Diplomasi Pertahanan Indonesia-China dan Kebijakan Minimum Essential Force dalam Upaya Indonesia Menjadi Leader State di Asia Tenggara

Indonesia is the largest country in Southeast Asia, both in terms of area and population. Indonesia is also seen as important and strategic from the standpoint of the interests of countries, both at the regional and global level. With various major assets it has, Indonesia emerges confidently as a leader in the Southeast Asia region by becoming a leader state in the region. One of Indonesia’s efforts is defence diplomacy with China and the development of the Minimum Essential Force (MEF) policy. Within this research, some approaches that will be used are liberalism, the theory of Hegemony, Defence Diplomacy and National Interest concept, and Collective Security theory. This research uses explanative type of research, which explains the corelation between two or more variables. The primary data resource was collected from Indonesia’s Defence White Paper 2008, Republic of Indonesia’s Acts, Decrees of Indonesian President, and the Formal Regulations of Ministry of Defence of Indonesia. The other data resources were collected by doing literature review that obtained in the printed and electronic media. The data collection was completed by doing library research, documentation and non-participant observation technique. The result of this research is Indonesia defence diplomacy with China and the development of Minimum Essential Force policy as Indonesia’s efforts of becoming a leader state in the Southeast Asia region, as well as a part of Indonesia’s national interests in defence sector. Nevertheless, to become a leader state in Southeast Asia, Indonesia’s effort is not enough by only doing defence diplomacy with China, but also by doing a strong cooperation with the other major countries. Keywords: Leader State, Defence Diplomacy, Republic of Indonesia, Minimum Essential Force, Collective Security, National Interest, People’s Republic of Chin