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Calm, change and collaboration key to repairing tested ties, writes Felicity Norman.
The recent executions in Indonesia of convicted Australian drug smugglers Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran have tested ties between the two nations.
Australia’s Ambassador to Indonesia Paul Grigson is still absent from Jakarta, having been recalled to Canberra in the aftermath of the executions.
It was therefore timely that an expert panel discussing the future of Australia-Indonesia relations convened this week at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI) in Canberra.
In the wake of the executions, emotions have run high in both countries.
But according to former Australian Ambassador to Indonesia, Bill Farmer, Australia has to “just calm down.” Farmer counselled Australia to take a “common-sense, low-key, and unhurried” approach to the relationship. Natalie Sambhi, an analyst from ASPI, similarly advocated a sense of “steadiness”.
It is worth reviewing the foundations of Australia-Indonesia ties in this light.
Greg Fealy, an Associate Professor at the Australian National University, drew attention to the “rapidly-changing nature of the relationship” that he argued was mostly on the Indonesian side. Indonesia’s economic growth (currently 4.7 per cent per annum) and favourable demographics have given President Joko ‘Jokowi’ Widodo a “surge in self-importance” according to Fealy. The language used in Jakarta has changed from talking of Indonesia as a regional power to one with global ambitions.
Fealy acknowledges however that Jokowi’s government is the “least diplomatically competent” compared to its predecessors. Previous president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono by contrast was an experienced statesman and had an interest in Australia. Graeme Dobell from ASPI pointed to SBY’s reaction to US President Barack Obama’s announcement to station marines in Darwin in November 2011. Only months after the announcement, the Indonesian president chose to spend three days with Prime Minister Julia Gillard in Darwin while the US marines were on the ground.
The Australia-Indonesia relationship under Jokowi will be shaped by one irrepressible, scene-changing dynamic; one where Indonesia is bigger and Australia is smaller in economic, demographic and diplomatic terms. It will be one where Indonesia is rising and Australia is declining. And it doesn’t look like Jokowi will take an interest in Australia. It is therefore up to Australia to do some legwork to strengthen this relationship.
Australia already has many ties with Indonesia. The countries signed the Lombok Treaty for Security Cooperation in 2006 and have close people-to-people links in the defence community. Farmer pointed to the growth in the size of the Australian Embassy in Jakarta and the increasing diversity of the staff, now including agricultural and transport experts as well as career diplomats. In this way, Australia has “put more ballast in the relationship,” said Farmer. But Australia can do more.
Culture emerged as an important area for improvement. Allen Behm, formerly head of Strategy and International Policy at the Australian Department of Defence, felt that language would always be a constraint. Few Australians speak Bahasa Indonesia, resulting in many bilateral conversations being conducted in English.
Sambhi pointed to positive cultural exchanges at the university level and CAUSINDY, an annual conference for Australian and Indonesian Youth. But while these cross-cultural partnerships are important, Fealy felt the real gap rests with the elite. He urged Australian Government officials to “be interested in Indonesia beyond the brief,” and cautioned that “we won’t get that warmth [in the relationship] if we don’t establish it at the elite level.”
Strengthening institutions was another area where Australian could help Indonesia, said Behm. He felt that Australia should assist Indonesia in climbing up the Corruption Perception Index (currently at 107) to perhaps a level equivalent with Malaysia (currently at 50).
In addition to these sharp observations on the future of the Australia-Indonesia relationship, there are two critical points that I would add. First, as part of the 2015 Foreign Affairs Budget, Australia announced it would open a third diplomatic mission in Indonesia in Makassar, Sulawesi (also known as Ujung Pandang). Admittedly, in the same budget Australia also cut aid funding to Indonesia. Nevertheless Makassar is the fifth largest city in Indonesia, a gateway to Eastern Indonesia, and not on the international tourist map. At a time when DFAT has otherwise been contracting, this new post signals Australia’s intent to connect with Indonesia beyond Java and Bali.
Second, Australia and Indonesia are both participating in an informal dialogue known as ‘MIKTA’ (Mexico, Indonesia, South Korea, Turkey and Australia). These countries make up the 12th, 14th, 15th, 16th and 17th largest economies in the world and are joining together to create an informal forum based on shared values and interests. MIKTA could be a useful platform for cooperation between Australia and Indonesia. Indeed a MIKTA Minister’s retreat will be held in Seoul at the end of May.
Seoul may even be an ideal place for foreign ministers Julie Bishop and Retno Marsudi to repair Australia-Indonesia relations in a calm and steady manner.
Felicity Norman is a research assistant at the Coral Bell School of Asia Pacific Affairs, The Australian National University, where she has also researched the Australia-Indonesia relationship as part of a Master of Arts in Strategic Studies.
I really enjoyed reading this article. It is balanced and insightful. I look forward to reading more articles on Australia-Indonesia relations!
