Indonesia’s president, Prabowo Subianto, has seen his country explode before. It was in 1998, during the Asian financial crisis(① 历史背景：1997年7月2日，泰国宣...). Then, an economic collapse led to mass protests and the toppling of Mr Prabowo’s father-in-law, Suharto, a notoriously corrupt dictator. It also cast Mr Prabowo, who had hoped to succeed Suharto, into the political wilderness. It took him a quarter of a century to claw his way back(艰难地重新获得（地位、权力等）), finally winning the top job in 2024. So you might think he would be extremely wary(谨慎的，警惕的) of another fiscal crisis. You would be wrong.(但你错了。)
印度尼西亚总统普拉博沃·苏比安托曾亲眼目睹自己的国家崩溃。那是在1998年亚洲金融危机期间。当时，经济崩溃导致了大规模抗议，并推翻了普拉博沃的岳父——臭名昭著的腐败独裁者苏哈托。这场危机也将本希望继承苏哈托的普拉博沃打入了政治荒野。他花了四分之一个世纪才艰难爬回权力之巅，最终在2024年赢得最高职位。所以你可能会认为他会对另一场财政危机极其警惕。但你错了。
The leader of the world’s biggest Muslim-majority country has centralised power and surrounded himself with a flock of flatterers(一群阿谀奉承者). He dump(抛弃，解雇)ed a respected finance minister and replaced her with Purbaya Yudhi Sadewa, who has called the IMF(① 机构性质：IMF是布雷顿森林体系下的...) “stupid” and who told The Economist in April that the president need not worry about “developments in the global economy [or] in the global oil price”. Indonesian businessfolk(商界人士) are scared to speak out, perhaps because Mr Prabowo is a thin-skinned(脸皮薄的，敏感的) former general with a sketchy(不完全的，可疑的) human-rights record, or perhaps because he has recently been bullying big business.
这个世界最大穆斯林人口国家的领导人集中了权力，身边围着一群阿谀奉承之徒。他罢免了一位备受尊敬的财政部长，换上了普尔巴亚·尤迪·萨德瓦，后者曾称国际货币基金组织“愚蠢”，并在今年4月告诉《经济学人》杂志，总统不必担心“全球经济[或]全球油价的发展”。印度尼西亚商界人士不敢发声，也许是因为普拉博沃是一位面皮薄的前将军，人权记录有污点，也许是因为他最近在欺凌大企业。
Mr Prabowo appears to be insulating himself from reality(使自己脱离现实). So he may not listen to sober advice. Nonetheless, here is some. His pet projects(宠物项目，特别偏爱的项目) are unaffordable. Before the Iran war, spending a projected 10% of the budget on just two of them—free school meals and a network of 80,000 village co-operatives—was merely wasteful. Now, the energy crunch has wiped out any room for error(消除了任何容错空间). Mr Prabowo must change course(改变方向，改弦更张) or risk a crisis.
普拉博沃似乎正在将自己与现实隔离开来。所以他可能不会听取清醒的建议。尽管如此，这里有一些建议。他的宠物项目负担不起。在伊朗战争之前，将预算的10%花在其中的两个项目上——免费校餐和8万个乡村合作社网络——只是浪费。现在，能源危机已经抹去了任何容错空间。普拉博沃必须改变路线，否则将面临危机。
A new crossroads
一个新的十字路口