For Australia, creating a long-term
relationship with Indonesia that serves Australia’s interests is just part of
the broader task of coming to terms with the shift of wealth and power to
Australia’s Asian neighbours, which is what makes this the ‘Asian century’
Following the handling of revelations that Australian spies
tapped the phones of Indonesia’s president and his inner circle, Canberra’s
links with Jakarta are in limbo. This is in no small part because of a
tacit belief within its current leadership that Australia can dictate the terms
of the Australia–Indonesia relationship to suit domestic political agendas and
interests without taking account of Indonesia’s agendas and interests.
President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono has said that full
cooperation with Australia won’t be restored until a ‘code of conduct’ between
Jakarta and Canberra has been agreed to and implemented. Little has been said
in public about what he has in mind. It is hard to be optimistic that a new agreement
of any kind would do much to help the management of this inherently complex
relationship. After all, the last attempt to set the terms of the
relationship—the Lombok Treaty of 2007—has done nothing to help manage the
current problems.
But Australia faces the more immediate question of how long
it will take to reach an agreement that will allow its relationship with
Indonesia to get back to ‘normal’. For Jakarta the whole idea is to punish
Canberra for collecting intelligence and for responding so ineptly to Jakarta’s
concerns once the story leaked. Indonesia will thus seek sweeping undertakings
from Australia both about future intelligence activities against Indonesia and
perhaps more broadly about the management of the relationship, which will be intended
to tie Canberra’s hands and in effect acknowledge its past wrongdoings.
Moreover Jakarta may well adopt a ‘take it or leave it’
negotiating posture. President Yudhoyono probably feels under no pressure to
close a deal. One of the key lessons from the whole affair is that ructions in
the relationship now worry Jakarta much less than they worry Canberra. Unlike
Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbot, President Yudhoyono has never said that
this relationship is Indonesia’s ‘most important overall’.
It will not be surprising if the Australian leader’s
response to President Yudhoyono’s demands prove to be determined primarily by
domestic political calculations. One must conclude from the tone of Prime Minister Abbott’s initial response.
(in the Australian Parliament) to Indonesia’s concerns that
it was intended primarily to present an image to Australians of their prime
minister as a staunch champion of Australian interests against foreigners, and
nothing he has said since suggests a shift in priorities.
What then will shape the Australian government’s sense of
the balance between domestic political advantage and conciliating Jakarta by
agreeing to its code of conduct?
Some will hope that economic factors will weigh heavily in
Prime Minister Abbott’s calculations. It seems that, in the short term,
sensitive export markets like live cattle are at risk as the relationship
drifts. Moreover the Australian prime minister has acknowledged that
Indonesia’s economy will soon enough ‘dwarf’ Australia’s, suggesting that he
should recognise major longer-term imperatives to build trade there as quickly
as possible. But he also claims to believe that trade can be quarantined from
political differences, so that current economic consequences may be too small,
and future ones too distant, to affect the calculations much.
Stopping the boats is of course a different matter. It now
seems clearer than ever that Prime Minister Abbott’s whole ‘Jakarta not Geneva’
approach to foreign policy was driven primarily by the domestic agenda on
people-smuggling, and clearly in Jakarta they expect this to be their best
pressure point. How well that works depends on what happens over the next few
weeks. Boat arrivals and interceptions have fallen very sharply in recent
weeks, but it is hard to say how much that has been the result of the new
government’s policies, including the now-suspended deeper cooperation with
Indonesia, and how much it results from former Prime Minister Kevin Rudd’s ‘PNG
solution’. The more Rudd’s policies have caused the drop, the less effect
Indonesia’s suspension of cooperation will have in driving the number of boats
back up again, and the less pressure the Australian government will be under to
sign up to Jakarta’s code of conduct. And that means the longer the limbo may
last.
Of course eventually, one way or another, the current crisis
will pass and the relationship will return to ‘normal’. But it will not be
without cost or consequences. The inherent fragility in the relationship, so
well described by President Yudhoyono himself in 2010 before the Australian Parliament , has been
confirmed. Distrust has been deepened. The pattern of regular crises has been
repeated. The goodwill of a pro-Australian Indonesian president has been
squandered. The opportunity to start afresh, building the kind of relationship
Australia needs with Indonesia as its wealth and power overtakes Australia’s,
has been lost yet again, and time is running out.
Australia has had the same problem with Beijing, too. The
Australian government’s recent comments about China’s East China Sea air
defence identification zone presuppose that Australia can say whatever it
wishes about issues in which China’s interests are engaged without consequences
for its relations with Beijing. They are certainly wrong about that, too.
As long as old-world assumptions about an Anglosphere-led
world order frame Australia’s view of its Asian neighbours—although they are
not the only assumptions in the contest—Canberra will continue to find itself
embroiled in more crises like those of recent weeks.
Hugh White is Professor of Strategic Studies at the
Australian National University.’East Asia Forum’
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