Beyond the population and proximity, I'm not characterising anything. You're reading in a lot into my comment.
But in Australian politics, Indonesia as a potential, albeit very unlikely, threat has been discussed, with the point being that 275 million people in a somewhat politically unstable country has that potential.
It's only in this century that Indonesia has become a functioning democracy and has had authoritarian and sometimes brutal leaders, slaughtering hundreds of thousands, in the not so distant past. It currently has relatively good relations with Australia but they are not close or secure. No one is accusing them of anything but there is a non-zero chance of them becoming a threat.
Indonesians don't mind saying "too many people", as most of their population of 270+ million lives on the island of Java.
However they have other very large islands (Sumatra, and part of Borneo) that could be settled, so it's not an insurmountable problem.
China's and India's large populations are their Achilles heels - they need vast quantities of food and water, yet China imports 50% of some food items, and India relies on Himalayan headwaters that China is diverting.
In the North America analogy Indonesia would be U.S. burning and Mexico and Canada suffering. Indonesia is 4th most populous country in the world (250 million people). Singapore and Malaysia are outmatched in population, GDP and military.
Indonesia does seem to have more than its fair share of natural calamities, but anyone who looks at a map cannot help but wonder at how much the country is spread across latitudes and longitudes, while not being extremely large in terms of land area (compared to say, the five largest countries in the world by land area). Such a country having one language as the lingua franca is a big deal, despite the difficulties and inconsistencies pointed out in this article.
Can’t speak for the parent of your post, so I don’t know if the numbers add up, but population of Indonesia alone is 270 million. And the country is spread out amongst many islands. That’s just one country of many.
I'm surprised about the position of a country like Indonesia. It is ok, but it has a lot of drawbacks for a foreigner: religiously integrist country where you can easily have issues for normal things for westerners.
Food and water sanitary conditions that are not very good and can get you sick easily. Like in India.
Maybe if for them Indonesia is Bali, that is ok, but the rest of Indonesia would not be on my top even not in the worst also. Just average.
Indonesia might has 15X more people, but it's also geographically 50X bigger than the netherlands. The netherlands is far more overpopulated than indonesia. Also indonesia's poverty is a legacy of more than a century of dutch colonization and exploitation and its inability to develop due to other considerations.
I think we are mostly agreed but you seem to have been misreading my comments. My point is let indonesia do whatever it wants with its land to develop and get itself out of poverty. Norway should mind its own business. Considering your other comment, I think we can both agree on that.
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