On 29 April Indonesia executed seven foreigners and one Indonesian for drug offences. The refusal of President Joko Widodo (Jokowi) to offer clemency despite pleas from foreign leaders has been analysed in a number of ways.(...)But was his decision instead a deliberate act of public diplomacy, designed to send signals to those missing the Sukarno era?

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi will soon be completing his first full year in office. While he has his critics, there tends to be broad agreement that Modi has done a robust job in the sphere of foreign policy. Modi’s approach has focused on economics, soft power, connectivity, and maritime security. Modi has been deft at using what Joseph Nye has dubbed “smart power” – the right blend of soft power and hard power.

The executions of Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran in the early hours of Wednesday morning present several tricky challenges for relations between Australia and Indonesia. The Australian government immediately announced it would recall its ambassador, Paul Grigson, and suspend ministerial visits. In a rare show of solidarity, the Labor Party and the Greens fully supported this. It is unclear at this stage if other actions might be taken.

Indeed, in the immediate aftermath of the brutal state-sanctioned killing of two Australian citizens, the shallowness of any trust between Jakarta and Canberra - between Australians and Indonesians - has been fully exposed.The expected recall of both ambassadors - theirs in direct retaliation to the unprecedented withdrawal of ours already announced - is as inevitable as it is regrettably, largely pointless. Ditto for other gestures of Australian unhappiness in the diplomatic sphere.

Six months after taking office, Indonesian President Joko Widodo is starting to step away from his predecessor’s foreign policy of keeping everyone happy. Widodo, known as Jokowi, criticized the United Nations and International Monetary Fund at this week’s Asian African Conference in Jakarta. He’s pledged to increase defense spending, ordered foreign boats seized for illegal fishing to be destroyed, and declined to pardon two Australian drug smugglers facing a firing squad, leading to warnings of damaged ties.

Under Secretary Richard Stengel will travel to Jakarta, Indonesia April 14–15. While in Jakarta, Under Secretary Stengel will meet with the U.S. Ambassador to Indonesia and U.S. Embassy staff. He will also meet the U.S. Ambassador to ASEAN...

Data show that the number of Internet users in Indonesia reached 72.5 million this year, equal to some 29 percent of the population. The government, Hodiny said, should play a role in bridging the information gap; it should help as many people as possible get connected to the Internet because knowledge improves lives.