Beijing. President Prabowo Subianto told Chinese leader Xi Jinping on Saturday that he will preside over the signing of over $10 billion worth of deals during a meeting between Chinese companies and the Indonesian Chamber of Commerce and Industry (Kadin) after wrapping up his two-week international tour.

Prabowo was in his first overseas stop since he took office three weeks ago.

During the meeting in Beijing, the two leaders presided over the signing of various agreements on fishing, mining, housing and import and exports.

Prabowo is seeking to strengthen relations with China, Indonesia’s largest trading partner and one of its most important foreign investors. This is his second visit to Beijing this year, following a visit in April as president-elect, the first overseas trip he made after winning the Indonesian presidential election in February.

“Indonesia considers China not only as a great power but as a great civilization,” Prabowo said at the meeting, adding that the two countries had had close relations for centuries. “Therefore, I think it is only natural that now in the present situation, geopolitical and geoeconomic, that Indonesia and China have become very close partners and in many, many fields.”

Xi vowed support for Prabowo 's administration, thanking him for choosing to visit China first and saying he believed “Indonesia will adhere to an independent development path, continue to make new achievements in the journey of achieving national prosperity and national rejuvenation, and play an important role on the international and regional stage.”

Earlier on Saturday, Prabowo met with other top Chinese leaders, including Premier Li Qiang and Zhao Leji, who is chairman of the National People’s Congress and considered the No. 3 official in the ruling Communist Party.

Prabowo is on the first stop on a multi-country tour. He is scheduled to visit four other nations, including the US and the UK, suggesting that Indonesia will continue its longstanding stance of neutrality between Beijing and Washington. He is scheduled to meet US President Joe Biden and expected also to meet president-elect Donald Trump early next week.

Indonesia’s economic ties with China flourished during the previous administration under President Joko Widodo. During the past decade, China has become Indonesia’s largest trading partner and plowed billions into major infrastructure projects such as the Jakarta-Bandung high-speed railway, which opened last October, and Cirata, Southeast Asia’s largest floating solar power project, on a reservoir in West Java, 130 kilometers (80 miles) from the capital, Jakarta.

Prabowo is signaling a more active foreign policy for Indonesia, visiting over 20 countries as president-elect. Days after his inauguration, Indonesia expressed interest in becoming a full member of the BRICS bloc of developing economies that includes Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa.

Indonesia has maintained a relatively neutral stance amid rising tensions between China and its Southeast Asian neighbors over territorial disputes in the South China Sea. China, the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, Taiwan and Brunei have overlapping claims in the resource-rich and busy waterway.

Though Indonesia’s leaders say they do not have a formal territorial dispute with China over the South China Sea, China’s “nine-dash line,” which it uses to roughly demarcate its claim to most of the South China Sea, overlaps with a section of Indonesia’s exclusive economic zone that extends from the Natuna Islands.

Last month, Indonesian patrol ships repeatedly drove away a Chinese coast guard vessel from a survey vessel in the disputed area, according to Indonesian authorities. Jakarta has become increasingly protective of its rights in the region as Chinese ships have regularly entered the area Indonesia calls the North Natuna Sea, straining relations between the countries.

Though neither leader directly addressed the tensions in front of reporters, the two countries signed agreements on maritime safety and on the joint development of fisheries and oil and gas in the area of overlapping maritime claims during Prabowo’s visit. No details were provided.

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