JAPAN-INDONESIA RELATIONS: A STUDY CASE OF JAPANESE OFFICIAL DEVELOPMENT ASSISTANCE (ODA) LOAN AIDS IN THE CONSTRUCTION OF MASS RAPID TRANSIT (MRT) JAKARTA, 2015-2018

Abstract

Traffic congestion has been one of the major issues faced by Jakarta, the capital city of Indonesia. This is because of density of the society in the region due to the rise if population, follows the increasing number of personal vehicles by the citizens. This situation worsens the congestion in the road. In the effort to encounter this issue, Indonesia started the project of constructing Mass Rapid Transit (MRT) Jakarta as an addition of Jakarta‟s public transportation in order to mitigate the traffic issue. After the construction project officially started in 2013, Japan provided loan aids within two waves as the part of their Official Development Assistance (ODA) initiative. With these loan aids, Japan has contributed in funding three construction areas, which are the north-south area phase 1 and 2, as well as the engineering study of east-west line. By using the qualitative research method, the author would like to elaborate on how Japan‟s ODA loan aids to the construction stage of MRT Jakarta within the year of 2015-2018 have impacted the relations between Japan and Indonesia. The author elaborated the theory of Complex Interdependence by Robert Keohane and Joseph Nye in order to analyze the influence of this case towards their relations. By seeing through this theory, the writer found that the ODA loan aids from Japan were very contributive within their mutual benefit relationship, where Indonesia rely on Japan‟s ODA in fulfilling their national development, while Japan rely on the procurement of MRT Jakarta in securing their foreign investor that exist in their country.