According to the Indonesian Antara News Agency on March 15, when Indonesian President Joko Widodo talked about the construction process of the country's new capital "Nusantara", he admitted that it would take 15 to 20 years to build the new capital because it is a "huge project"

Special written by The Paper Hu Yukun

According to the Indonesian Antara News Agency on March 15, when Indonesian President Joko Widodo talked about the construction process of the country's new capital "Nusantara", he admitted that it would take 15 to 20 years to build the new capital because it is a "huge project" and "very complex". When President Joko Widodo made this statement, it was only two months since the Indonesian parliament The draft National Capital Law passed and provided a legal basis for the formal relocation of the capital, and only five days after the mayor and deputy mayor of the "Nusantara National Capital" were sworn in.

As early as when the capital was first proposed to move in April 2019, the Indonesian government knew that this was destined to be a long-term grand project. But on the other hand, the current capital Jakarta is increasingly unsustainable in the face of various pressures and challenges, and the new capital project is urgently needed to share its worries as soon as possible. At the same time, what new problems will be added to a modern city on a rather "original ecologically pure natural" land, which makes it difficult for the Indonesian government to avoid.

Local time on March 15, 2022, Indonesia a corner of the city center of Jakarta, the capital. Visual ChinaFigure

The new capital that cannot be anxious, the Jakarta

In fact, what Jokovic said this time will take 15 to 20 years, not a "new thing" under the sunlight, but an echo of the Indonesian government's consistent planning. Even after the parliament granted the "capital relocation law" permission, the Indonesian Ministry of Finance said to Reuters that the initial phase of the capital will be started between 2022 and 2024, but there is still no timetable for the completion of the capital relocation.

Indonesian National Development Planning Minister Suharso Monoalfa, who is directly responsible for the capital relocation project, said bluntly that the construction of the new capital will not be completed until 2045. This is basically in line with what Jokovic said in 15 to 20 years.

After all, Indonesia is not the first "people who eats the crab" among the ASEAN countries. Whether it is Malaysia moving the federal government from Kuala Lumpur to Putrajaya , or Myanmar moving the capital from Yangon to Naypyidaw , both reflect the manpower, material resources, financial resources and challenges required to build a new capital, and it also determines that it is impossible to move it for a day. For Indonesia, it will inevitably take long-term efforts to build a brand new city in the more "natural" Borneo island.

However, what contradicts the "unrushed" of the newly built capital is that it "can't wait" to reduce the burden on Jakarta. After decades of discussions on , the Indonesian government finally made up its mind in 2019 and implemented it as quickly as possible (if it was not for the sudden outbreak of the new crown epidemic in 2020, the legislation and enforcement procedures would have been initiated earlier). The most direct reason is that Jakarta has long been overwhelmed and can't afford to wait.

In addition to the founding father of Indonesia, Sukarno , who long thought that Jakarta was "not suitable as the capital" and took the lead in proposing to move the capital to Kalimantan Island, the second president, Suharto and the sixth president, Susilo, also considered moving the capital, but neither of them could take substantial steps. As the city disease in Jakarta is becoming increasingly difficult to recover. Traffic congestion, environmental pollution and the sinking of grounds caused by overpopulation have become an imminent real crisis.

Java Island , although it is only the fifth largest island in the world by area, its population of 147 million makes it the largest island in the world, and it carries almost 55% of the country's population. As the current capital and the largest city on the island, Jakarta has a total population of more than 10 million, and its population density is close to 16,000 people per square kilometer. The permanent population of Greater Jakarta metropolitan area has reached 35 million. The most direct consequence of severe "overload" in

is the first of all, which is more serious traffic congestion.

In the eyes of local residents of Jakarta, this city is inherently deficient and has problems with road traffic planning. As the population continues to grow, it is now criticized by Indonesian contemporary writer Ajidama as "the average life of citizens spends 10 years on transportation." As early as 2015, satellite navigation data showed that the average number of starts and stops by Jakarta drivers each year reached 33,240 times, becoming the city with the most serious traffic congestion in the world as mentioned by the United States " Times ".

