dominated by political factors and the need to fulfil foreign policy interests rather than trade or commercial interests. Three main reasons support this argument. First, Indonesia's FTA diplomacy is dominated by state actors, particularly those closely related to foreign policy-making and limits the participation of trade and non-state actors.
Second, decisionmaking and negotiation processes in Indonesian FTAs tends to be inefficient and ineffective, as demonstrated by the overlaps between multiple FTAs, thus lowering the PURs of these FTAs and further diminishing its economic usefulness. Third, foreign policy interests tend to dominate Indonesia's FTAs, particularly those initiated through ASEAN, since, intrinsically, ASEAN gravitates more towards building external political-security relations rather than economic ones. These three elements illustrate that Indonesia's FTA diplomacy tends to be biased towards foreign policy dimension relative to economic or commercial dimensions.
The findings in this research are supported by two types of data: documents (newspapers, press releases, annual reports, databases, etc.) and interviews with key informants from relevant Indonesian agencies and representatives from negotiating partners and several ASEAN member-states. Secondary data on FTAs were retrieved from ARIC database, managed by the Asian Development Bank (ADB). This database was chosen since ARIC provides the most detailed categories on the development phases of FTA, compared to other databases, allowing for a more in-depth analysis. For instance, the World Trade Organisation (WTO) database only categorised the development phases of FTAs into two categories, the "in force" and "early announcement" phases. While such classification may be useful for legal-institutional analysis, it does not provide many insights into the political or non-legal aspects of FTAs. For example, FTA negotiation between ASEAN and the European Union (EU) in 2007-2009 would not be included in WTO's database as it did not result in any legal document, although Indonesia was involved in the process for two years. Therefore, such a database is not in line with this article's purpose, which attempts to provide a comprehensive insight into Indonesia's FTA strategy.
In assessing the data, this article employs a thematic analysis through data identification, data collation, and data reduction within the conceptual framework's perimeter. To elaborate on the research's argument and findings, this article is divided into four main sections. The first section discusses the literature on trade diplomacy and introduces the conceptual framework. The second section explains the history and development of Indonesia's trade diplomacy since 2000, while the third section analyses trade diplomacy using the conceptual framework. The last section concludes discussions and provides recommendations for Indonesia to reposition its FTA diplomacy.

ANALYTICAL FRAMEWORK
In practice, trade is one of the oldest forms of diplomacy, since classic diplomatic practices tend to revolve around "war and trade" (Okano-Heijmans, 2012). International merchants had always been diplomats (Tussie, 2013) and several early 'trade corporations', such as the British East India Company and Dutch East India Company, were essentially trade diplomats as they were given mandates by their respective countries to be involved in trade negotiations (Lee & Hudson, 2004). However, the literature on trade diplomacy seems to develop slower than other forms of diplomatic activities such as security, territorial disputes, or military issues. Although the terminology "trade diplomacy" has been used since 1914 (Brown, 1914), it was not until the 1950s did the term gained recognition, mostly due to the creation of a global trade regime following the aftermath of World War II. Lee and Hudson (2004) identified two main reasons regarding trade diplomacy's minimal role within the literature on classis diplomacy. First, there were dichotomies in International Relations (IR) which created divides between 'international-domestic', 'political-economy', and 'public-private', where the latter terms (i.e. domestic, economy, and private) were perceived to be of lower status compared to the former and unfortunately, trade diplomacy and economic activities tended to be associated with the latter than the former. Second, IR studies tend to be state-centric, and diplomacy was perceived as an effort to accommodate the anarchic nature of the international structure and to create peace, while economic activities, including trade, were perceived as less relevant to fulfil such functions. Therefore, trade diplomacy was, historically, neglected within the studies of diplomacy, although these tendencies seem to have evolved.  Hudec, 1975;Lipton & Bell, 1970), and tend to neglect the political economy or foreign policy dimension of trade diplomacy. Trade diplomatic activities from this era were perceived as collective efforts to manage global trade regimes and, thus, do not focus much on individual states' specific strategy. By the end of 1990s and early 2000s, a new group of literature on economic diplomacy emerged, in which trade diplomacy was positioned as one of its most prominent strands. The main proponents of this study are Coolsaet (2001Coolsaet ( , 2004, van Bergeijk and Moons (2011Moons ( , 2018, Okano-Heijmans (2011, 2016, Woolcock (2012c), and Rana (2007Rana ( , 2012, who mainly focused on states' activities and political-economic strategies, as well as their impacts at the global level. Within this literature, economic diplomacy can be understood as a foreign policy strategy that rests upon the assumption that economic/commercial and political interests reinforce each other and must be seen in tandem (Okano-Heijmans, 2011).
Throughout its development, scholars of economic diplomacy tend to debate three core issues: who does it, which activities are included, and what goals are being pursued.
