How 2025 Quietly Rewired China–Indonesia Educational Ties
Muhammad Zulfikar Rakhmat and Yeta Purnama reveal how over 2025 China–Indonesia educational ties were quietly rewired through a multitude of low-visibility decisions.
International cooperation often appears to move through headline agreements, but in 2025, China–Indonesia educational ties expanded in quieter, more incremental ways. Instead of a major diplomatic breakthrough, the year produced a series of practical partnerships—between schools, universities, research institutes, and industry actors—that collectively altered how the two countries interact across their education systems.
The earliest shifts appeared in Indonesia’s secondary-school networks. Senior high schools and vocational senior high schools affiliated with Ma’arif NU—the education branch of Nahdlatul Ulama, the world’s largest Muslim mass organization—established structured pathways for their students to enroll in Chinese universities. These arrangements relied on scholarships, pre-university Chinese-language programs, study visits, and conditional-admission mechanisms. Because Ma’arif NU supervises thousands of schools nationwide, these partnerships expanded quickly in scale, though each individual agreement remained small.
Private schools also participated. Francis Senior High School and Indonesia’s Beihang Robotics Communication Center coordinated direct admissions routes into Chinese institutions such as Beihang University (known for aerospace engineering), the China University of Petroleum (specializing in petroleum engineering and energy technologies), and Harbin Engineering University (a leading institution in maritime engineering and shipbuilding). These programs reflected a straightforward mix of supply and demand: Indonesian students seeking specialized degrees at reasonable cost, and Chinese universities looking to internationalize their recruitment profiles.
Vocational and polytechnic cooperation grew largely through industry channels. LiuGong Indonesia—the branch of a major Chinese heavy-machinery manufacturer—expanded training programs for diploma-level students and vocational-school graduates. Partner institutions included State Polytechnic of Jakarta, State Polytechnic of Balikpapan, Hasanuddin University, and several vocational high schools in Java and Kalimantan. Students trained in Liuzhou in heavy-equipment diagnostics, digital machinery, and electric-vehicle engineering, while Indonesian instructors joined technical-teaching workshops. These initiatives functioned less as international diplomacy than as extensions of a company’s workforce development efforts.
Artificial-intelligence cooperation took shape through a partnership between Indosat Ooredoo Hutchison, one of Indonesia’s largest telecommunications firms; the Indonesia Technology Alliance, a domestic consortium that connects industries and researchers in applied innovation; and Tsinghua University, China’s leading engineering university. The group launched an AI Application Cooperation Center focusing on agricultural data analysis, digital health, and telecom-system optimization. The collaboration emphasized operational use cases rather than broad technological ambition, reflecting Indosat’s interest in applying AI within its existing network.
Universities continued to expand their networks but on a modest scale. Universitas Pasundan, a private institution known for applied sciences, signed agreements with the China Wisdom Engineering Association and the International Academicians Science and Technology Innovation Centre—both bodies that facilitate links between researchers and industry. Universitas Trisakti explored cooperation with the Shandong Taishan Management Institute on management and industrial-studies curricula. Institut Teknologi Bandung (ITB), Indonesia’s top engineering university, engaged in a broader set of collaborations guided by the Ministry of Higher Education, Science, and Technology, a government body reorganized to coordinate research policy and higher-education planning.
Scientific cooperation extended into specialized fields such as maritime archaeology. Delegations from Indonesia’s Ministry of Marine Affairs and Fisheries visited conservation sites and research facilities in Guangdong, Shanghai, and Hainan to study how China manages underwater heritage resources, including the well-known Nanhai No. 1 shipwreck. Indonesia, with thousands of submerged archaeological sites but limited conservation capacity, viewed these visits as opportunities to observe technical procedures, regulatory structures, and museum-based presentation models.
Private educational intermediaries facilitated additional exchanges, hosting Chinese vocational institutions interested in partnerships with Indonesian colleges specializing in maritime transportation, mechatronics, and engineering technology. These visits typically involved school presentations, teacher-training discussions, and admissions briefings. While individually modest, they contributed to the normalization of cross-border collaboration in vocational education.
Near the end of the year, the China–Indonesia Think Tank Forum attempted to make sense of this dispersed landscape. Organized by Indonesia’s National Research and Innovation Agency (BRIN)—created in 2021 to consolidate the country’s research institutions—and the National Institute of International Strategy under the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS), a major state-backed research and policy body, the forum proposed a bilateral think tank intended to analyze and coordinate emerging patterns of cooperation. The announcement did not initiate the year’s activity; it responded to it.
Taken together, these developments did not redefine relations in a dramatic way. Instead, they introduced new habits: school administrators managing overseas pathways, vocational instructors integrating new training modules, researchers coordinating survey methods, and universities testing limited joint programs. These routines reshape expectations and gradually embed international cooperation in everyday institutional work.
The implications are mixed. The expansion increases opportunities for students and access to specialized expertise, yet it also introduces reliance on external partners for technical training and raises questions about how benefits are distributed across Indonesia’s diverse education landscape. Many of the initiatives remain small and exploratory, with outcomes that will only become visible over time.
What 2025 revealed is that China–Indonesia educational ties were not transformed by a single policy shift but quietly rewired through a multitude of low-visibility decisions. These accumulated interactions—practical, technical, and often routine—now shape how both countries teach, train, and conduct research, even as the long-term consequences remain open.
Muhammad Zulfikar Rakhmat is the Director of the China-Indonesia and Indonesia-MENA Desks at the Center of Economic and Law Studies (CELIOS) in Jakarta.
Photo by Tom Fisk
