Indonesia has recently become the world’s dominant producer of nickel. The country’s rise in the mining industry and its push into higher-value steps in the nickel supply chain is due in part to capital from one source: China. Chinese companies have joined forces with Indonesian ones to form a nickel powerhouse. However, some practices of these joint Chinese-Indonesian ventures have given rise to allegations of corruption, illegal activity, and harm to local Indonesians’ livelihoods. Trissia Wijaya, a senior research fellow at Ritsumeikan University, authored this month’s edition of the BRI Monitor Policy Brief. This brief examines these governance challenges and recommends steps the Indonesian government and Chinese enterprises can take to close governance gaps.