Driving and riding in a car is stuck on the road, but walking and cycling poses greater health risks. The number of people and cars caused by environmental pollution is inevitable for almost all cities. According to the New York Times report, 70% of the environmental pollution in Jakarta comes from automobile emissions, and its severity is even worse than that of most metropolis around the world: in 2019, before the outbreak of the epidemic, data from the Jakarta Health Bureau showed that the city's air quality meets the "health standards" for only two days a year.

According to the common saying of international media, the level of air pollution in this city can be comparable to that of the Indian capital New Delhi . As Stella Kusumawardhani, the economic research leader at the Southeast Strategic Institute of Indonesia, said, looking at the thermal power plants surrounding the city and the unbanned private waste incineration activities forced her to worry that she would get cancer because of it.

If traffic and environmental issues can theoretically be waited and properly resolved within a sufficient time frame, another crisis that has plagued Indonesia - the sinking of the city's ground - is imminent and demanding the capital to be moved is urgent.

In order to meet the drinking water needs of citizens, Jakarta has over-exploited groundwater all year round, making it the fastest city in the world with ground sinking speed. At the same time, climate change has led to the continuous rise of sea levels in the Java Sea in . With one after another, floods have often occurred in the city in recent years, causing the loss of residents' property and even lives.

According to experts, if the current annual ground sinking rate of 25 cm is maintained, one-third of Jakarta will be flooded by sea water by 2050, especially 95% of the northern areas will no longer exist. In this sense, the complete migration of the capital by 2045 seems to have become a task that must be completed.

On the one hand, the capital migration project requires sufficient time and scientific, cautious and patient planning to avoid repeating the mistakes of Jakarta's poor planning and many legacy problems; on the other hand, Jakarta, which is "highly stressed", waits again and again, but it is difficult to wait any longer now. This "long race" with time is really a challenge to the Indonesian government.

relieves old pressure or adds new problems?

is similar to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia and Yangon, Myanmar. Jakarta's loss of capital status does not mean that the city has lost its existing influence, nor does it mean that it has been "abandoned".

After all, Jakarta will still be the location of the ASEAN Secretariat. As early as 2019, when the Indonesian government proposed the idea of ​​moving the capital, the ASEAN Secretariat held the inauguration ceremony of the new building on the 52nd anniversary of the founding of ASEAN. ASEAN Secretary-General Lin Yuhui not only confirmed that the ASEAN Secretariat would not move with the Indonesian government, but also used the United Nations headquarters to compare with New York, expressing his belief that Jakarta "will become the capital of ASEAN."

After the Indonesian parliament passed the capital relocation bill this year, Jakarta Capital Special Administrative Region Governor Anis Baswidan almost immediately expressed his opinion to local media, saying that Jakarta will continue to become the center of the country's economic, cultural and other fields, and even the hub of the entire Indonesia. shows that Indonesia's expectations for Jakarta are "reducing burden" rather than "declining".

The reason why the Indonesian government chose to establish a new capital 2,000 kilometers away from Jakarta is not only a geographical location, but also a more central position in terms of geographical location, but also to change its economic "heavy" regional imbalance pattern, promote economic development outside Java Island, and achieve the "balance and justice of economic development" promised by President Jokovic.

The determination of the name "Nusantara" in the new capital also reflects the government's ideas. In Javanese , it means "arctic islands". The new capital is named in this way, naturally, to show that it carries the hope of the entire archipelago nation (which consists of more than 17,000 islands).

must not only share the pressure, maintain the position of Jakarta's economic center, and promote the balanced development of the regional economy. The Indonesian government's goal is ambitious.But at the same time, many Indonesians have another question in their minds: will the migration of to Borneo Island and build Nusantara "reduce the burden" on Java and Jakarta, or will it create additional new problems for Borneo Island and even the entire country?

