Jakarta. President Prabowo Subianto had promised China a sound investment climate in a meeting with the latter’s chief diplomat, the Chinese government revealed Saturday.

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi and Defense Minister Dong Jun met with Prabowo in Jakarta on Friday night during a visit aimed at beefing up ties.

In a social media update posted the following evening, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Lin Jian wrote that Prabowo had given his word that he would back Beijing’s investors.

“Indonesia welcomes more Chinese enterprises to invest and do business in the country, and will continue to provide a sound business environment for Chinese companies, and opposes any ill-intentioned instigation and hype,” Lin said.

Lin did not go into detail on what he meant by the malicious intent that was haunting the Chinese businesses.

He only said that Wang was open to helping “accelerate the pace of [Indonesia’s] industrialization” in reference to Jakarta’s wish to move up the production value chain across dozens of commodities. 

The meeting came about a few months after an open letter by Chinese businessmen to Prabowo went viral. The five-page letter reflected their concerns over Indonesia’s abrupt policy shifts in the nickel sector as well as extortion.

Beijing claimed that both sides had kept “very open” communication channels following the complaints. China has also denied that Prabowo’s constant criticisms of greedy foreign investors were targeted at its country.

Wang also met with Luhut Binsar Pandjaitan — former investment tsar who is now Prabowo’s senior economic advisor — during his Jakarta visit.

Luhut posted on his personal Instagram account that both countries were looking to “draft a long-term roadmap that would include the high-speed train project and green energy development in North Kalimantan”.

For context, Indonesia had used a Chinese loan to fund the $7.3 billion fast train that links the capital Jakarta and West Java’s Bandung. The country is mulling extending the line to the East Javan capital of Surabaya.

Investment from the Chinese mainland reached $3.9 billion in the first half of 2026, just third to China’s Hong Kong, which recorded around $7.6 billion, government data showed. Singapore topped the list by investing $8.8 billion over the same period.

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