Data Check: Anies Wants Indonesian Culture to Enter the World Stage, What's the Current Situation?

Presidential candidate number one, Anies Baswedan, aims to bring Indonesian culture onto the world stage.

He stated this during the third presidential and vice-presidential debate of 2024, themed Defense, Security, International Relations, and Geopolitics, held at Istora Senayan, Jakarta, on Sunday (7/1/2024).

In his vision and mission presentation, Anies said, "We plan to leverage the strength of our culture, arts, and economy to influence the global stage. We want our films, cuisine, arts, diplomats, and diaspora to become a global phenomenon, making their presence felt internationally," he stated.

According to the Lowy Institute, Indonesia's current cultural influence in Asia is not yet considered strong.

The Lowy Institute measures the strength of cultural influence through various indicators, ranging from online search interest in a country, the number of globally reputable brands from a country, the international distribution of its students, the influence of its diaspora, tourism appeal, to the number of cultural sites listed as global heritage sites.

Based on these indicators, in 2023 Indonesia only achieved a cultural influence index score of 14.2 out of 100 points.

This figure lags behind the cultural influence scores of China, Japan, India, Malaysia, South Korea, Thailand, and Singapore.