I’m speaking as an Indonesian here, as I mentioned in the Aviation suggestion, Indonesia is non-aligned throughout the years, that means there’s no one nation that currently we are extremely close with. Neither China nor Japan, Soviets nor US.
However
the simplest and least controversial way to see it is from a historical perspective or cultural perspective, historical is definitely more clear-cut than the grey area of culture. To simplify (and apologies first and foremost) Ukraine and Russia are quite similar in their culture, not the same, but close, yet if Ukraine were to be put in Russia that would bring a connotation to the addition, whether it is intentional or not. This is also the same reason why I dont want SK to be put with Japan
Now, from a historical standpoint its also possible to be controversial (some people might disagree with India being demoted as a quasi-sub-tree for the British for instance). However in Indonesia’s case there isnt a whole lot of negativity in regards to its former colonizers, Netherlands & Japan, atleast relatively anyways
Netherlands ruled over Indonesia for around 300 years (which is a long fucking time), Japan meanwhile only ruled indonesia for about 3 years. But, we cant deny the fact that both nations were very intimate with Indonesia. Now for some perspective, generally Japan is seen as the “less worse of the two evils”, because even though both nations are quite oppresive, only Japan has actually helped indonesia prepare its Independence. Not only that but Japanese administration for certain parts in Indonesia is extremely lax, to the point of frustration by the Japanese state. Notably Hitoshi Imamura’s administration of Java, the guy who built a replica prison in his home because his warcrime sentence was too relaxed.
Indonesians were miltarily trained by the Japanese via numerous different organization, PETA (Defenders of the Homeland), the Keibōdan, Seinendan, etc., Chinese Indonesians also established the Kakyō Keibōtai. Not just militarily, but Indonesian politics were extremely helped by the Japanese, with the formation of the Hōkōkai. as well as the Dokuritsu Junbi Chōsakai and Dokuritsu Junbi Īnkai for the Preparation of Indonesian Independence Comitte (again helped by Japan). Even after the war most of the Japanese holdout straight up just gave away their guns to Indonesian youth troops, some even joined them in the fight.
outsiders might look at us and think “oh they’re occupied so they must have bad blood”, other regions outside Java might, but we cant deny the fact that without the Japanese help, we might still be under Dutch control untill well over the 60s or 70s
also this is unrelated so itll probably be deleted lmao