With regards to the actor, although most scholars agree that state actors mainly conduct diplomacy, several scholars argue that economic diplomacy can also be done by non-state actors, noting that many recent activities within the global economy involve representatives from the business sector and civil society groups (van Bergeijk & Moons, 2009. For instance, trade and economic negotiations would generally involve the private sector and most-if not all-governments nowadays rely on business associations to gather information in their policy-making process. On the other hand, other scholars believe that non-state actors' diplomatic activities are best described as 'business diplomacy' or 'corporate diplomacy' since economic diplomacy is mostly a state-led activity (Saner & Yiu, 2003). The second issue revolves around what activities are regarded as economic diplomacy. The modern study of economic diplomacy comprises several strands or clusters of activities, the most notable ones being trade diplomacy, commercial diplomacy, and financial diplomacy. However, other scholars also suggested to include other strands/clusters, such as consular activities, economic sanctions, foreign economic incentives/aid, and even environmental issues (Lee & Hocking, 2010;Rana & Chatterjee, 2011;Okano-Heijmans, 2011;Woolcock, 2012a). Out of these various strands, three strands generally stood out the most, namely trade diplomacy, commercial diplomacy, and foreign aid, since most countries nowadays build their economic diplomacy strategy on these three pillars (Okano-Heijmans, 2016).
The third issue pertains to the goal of economic diplomacy, in which scholars are divided on whether economic diplomacy should only pursue economic goals (Rana & Chatterjee, 2011), foreign policy goals (Berridge & James, 2003), or both (Okano-Heijmans, 2016;van Bergeijk & Moons, 2018). In fairness, these scholars are generally divided along their methodological and theoretical approaches which affected their viewpoints. For example, scholars who lean towards the primacy of foreign policy are mostly associated with studies on economic statecraft, focusing on economic sanctions to influence other states' behaviours. Economic statecraft can be defined as the use of economic means to achieve interests in the international political arena, and while seemingly alike to economic diplomacy, it is not identical to economic diplomacy since economic diplomacy encompasses a broader array of issues (Baldwin, 1985). Meanwhile, proponents of the primacy of economic purposes are associated with foreign economic policy (FEP) studies, which look into states' activities on production and distribution of goods and services, as well as other cross-border economic activities which may influence other states (Okamoto, 1997). In this sense, economic diplomacy is more comprehensive and is more appropriately interpreted as a state's strategy to achieve both political and economic purposes. In other words, economic diplomacy is the intersection of foreign policy and economic policy. Thus, trade diplomacy can be understood as the nexus between trade policy and foreign policy.
As a subset of economic diplomacy, analyses on trade diplomacy often employs the same framework with economic diplomacy. However, due to its multiple strands, different scholars often take different approaches in studying economic diplomacy. For example, scholars focusing on commercial diplomacy, which scrutinises the effectiveness of foreign representatives on export-import performances, tend to employ quantitative approach (Yakop & van Bergeijk, 2011;Moons & van Bergeijk, 2017), while studies on trade diplomacy mainly use qualitative approach (Woolcock, 2012a;Okano-Heijmans, 2014). The analytical and conceptual frameworks also vary, ranging from studies utilising the management and business approach, (Naray, 2011;Zuidema & Ruel, 2012), the negotiation approach (Bayne, 2012;Woolcock, 2012b), to an eclectic approach (Okano-Heijmans, 2011). Therefore, one main challenge for any research on trade diplomacy is selecting and operationalising the research framework appropriately.
In line with this assertion, this article proposes three core elements to explain Indonesia's FTA diplomacy: actors, processes, and goals, which form the basic principles of any economic diplomatic practices. Actor answers the who question in trade diplomacy, while processes explain how such diplomatic practice is conducted, and, lastly, goals explain the outcome being pursued through trade diplomacy. In looking at the actor component, this research delves into state and non-state entities' role in Indonesian trade diplomacy. Operationalisation of the process element is derived from Bayne and Woolcock's (2012) take on economic diplomacy, which encompasses two main activities: decisionmaking and trade negotiation processes. As the third element, the goal component is operationalised by looking at the two main goals of economic diplomacy, which are economic/commercial and foreign policy goals. Figure   This conceptual framework will be applied to understand Indonesia's trade diplomatic practice by elaborating its multiple FTAs.