First of all, as the largest infrastructure project in Indonesia's history, the migration of capital and the construction of Nusantara will inevitably become a heavy economic burden on the country.

According to the Indonesian government, the total investment in the entire capital relocation project will reach 489 trillion Indonesian rupiah (about 34 billion US dollars). In Wu Shuxian's view, the only problem with the capital relocation project is that Indonesia does not have enough financial support during the epidemic. Financing in the international capital market has become an inevitable option to complete the capital migration after the Indonesian government denied that it would bear at least 50%.

However, a news on March 9 is a major blow to the financing plan: Indonesian Ocean and Investment Coordination Minister Luhut confirmed that the most important investor in the capital relocation project, founder of Japan SoftBank Group, Masayoshi Son , withdrew from the investment, and the Indonesian government can only continue to seek new investment from the Middle East and China.

The outlook for external investment is uncertain. The dual pressure of the epidemic and the capital migration has significantly improved the debt level of the Indonesian government. According to statistics from the World Bank , Indonesia's national debt accounted for 41.4% of its GDP in 2021, nearly 11% higher than in 2019 before the epidemic. Statista, a German data statistics and survey agency, predicts that the proportion of Indonesia's government debt will remain at around 42% in the next five years.

Statistics on the proportion of Indonesia's government bond GDP in the past five years and forecasts for the next five years, Source: Statista

In addition to the economic and fiscal burden that Indonesia will face, whether the migration of will transfer the environmental pressure in Jakarta to Nusantara and its East Kalimantan Province is currently a controversial topic. Indonesia's largest environmental protection organization, the Indonesian Environmental Forum (WALHI), criticized the Indonesian government's plan to relocate capital, which ignored at least three basic issues: threats to water source systems, threats to flora and fauna, and environmental pollution.

For this new capital with the same coastal conditions, lack of (pure) water is also the most troublesome problem at the moment. In fact, water shortage was seen as a serious crisis on the island of Borneo before the plan to move the capital was proposed. According to the current plan of the Indonesian Ministry of Development Planning, the population of Nusantara will reach 1.5 million by 2035, 15 times the total number of residents in the region. How to solve the basic water use problem of the surge in the population and whether it will repeat the mistakes of Jakarta's excessive exploitation of groundwater requires careful consideration.

At the same time, it is precisely because Borneo Island is sparsely populated and has low development level, so it is famous for its good natural ecological environment and biodiversity . It is famous for its vast tropical rainforest with a history of more than 140 million years. It has about 15,000 natural plants and is also a habitat for more than 1,400 species of animals of all kinds. Once more than 1 million people are pouring in the next 10 to 15 years, coupled with the construction of a modern city, it will inevitably have an impact on the existing ecological environment.

In this regard, the "smart city" and "innovative city" promised by Jokovic is also difficult to dispel the concerns of local environmental protection organizations and residents. What's more, Nusantara is closer to the equator and hotter than Jakarta, and it is not uncommon for the temperature to reach 40℃. How to make the new capital cooler and more livable without increasing energy consumption is by no means a small problem.

In addition, relying on the natural ecological environment and the continuous local economic lifestyle throughout the year is also very likely to be greatly affected with the establishment of the new capital. The residents of Borneo Island mainly make a living by planting, hunting and fishing. Although the Indonesian government promises that the new capital will create millions of new jobs, for local residents who are accustomed to traditional economic production, once the economic foundation on which they rely on no longer exists, this intelligent and innovative new capital will have a question mark.

It is imperative to slow down the pressure in Jakarta, and balancing regional development is also a matter of course, but what effect will affect the national capital migration be the biggest uncertainty that Indonesia will face in the next 15 to 20 years.

(Hu Yukun, member of Chinese Translation Association and international political columnist)

Editor in charge: Zhu Zhengyong Picture editor: Le Yufeng

Proofreading: Xu Yijia