Industrial Upgrading or Dependency on Chinese Firms? The Case of Indonesia’s Nickel Downstreaming Strategy

Nicolas Pinsard () and Clément Séhier ()
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Nicolas Pinsard: CLERSÉ - Centre Lillois d’Études et de Recherches Sociologiques et Économiques - UMR 8019 - Université de Lille - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Université de Lille

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Abstract: Indonesia possesses the world's largest reserves of nickel—a mineral critical for electric vehicle (EV) battery production. As China emerged as the leading EV manufacturer, it intensified investments in Indonesian nickel. Indonesian authorities thus elaborated a downstreaming strategy in the late 2010s, aiming to cultivate domestic production capacities across the nickel value chain—from extraction to EV assembly—with the stated objective of delivering socioeconomic gains to the population. While industrial upgrading has yielded some successes, it perpetuates reliance on Chinese capital and technology, accompanied by severe environmental and social costs. To date, the downstreaming strategy has not heralded a substantial break from commodity-based development models.

Date: 2026-03-13
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Published in Global China Pulse, 2026

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