The History and Development of Indonesia's FTA Diplomacy
The first FTA which Indonesia engages in was the ASEAN Free Trade Agreement (AFTA), signed in 1992. Following this, Indonesia's engagement was minimal until it decided to sign the ASEAN-China Free Trade Area (ACFTA) in 2004 (Asia Regional Integration Center, 2020a). China's political motives mostly fuelled ACFTA since China seeks to minimise ASEAN member states' fear of China's economic ascendance in Southeast Asia (Mursitama & Haura, 2011). Compared to Indonesia's multilateral trade diplomacy, which started in 1950 after Indonesia's entry to WTO (World Trade Organization, 2020), Indonesia's FTA diplomacy is relatively young. However, Indonesia's FTA diplomacy tends to be more dynamic, as evidenced by the growing number of Indonesia's FTAs. One determining factor for this is the stagnation in multilateral trade negotiations, where the Doha Round has been around for almost twenty years with limited progress. Many countries, including Indonesia, then, shifted their trade diplomacy towards bilateral/regional engagements, due to the fear of market loss and the threat of economic rivalry. The WTO reported that there had been a significant increase in the number of FTAs signed since 1995, where, currently, there are more than 600 FTAs in place (World Trade Organization, 2019).
Following ACFTA in 2004, Indonesia proceeded to sign FTAs with 13 other partners, the last one being with Chile and Mozambique in August 2019 (Asia Regional Integration Center, 2020a). In general, there are two kinds of FTAs which Indonesia signs, Aside from the FTAs already finalised, Indonesia is currently undertaking negotiations with multiple partners, as listed in Table 2. Source: Asia Regional Integration Center (2020a) It is also important to note that trade negotiations usually occur in multiple phases, and even after being signed, many FTAs will still require further negotiations to discuss additional details or revitalise previously expired FTAs.
Analysing the number of Indonesia's completed FTAs until mid-2020, Indonesia is most active through the ASEAN framework, which accounts for six out of ten active agreements. Moreover, several FTAs also overlap, where these FTAs involve similar partners but is made through both individual and collective channels (e.g., FTAs with Japan, Australia, India, and South Korea

Indonesian FTA Diplomacy: Analysis of Actors, Processes, and Goals
Referring to the conceptual framework presented above, the analysis on Indonesian FTA diplomacy practices will focus on three main components: who are involved (the actors), how is it conducted (the processes), and for what goals. In general, trade diplomacy involves two types of actors, the state actors and the non-state actors. However, state actors cannot be deemed as unitary, since they typically consist of multiple government institutions, focusing on different policy areas and thus, will cater to diverse interests. The same goes for non-state actors, who are often not monolithic or coherent and are usually divided into two main groups, the private sectors and civil society groups.    involved on an ad hoc basis, rather than long-term involvement. This involvement also relies on two core factors, who the negotiating partner is and who the lead negotiator is

Processes in Indonesia's FTA Diplomacy
In addition to the actor component, Indonesia's trade diplomacy processes also need to be taken into account, particularly on two core issues. First, the likelihood of negotiation inefficiencies since two decisionmaking models are present: the individual and collective decisionmaking model through ASEAN. Second, the ineffectiveness of Indonesia's FTAs, particularly those initiated through ASEAN, since trade negotiation through ASEAN create additional complexities due to the multiple interests that needs to overlap.

Effectiveness in this sense is defined as the fulfilment of economic purposes through
FTAs and is measured by the FTA utilisation rate, which calculates the percentage of the private sector, which utilises these trade preferences.
Generally, FTA negotiations through ASEAN enables Indonesia to have stronger bargaining power since, collectively, Indonesia and other ASEAN member states can offer larger market size and more economic benefits, compared to individual negotiations.
ASEAN-based FTAs also offer larger scope for 'rules of origin (RoO)' and 'regional value content (RVC)', compared to national-level FTAs, providing additional benefits for For national-level FTAs, the decisionmaking process is simpler despite several challenges as well. Generally, FTA starts with a letter of intent from prospective partner, followed by a feasibility study, and commencing the negotiation. Once agreements are reached, these agreements will be sent to the legislative body for ratification purposes, and, lastly, implement the trade agreement. Throughout these processes, the main challenge is to consolidate the different positions of technical ministries, particularly regarding protectionism or liberalism for specific goods/services (Author's Personal Interview, 2018). At the ASEAN level, the consolidation process is more difficult since ASEAN requires a regional common position first, before commencing negotiations with external partners; thus, adding another layer of complexity to the negotiation process. As were not covered in ASEAN-based FTAs.
As portrayed in Table 1 and 2, Indonesia currently has or is negotiating several FTAs with similar partners as ASEAN's, which shows these overlapping tendencies.
Looking at the content of these FTAs, individual FTAs obviously can offer a higher degree of commitment and a larger scope of cooperation (albeit smaller market size) since only one national interest is at play. However, the main problem with being involved in two FTAs with similar partner(s) is that it creates inefficiencies in negotiations. Referring to Table 1  Center, 2020a). If ten (or a quarter) of these FTAs are arranged with similar partners, then obviously these negotiations' inefficiencies are quite high.
