KUALA LUMPUR, Feb 5 — In Indonesian president Joko Widodo’s maiden visit here today, Malaysia will have to adjust its strategy in dealing with a more assertive Southeast Asian neighbour, according to a Straits Times report today.

The Singapore paper reported today Bridget Welsh, senior researcher at the Centre for East Asia Democratic Studies at the National Taiwan University, as saying that resolving issues like maritime border claims would involve a “changed dynamic” as Indonesia is a “global heavyweight”.

“This is something that Malaysia is grappling with, and it is not used to seeing Indonesia as an equal or even potentially stronger than it,” she was quoted saying.

The Economist Corporate Network’s (ECN) Asia Business Outlook Survey 2015 released last month described Indonesia as “Southeast Asia’s economic engine”.

The survey also showed Malaysia falling behind Indonesia in a ranking of investment destinations, with about 60 per cent of Asia-Pacific companies saying they will increase their investment in the latter this year, compared to 42 per cent for the former.

Today’s visit by the Indonesian president, popularly known as Jokowi, comes amid public outrage in the world’s biggest Muslim democracy over a Malaysian advertisement of a robotic vacuum telling buyers to “fire your Indonesian maid now”.

The Indonesian government has delivered a protest note to the Malaysian Foreign Ministry, demanding the latter ban the advertisement by RoboVac Malaysia in both its physical and online forms.

The Straits Times noted that protection for Indonesian workers, especially domestic helpers, in Malaysia and border issues - which have seen Malaysia and Indonesia arresting each other’s fisheries officials for encroachment in 2010 — were prickly issues for the neighbouring countries.

The newspaper highlighted decades-old border disputes like Indonesia’s claims over the Sipadan and Ligitan islands off Borneo that the International Court of Justice had awarded to Malaysia in 2002.

The nearby oil-rich Celebes Sea was still an area of contention, according to The Straits Times.

“It is important to Jokowi at this point in his mandate to be presidential, meaning that he should be expected to take up issues affecting common Indonesians. Many of these issues are with Malaysia,” Singapore’s Institute of Southeast Asian Studies deputy director Ooi Kee Beng was quoted saying.

The paper also reported Joko’s foreign policy advisor Rizal Sukma as saying that the president should focus on his vision for a new Indonesia and on the importance for neighbouring countries to understand that Indonesia is changing.

“If Malaysia wants Indonesia to respect it, so it must respect our migrant workers, respect our culture, and respect our sovereignty,” Rizal told The Straits Times.