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The author of this post asserts that Indonesia is bigger in economic, demographic and diplomatic terms. It is easy to compare one country’s GDP and its growth rate with another’s. Population totals similarly lend themselves to ready comparison, if one ignores how well-educated and productive the respective populations are. But how does one compare diplomatic ‘size’?
If, for example, Indonesia had a diplomatic staff of five in Beijing all of whom could speak Chinese and Australia had a staff of fifteen none of whom could speak that language, the diplomatic effectiveness, at least for certain purposes, of which of the two countries would be greater, Indonesia’s or Australia’s?
Recently, an issue came up that allowed us to compare the diplomatic prowess of the two countries. Jokowi sought clemency for two Indonesians on death row in Saudi Arabia, while Abbott sought clemency from Jokowi for two Australians.
As nobody needs to be reminded, all four unfortunates fell either under the executioner’s sword or facing the hail of a firing squad’s bullets. Both diplomatic demarches proved ineffectual. Does this mean that King Salman hasn’t yet been informed that Indonesia is rising? And does Jokowi’s refusal to give clemency to Chan and Sukumaran show he has indeed grasped that Australia is declining? Be that as it may, on this issue declining Australia’s and rising Indonesia’s diplomatic weight seemed to come out equal.
Jokowi has set Indonesian diplomacy a new challenge which will let us make a fresh judgement about its effectiveness. Seemingly forgetting SBY’s abortive attempt to help the Palestinians after he assumed office in 2004, one of the first fruits of which was his attendance at Arafat’s memorial ceremony in Cairo but not at his funeral in Ramallah, Jokowi is also determined to help the Palestinians.
Denouncing the UN for not doing enough at the recent Bandung Conference commemoration was a promising start. It may also have helped pay back Ban Ki-moon a little for his unwelcome lobbying with regard to Indonesia’s executions of drug traffickers.
This criticism of the UN cost Indonesia nothing and the briefing notes for it would hardly have taken ten minutes to draft for Jokowi. Maybe SBY’s old Palestine brief could have been dusted off to save even more bureaucratic time energy. But what’s the next step? A press release, a la Marty Natalegawa, aimed at ‘raising awareness’?
Given Indonesia’s lack of diplomatic pull in the Middle East and its non-recognition of Israel, it is hard to see how Jokowi’s Palestine initiative will have any greater impact than SBY’s.
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Quite correct Makassar’s not on the tourist map, unless you’re a Jamaat Tabliqui. So why would you have a Consulate rather than an Honorary Consul to process 6 visas a year? Gateway to Eastern Indonesia? And Darwin’s a gateway to Darwin.
We’ve been here before when the NT Gov, realising there were no economic complimentarities between Makassar and Australia [They don’t have the purchasing power, we don’t want what they sell]used the silly Growth Triangle rhetoric of the day to scam taxpayers to subsidise private interests . I even bought some of the Rattan chairs. What happened when Kalla decided to sool his Islamist hounds onto his Chinese rivals? Darwin’s lovely Industrial Park was burned and looted. And Kalla Lines subsequently blacklisted and banned from Darwin Ports.
So why would DFAT want to revisit this disaster? There’s no large Makassar community here [a few Chinese Christian refugees, no direct flights, no economic complimentarity. Very few illegal fishermen are sourced from Makassar compared to 20 years ago. That leaves – tadaaa – people smuggling and terrorism. The largest smuggling syndicates in RI come from Makassar, AQ and IS are active etc. There are some 2000 asylum seekers awaiting acceptance in Australia being cared for in 47 IOM safe houses paid for by Canberra ie taxpayers. But just watch DFAT justify the move publicly with the same NT bs from the 80s – ’emerging middle class,’ ‘gateway to .. [substitute wherever you want to go].’
Some clever student at ANU will no doubt apply for a grant to translate La Galigo into Yolngu, and get it. I know – how about a McCarthy Kickboxing Institute?
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Makassar is not on the international tourist map? Quite wrong. While the city in itself is not much of a drawcard, its relatively new international airport is a major stop on the established tourist route to the highlands of Tanah Toraja, which have long attracted significant numbers of Europeans interested in ‘cultural tourism’. Increasingly, Australians are joining them. In the global diving community Makassar is also firmly ‘on the map’ as a hub for travel to significant number of internationally renowned dive sites in SE Sulawesi and the Bunaken marine park off northern Sulawesi. Direct flights to Makassar among low cost carriers from Kuala Lumpur and Singapore have enhanced Makassar’s position.
And of course Makassar is a hub for areas further east (where Australia targets a great deal of aid), with a concentration of centers of higher learning (particularly in religious studies) that attract many from eastern Indonesia, and hence the city is a center of influence in understanding broader changes occurring throughout eastern Indonesia, notably in relation to Islam and Islamic proselytizing.
It is good to see the Australian government recognizing that understanding and engaging meaningfully with Indonesia involves far more than maintaining links with political officials in Java and serving tourists in trouble in Bali. This is particularly so given the degree of decentralisation that, however recently curtailed, has delivered real political power to regional elites throughout the East.
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