By Henrique Schneider

Korea never had real trouble with the economic crisis. China grows at an astonishing rate of 12 percent per year. Asia as a whole will boost its economy by 11 percent in 2011.

Latest studies conducted by the Japanese Bank Nomura sum it up: Asia is ascending.

As the continent accommodates good news, a promissory future and the best outlook, all think about Asia as a block formed by Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, China, India and Japan. However, how many think about Indonesia?

A reputation mainly for having resources to plunder colors the views of Indonesia by nations in the region, huge buyers of Indonesian commodities.

The country is also rather known for its problems like illegal logging and fishing, climate change, people-smuggling and extremism: This failure to prosper at home turns the spotlight away from Indonesia's desire to solve global problems, and toward its capacity to generate them.

These failures make the world even forget that the country exists. Enough problems? There are more!

One in seven Indonesians still lives below the poverty line, and many more perch perilously just above it. By several measures of development ― life expectancy, health care, sanitation ― Indonesia scores well below the middle-income country it is economically.

More than most admit, Indonesia's stability ambitions rest on shaky domestic foundations. Islamism still looms as a risk as well as the potential for military coups. And despite the admirable advances of democracy and of sound fiscal management, prosperity is not entrenched.

Why then, talk about that country? First, because it is a member of the G20 group, the select club of the world's most important economies (currently led by Korea); and second, because despite all criticism, it is a success story.

The archipelago nation bestrides the world's busiest sea lanes. Some 231 million Indonesians account for two-fifths of the population of the 10-country Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN).

A young and educated population offers promise, as do vast deposits of oil, gas and minerals, forests and palm-oil plantations. For all that ASEAN operates according to its famed consensus, Indonesia has been its stealth leader.

Indonesia is also positioning itself as a local hub: The country has had a strategic partnership with China since 2005, it bridges countries from Australia to Asia and it is seeking a ''comprehensive partnership'' agreement with the U.S.

The country is on its road to further global integration, thus boosting trade and its domestic economy. Indonesians like to say that their country has 1,000 friends and zero enemies.

Indonesia now wants to raise its diplomatic game, acting the part of a regional power with a global impact. One sign of this is a desire to be ranked among the BRIC economic club of Brazil, Russia, India and China.

Another is to send peacekeepers as far away as to Lebanon and Darfur. A third is the admirable wish to make democracy and human rights a plank of foreign policy.

But the country's rising ambitions are best epitomized by more urgent talk about how Indonesia can capitalize on its membership of the G20 group of major economies.

As for the elevation of the G20 to global prominence, Indonesians sometimes appear hardly able to believe their luck. The question is what they can do with it.

On the one hand, Indonesia weathered the global financial crisis that gave the G20 its sense of purpose. On the other, it did so because Indonesia is still shockingly ill-integrated into the global economy.

Besides shoddy infrastructure, it has an economy distorted by subsidies, a business climate hostile to foreign investment, and a bureaucracy and legal system that is rather corrupt.

But, with a bit of joined-up reform, Indonesia's annual growth would surge from the present (admittedly respectable) 4.5 to 5.5 percent to rates closer to India's or China's. Indonesia seems to be on its way to implementing these reforms and seems willing to take a serious stance on its other challenges.

From an economic point of view, opportunities are easier to take on in this early phase of modernization and grow since there are more options to engage and succeed.

However, by the same economic argument, at this time, business-risk is at its peak, for reform can fail. It is still the same argument claiming that either way, Indonesia should not be forgotten, neither as a regional power nor as a chance for investment.

Henrique Schneider is a traveler in Asia as well as a political analyst. He works as a consultant and analyst in Vienna, Austria, and publishes regularly in German and English on economic and security issues related to China and other Asian countries. He can be reached at hschneider@gmx.ch.