{"id":14703,"date":"2014-07-11T06:00:05","date_gmt":"2014-07-10T20:00:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/?p=14703"},"modified":"2014-07-14T10:17:42","modified_gmt":"2014-07-14T00:17:42","slug":"jakarta-courts-suva-less-and-more-than-meets-the-eye","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/jakarta-courts-suva-less-and-more-than-meets-the-eye\/","title":{"rendered":"Jakarta courts Suva: less, and more, than meets the eye"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Cynics will be tempted to dismiss President Yudhoyono\u2019s appearance<\/a> at last month\u2019s Pacific Islands Development Forum (PIDF) summit\u2014the first visit by an Indonesian president to Fiji\u2014as a combination of Jakarta\u2019s seeking to neutralise Melanesian agitation about West Papua<\/a> and Suva\u2019s \u2018I get along without you very well<\/a>\u2019 bravado directed at Australia and NZ. But while there\u2019s something to that view, it disregards longer-term undercurrents at our peril.<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s start with a skeptical take on Suva\u2019s \u2018more Jakarta less Canberra claim\u2019. Fiji created the PIDF<\/a>, following Suva\u2019s suspension from the Pacific Islands Forum, to address perceptions that Australia and NZ have undue influence there, while civil society, private sector, and non-traditional external bodies are underrepresented. Yet only a handful of leaders from the Forum\u2019s 16 states attended. Without greater funding, the PIDF has little potential to compete with the practical functions<\/a> performed by the Secretariat of the Pacific Community’s<\/a>\u00a0bureaucrats, let alone the vital fisheries, health, education and other services delivered by the Forum. Liked or not, Australia remains the region\u2019s indispensable<\/a> donor and security hub. The Bainimarama government\u2019s detractors predict bodies such as the PIDF will fizzle out<\/a> as soon as Fiji returns to democracy.<\/p>\n

But Suva\u2019s unlikely simply to \u2018return to the Forum\u2019s fold\u2019 after its September elections, and discontent with the established regional order extends well beyond Fiji<\/a>. It\u2019s easy to overstate that unhappiness: a degree of \u2018perennial Pacific irritation<\/a>\u2019 at ANZAC dominance is inevitable\u2014our economy\u2019s nearly 400 times larger than Fiji\u2019s\u2014and isn\u2019t necessarily disastrous. But it\u2019d be imprudent to dismiss widespread and deep frustration. That dissatisfaction\u2019s partly a legacy of Australia\u2019s 2003\u201307 \u2018more interventionist approach<\/a>\u2019, which stifled the region\u2019s political voice, even though the Forum had been established precisely to provide the arena for debate (and soapbox) existing technocratic bodies lacked<\/a>. Such a \u2018tough love\u2019 approach dispensed with the convention that Canberra and Wellington would leave island countries firmly in the driver\u2019s seat. In light of 9\/11 and the Bali bombings, that convention seemed to Australia and NZ to encourage frivolous grandstanding in the Forum and divert its focus on concrete outcomes<\/a>\u2014but hadn\u2019t looked that way to many island leaders.<\/p>\n

That divergence of view eased as a \u2018partnerships<\/a>\u2019 narrative replaced interventionist discourse following Australia\u2019s 2007 change of government, and may decrease further with the new government\u2019s cooperative approach<\/a>. But the way Pacific countries often now choose to caucus in blocs that exclude Australia and NZ<\/a>, such as the Melanesian Spearhead Group (MSG<\/a>) and the UN\u2019s Pacific Small Island Developing States Group, seems set to continue.<\/p>\n

Indonesia\u2019s attention to its South Pacific neighbours may have defused<\/a> a spike in support for West Papuan self-determination for now, but Jakarta\u2019s $20 million<\/a> \u2018look east\u2019 policy isn\u2019t an entirely rhetorical gesture either. As Lowy colleagues note<\/a>, the outgoing president would hardly have taken a 90-person entourage to Fiji just to send a signal on West Papua. Rather, the visit was probably an example of Indonesia\u2019s nascent but genuine diplomatic activism<\/a>. After all, one of the key tenets of Yudhoyono\u2019s foreign policy has been to foster a \u2018million friends and zero enemies\u2019. It\u2019s also in Indonesia\u2019s interests that its eastern flank remain stable and prosperous. To this end, Indonesia appears to be broadening the basis of cooperation with Pacific Island states<\/a> across issues of mutual interest, including trade and investment, disaster management, sociocultural relations between Indonesia\u2019s eastern province and Pacific Island peoples, and information sharing on developing connectivity between remote islands.<\/p>\n

So what can we do to offer the new type of small-middle power relationship some neighbours want (and Fiji demands) to boost continuing followership<\/a> of our leadership, when regional countries feel they have alternative partners?<\/p>\n

For a start, we should recognise that new bodies such as the PIDF offer the region\u2019s traditional metropolitan powers opportunities as well as challenges<\/a>. It\u2019s pointless to view as a threat Pacific countries\u2019 desire to lead, generate ideas, and get irritations off their chest, on regional concerns such as climate change. Indeed, some such groups are more likely to formulate sensible policies for the Forum and others to implement if we aren\u2019t around to moderate\u2014and thus backhandedly prompt<\/a>\u2014adventurous positions.<\/p>\n

We should also embrace the new framework for Pacific regionalism<\/a> making more-than-cosmetic changes to the stalled 2005 Pacific Plan for integration when it\u2019s discussed at the Forum summit later this month. (We could support Fiji\u2019s candidate<\/a> to head the Forum, if the MSG gets behind him, too.) On the trade front, although liberalisation should deliver long-term net benefits<\/a>, including access to international markets and investment through WTO compliance, immediate-term pain<\/a> adjusting could be high, particularly through the loss of tariff revenues. Our PACER Plus negotiators might do more to incorporate Pacific calls for labour mobility<\/a>, and innovative approaches to co-producing<\/a> development in remote economies, to help deliver agreement this year.<\/p>\n

Finally, we could initiate ANZAC\u2013Indonesia\u2013Pacific Islands cooperation to reflect shared strategic interests, at a pace all participants would be comfortable with.<\/p>\n

For Australia, there\u2019s a security case for revitalising South Pacific regionalism and economic enmeshment to preserve strategic access, influence, denial, and warning across our increasingly congested approaches. For our neighbours, Canberra may nag and scold, but it doesn\u2019t intimidate and coerce.<\/p>\n

Karl Claxton is an analyst at ASPI.\u00a0Natalie Sambhi is an analyst at ASPI and editor of\u00a0<\/em><\/em>The Strategist. Image credit: ASPI.<\/em><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Cynics will be tempted to dismiss President Yudhoyono\u2019s appearance at last month\u2019s Pacific Islands Development Forum (PIDF) summit\u2014the first visit by an Indonesian president to Fiji\u2014as a combination of Jakarta\u2019s seeking to neutralise Melanesian agitation …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":100,"featured_media":14707,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[265,8,360,717],"class_list":["post-14703","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general","tag-fiji","tag-indonesia","tag-melanesian-spearhead-group","tag-pacific-islands-forum"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nJakarta courts Suva: less, and more, than meets the eye | The Strategist<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" 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