JAKARTA -- From claypot to curry and mie ayam, the Japanese Embassy in Indonesia's 155,000 Instagram followers usually know what local dish Ambassador Kenji Kanasugi had for lunch.
Tokyo's former point man for North Korean affairs has been busy promoting Japan since arriving in Jakarta in January. The choice of Kanasugi to serve as ambassador to Indonesia was a strategic decision made by Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga to send the best and brightest of Japan's diplomatic corps across the crucial Indo-Pacific region.
Choices for ambassadors to Australia, Cambodia and the Philippines have followed a similar pattern.
On June 14, Kanasugi was seen at the Jakarta headquarters of the MNC Group, the country's largest media conglomerate owning four TV stations, to give interviews with two websites it operates.
The themes were the Tokyo Olympics, diplomatic and defense cooperation between Japan and Indonesia as well as local cuisine. The interviews were published that day. The two websites, respectably the No. 1 and No. 6 most watched portal sites in Indonesia, offered the 61-year-old envoy no shortage of eyeballs.
While most of the embassies in Jakarta each have various social media accounts, Japan stands out in the frequency with which the ambassador appears. With the envoy donning Indonesian attire or a Japanese yukata bathrobe, the Japanese Embassy's Instagram feed is a Kenji Kanasugi slideshow.
But such social media exposure, on the flip side, reflects Kanasugi's deep worry that Japan is slipping out of the picture.
In April, one statistic sent shock waves among the Japanese business community in the country. Japan had fallen to 7th in foreign direct investment to Indonesia for the January-March period, lagging way behind the likes of China and South Korea. While those two countries have visibly increased investment, Japan has equally decreased its.
Kanasugi, during his days as director general of the Asian and Oceanian affairs bureau, is surrounded by reporters in Singapore's Changi Airport in 2018. (Photo by Saki Hayashi) Japan is no longer the most important economic partner for Indonesia. For Jakarta's recent push into developing a homegrown electric car-battery industry, it is the Chinese and South Koreans that are seen as potential partners.
In his first round of meetings with local players, Kanasugi was consistently asked "where did Japan go?"
It was through this painful, but eye-opening experience, that Kanasugi decided he needed to be active on social media, putting Japan on the mental map of the Indonesians.
According to surveys, Indonesians spend an hour more on the internet than the global average. President Joko Widodo has 40 million followers on Instagram, easily double that of U.S. President Joe Biden. In the local political scene, it counts how many "likes" you garner on average.
When a case of COVID-19 was first confirmed in Indonesia last March, there was speculation that a Japanese was the initial source. Then-Ambassador Masafumi Ishii reached out to Indonesia's cabinet members to share his concerns of the dangers of the rumors.
The ministers helped quell such rumors in days. It is said that the number of "likes" the Japanese Embassy had on Instagram gave Ishii clout.
The bigger the number of followers and "likes," the more respect politicians and business leaders can expect to receive. With concern toward China growing in Indonesia, there is an opening for Kanasugi and his team to convey to the local audience that "Japan is back."