The Sources of Indonesian President Soeharto's Contradicting Attitude in the APEC and NAM in the Mid 1990s 【Research Note】

Indonesia's foreign policy during under Soeharto period (1966-1998) was closely related to the con-figuration of domestic politics, in which Soeharto comfortably enjoyed unchallenged authoritativepower. After consolidating his power during the first and second decade in power, Soeharto sought agreater and more prestigious international leadership role since the late 1980s. The foreign policy'shigher profile was possible since Soeharto felt confident as he held a tighter decisive control overdomestic politics and had successfully brought restoration to Indonesia's debilitated economy. Detailson how this process took place during the last years of Soeharto's presidency were the central theme ofthis article.APEC and NAM were the two latest cases in showing Soeharto's ability to utilize his dominant posi-tion at home for his ambition in pursuing a more distinguished international figure in 1990s. In NAM,Soeharto projected his global statesmanship by playing a concessive role as a leader of developing coun-tries. Soeharto's ambition in NAM was to revitalized platform of NAM toward greater economic anddevelopmental cooperation among developing countries. In the case of APEC, Soeharto seemed toemploy conciliatory attitude toward developed countries, particularly US and Japan.