Aside from its efficiencies, the effectiveness of these FTAs also tends to decline when multiple FTAs overlap since private sectors only need to utilise one of these agreements. In general, an FTA's effectiveness can be measured by looking at the PUR or the percentage of businesses who are eligible and have utilised these FTAs relative to those who are eligible but did not utilise these FTAs (The Federation of German Industries, 2018). The PUR can be calculated using two methods, the national-level method by looking at the export/import form and the business level by distributing surveys to check which FTAs businesses use (Ing, Urata, & Fukunaga, 2015).
Unfortunately, until now, Indonesia does not have (or publish) any comprehensive data on PUR. However, one interviewee from the MoT suggests that the average PURs in Indonesia ranges from 20% to 30% (Author's Personal Interview, 2018), which are still low compared to other countries. For instance, the average PUR in Singapore is 68%, meaning that more than half of its private actors have utilised Singapore's existing FTAs (Lim & Choo, 2015). Upon further scrutiny, Indonesia's PUR is even lower for ASEANbased FTAs, since they offer less trade preferences. Ing, et al. (2015) found that the utilisation rate for ASEAN-Japan FTA stood at only 6.6%, although Japan is one of ASEAN member states' main trading partners. Noting that most of Indonesia's active FTAs are finalised through ASEAN (six out of ten FTAs), the economic ineffectiveness of these FTAs-as the previous section has illustrated-may also be a result of the strong foreign policy goals being at play. The existence of foreign policy goals is, indeed, justifiable, and in fact ASEAN have, perhaps, succeeded at this front. For example, RCEP is by far, the first platform that managed to bring together ASEAN's six dialogue partners-several of which are great regional powers -under one forum where ASEAN acts as the 'manager'. In fact, ASEAN has a habit of using these types of forums to maintain its central role and safeguard Southeast Asia's regional cohesiveness (Ba, 1997). However, while these goals are reasonable, the need to obtain foreign policy objectives should not undermine the economic goals, especially for Indonesia.
The problem with Indonesia is that since its trade diplomacy is characterised by a low level of involvement by private sectors and inefficiencies in negotiations, the economic advantages of these FTAs may diminish overtime since these FTAs fail to acknowledge what private sectors and economic players need. As a comparison, Singapore actively involves its private sectors in FTA negotiations through questionnaires and regular updates of FTA negotiations (Author's Personal Interview, 2018). Therefore, although ASEAN-based FTAs will mostly fulfil the foreign policy goals, Singapore's individual diplomacy will always be aligned with the private sector's needs-as evidenced by the high PUR-and, thus, fulfilling their economic goals. Unfortunately, such efforts have yet to be seen in Indonesia.

CONCLUSION
Trade diplomacy, as the nexus between foreign policy and trade policy, will fundamentally consist of both economic and political dimensions. For Indonesia, this research reveals a bias towards the foreign policy dimension of trade diplomacy, compared to the economic ones as evidenced by three main aspects. Looking at the actors involved, Indonesia's FTA diplomacy is rather centralistic and is dominated by stakeholders in foreign policy-making with little involvement by non-state actors. In terms of the processes, Indonesia's trade diplomacy is characterised by a dualistic approach, where Indonesia engages in FTAs both individually and collectively through ASEAN, leading to inefficiencies in negotiation and the ineffectiveness of these FTAs.
This ineffectiveness can be seen by the low FTA utilisation rates, particularly those initiated through ASEAN. Lastly, Indonesia's FTA diplomatic goals lean more towards achieving foreign policy goals, rather than economic ones, as exemplified by the number of FTAs signed and the economic benefits that they bring. ASEAN's emphasis on political-security goals also resulted in the primacy of foreign policy objectives in Indonesia's trade diplomacy, relative to economic ones.
Looking at these findings, Indonesia needs to reposition its FTA diplomacy to achieve larger economic goals. In doing so, Indonesia may opt for several possible courses of actions. First, Indonesia needs to incorporate private sectors and civil society groups to better connect with the public's need in its FTA negotiations. Indonesia can look at the EU's 'Civil Society Dialogue' model, where the EU provides a regular forum for different stakeholders to allow regular updates on FTA negotiations. This will, of course, rely heavily on the PPI team's workload, meaning that Indonesia also needs to comprehensively assess its ongoing FTA negotiations to ensure that the resources are distributed effectively and efficiently. Second, Indonesia needs to maximise ASEAN's external economic relations division's role and function and focus more on the formulation and attainment of regional collective trade goals. Indonesia may explore the possibilities of creating an ad hoc team to design and formulate a template ASEAN FTA to reduce inefficiencies in negotiation. Along a similar line, ASEAN can also maximise the use of addendums in their FTA negotiations to provide leeway for member states who wish to engage in deeper commitments with external ASEAN partners.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The author wishes to extend gratitude to Lembaga Pengelola Dana Pendidikan (LPDP) who have provided the fund for this research as a part of the author's doctoral study. The author would also like to appreciate the reviewers for providing valuable inputs and additional information for this article.