The United States and Indonesia are building a formidable alliance, driven largely by the two nations’ shared antipathy toward the Chinese government’s designs on the South China Sea and more general concerns about China’s role in the region. An August 3 Reuters report detailed the marked success of Tuesday’s meeting in Washington between U.S. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken and Indonesian Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi. The two officials reportedly spoke at length about a strategic partnership designed to counteract China’s longstanding territorial ambitions in the waterways north and east of Indonesia and also to continue a joint response to the Covid-19 crisis. In t ...