{"id":15177,"date":"2014-08-11T06:00:09","date_gmt":"2014-08-10T20:00:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/?p=15177"},"modified":"2014-08-12T06:11:59","modified_gmt":"2014-08-11T20:11:59","slug":"what-indonesia-and-australia-share","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/what-indonesia-and-australia-share\/","title":{"rendered":"What Indonesia and Australia share"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Democracy<\/a><\/figure>\n

Indonesia can direct Australia’s regional dreams or dominate its nightmares. Just as Papua New Guinea shapes the way Australia thinks about the South Pacific, Indonesia frames Australia\u2019s view of Southeast Asia.<\/p>\n

In those key regional relationships, Australia\u2019s strategists, diplomats and journos get plenty of mileage from the nightmares. Yet often things work out better than feared. The sun breaks through and the politicians can follow the natural inclination of the business types to gaze on the bright side.<\/p>\n

Jokowi\u2019s election is a fine moment to turn from the dark side to contemplate the dreams. As Natalie Sambhi argued<\/a>, a Jokowin is a win for Australia. For all the nightmares Australia has had, this is another moment of great good fortune.<\/p>\n

Donald Horne\u2019s Lucky Country moniker holds truths beyond irony: Australia has had no influence on the course of events since Suharto fell, but Indonesia\u2019s political evolution has delivered Australia great benefit\u2014a fine example of luck.<\/p>\n

The luck held in this election. Indonesia avoided the offer to turn back to some strange conjuring of a Suharto past adorned with Sukarno nationalist symbolism. Australia would have striven mightily to work with a President Prabowo Subianto, but this former general had only just been removed<\/a> from Canberra\u2019s visa black list over human rights violations. Embracing Prabowo would mean grimacing and dusting off old Suharto language<\/a>about Australia\u2019s many interests with Indonesia and the vital need to deal with whoever is in power. Thank our lucky stars and Indonesia\u2019s voters for not having to relive that experience, where limiting damage also meant limiting what could be asked or aspired for.<\/p>\n

Indonesia\u2019s fascinating election further entrenches one great caveat in the statement that Indonesia and Australia are two neighbours with absolutely nothing in common. We now share something vital and defining\u2014both are democracies.<\/p>\n

Sharing democracy is a major change in what Australia and Indonesia can imagine about each other\u2014or what Australia can understand about Indonesia. Such a shared view of how politics and society best operate can balance all the differences between these two most dissimilar of neighbours.<\/p>\n

Democracy produces all manner of clamour and discontents, but also offers energy and opportunity that could never be had from the disciplined silences of Suharto\u2019s order. The big political and social belief Australia and Indonesia now share will be useful in dealing with the most secret of topics.<\/p>\n

Australia\u2019s abiding, intense intelligence focus on Indonesia got a public showing last year. Indonesian outrage at the revelation that Australian intelligence targeted the phones of President SBY, his wife and inner circle saw Jakarta recall its ambassador<\/a> from Canberra in November, and put a freeze on military, police and intelligence cooperation.<\/p>\n

The storm<\/a> unleashed by Edward Snowden forced Australia to adopt the stalker\u2019s defence: \u2018I love you so much I want to know everything about you.\u2019<\/p>\n

Australia\u2019s intelligence obsession expresses something else Oz shares with Indonesia. Both nations agree on Indonesia\u2019s geostrategic importance and Jakarta\u2019s role as a regional leader; thus, as noted, Australia\u2019s desperation \u2018to know everything about you.\u2019<\/p>\n

In a detailed reading of what the Snowden\u2019s revelations say about the relationship, Richard Tanter argues<\/a> that power is shifting remorselessly to Indonesia:<\/p>\n

The fundamental discovery\u2014painful for the new [Abbott] government\u2014is that, while on some measures, the two countries have grown a little closer in recent years, the fundamental relationship between Indonesia and Australia is an asymmetrical one. Indonesia is far more important to Australia\u2019s security concerns than is Australia to Indonesia\u2019s.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The asymmetric image recalls a Jakarta epigram that the late Jamie Mackie told me he first heard 30 or 40 years ago: \u2018Australia is like your appendix, you only think about it when it hurts.\u2019 Given all the problems Indonesia confronts, this is as it should be. There are worse things than having a big and burgeoning neighbour that doesn\u2019t think about you that much. More luck for Oz. The challenge is always to turn up as a friend offering help and a fresh perspective, not the painful southern ache demanding something.<\/p>\n

The Snowden storm produced a call from Indonesia for a new accord on intelligence. Getting that is deeply difficult. Australia is having a discussion on intelligence boundaries with Indonesia similar to the conversation the US is having with Germany; the Snowden effect abounds. Espionage is always about potential nightmares, but democracy offers a shared belief that can be the basis for some level of trust. And a new Indonesian president offers Australia a new chance to build.<\/p>\n

Graeme Dobell is the ASPI journalist fellow. Image courtesy of Flickr user Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Indonesia can direct Australia’s regional dreams or dominate its nightmares. Just as Papua New Guinea shapes the way Australia thinks about the South Pacific, Indonesia frames Australia\u2019s view of Southeast Asia. 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