{"id":20591,"date":"2015-05-22T10:00:20","date_gmt":"2015-05-22T00:00:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/?p=20591"},"modified":"2015-05-22T17:07:57","modified_gmt":"2015-05-22T07:07:57","slug":"jokowi-why-the-game-is-not-the-same","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/jokowi-why-the-game-is-not-the-same\/","title":{"rendered":"Jokowi: why the game is not the same"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"A<\/a><\/p>\n

It was widely expected that President Joko Widodo would present far more diplomatic problems for Australia, than did his predecessor, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono.\u00a0Over the past eight months it has become apparent just how much more difficult Australia-Indonesia relations are likely to be under Jokowi than for the previous government.\u00a0Yudhoyono prided himself on his statesman-like qualities and strived to project an image of Indonesia abroad that was responsible, measured and sensitive to international opinion.\u00a0He was particularly concerned that Indonesia would play a greater role in world affairs and readily sought to mediate in international disputes and to be an advocate of democracy and tolerance, especially in the Muslim world.\u00a0Despite twice withdrawing Indonesia\u2019s ambassador to Canberra, Yudhoyono remained well disposed to Australia and endeavoured to maintain harmonious relations.<\/p>\n

Jokowi has none of Yudhoyono\u2019s interest in, nor aptitude for, foreign policy.\u00a0He came to the presidency in October 2014 with little experience in international affairs.\u00a0Most of what he knew of the broader world had been gained through his commercial activities as a furniture exporter and his limited interactions with foreign officialdom through his role as Jakarta governor.\u00a0During the presidential campaign, Jokowi repeatedly said he would be a domestically focused head of state, and not preoccupied with external affairs.\u00a0He did have a number of advisors with foreign policy expertise, such as Dr Rizal Sukma and former general Luhut Panjaitan, but Jokowi\u2019s statements on international issues were relatively few and were usually delivered in a stilted manner as if he had had to carefully memorise his lines.<\/p>\n

Over the past eight months, Jokowi\u2019s foreign policy priorities have become clearer.\u00a0He explicitly jettisoned Yudhoyono\u2019s international activism and declared the focus of his government abroad would be economic diplomacy.\u00a0He has instructed his diplomats to concentrate on trade and investment issues, and has indicated that their success in bringing in export contracts and foreign direct investment will become key criteria in assessing their performance.\u00a0His foreign minister\u2014Retno Marsudi\u2014has underscored the president\u2019s message, telling her Ministry\u2019s staff how she, when ambassador to the Netherlands, would personally monitor the availability of Indonesian goods in local stores and persuade shop-holders to stock more items from her country.\u00a0She has asked her heads of mission to spend more time at trade fairs and less time in routine diplomatic meetings.<\/p>\n

Jokowi\u2019s view of international relations appears straightforward.\u00a0He has a deep suspicion of the motivations of larger powers, especially western, and has referred repeatedly to the exploitative nature of \u2018developed\u2019 nations relations towards \u2018developing\u2019 nations such as his own in his speeches.\u00a0Such sentiments are widely held across Indonesia\u2019s political elite and broader society.\u00a0At a recent summit of Asian and African leaders in Indonesia he bemoaned the unjust, unequal and violent character of global affairs and said \u2018wealthy nations feel able to change the world by using their power\u2019 in a way that brings suffering for millions of people.\u00a0He criticised the United Nations for its impotence in addressing global poverty and injustice.<\/p>\n

Jokowi thus has both a strong developmentalist streak to his foreign policy as well as wariness of western powers.\u00a0These two streaks can lead to contradictory outcomes.\u00a0On the one hand, Jokowi appeals for massive foreign investment to fund his ambitious infrastructure developments plans but on the other hand presides over a growing array of protectionist measures and restrictions upon expatriate business people in Indonesia.<\/p>\n

In the case of Australia, Jokowi appears not so much antipathetic as uninterested.\u00a0He appears to regard Australia (not without reason) as much closer aligned to the US and other western powers than it is to Indonesia and other Southeast Asian nations.\u00a0This probably means Australia, in his mind, falls into that group of nations which approaches Indonesia with manipulative intent.\u00a0The Snowden revelations about Australia spying on Indonesia\u2019s political leaders would be taken as evidence of this approach.\u00a0Moreover, Australia is not the kind of rapidly developing nation that interests him.<\/p>\n

Australia is projected to slip down the rankings of relative wealth in coming decades, whereas Indonesia will rise, possibly into the top five by 2050.\u00a0Jokowi is most drawn to nations that have developed quickly to become strong economies, such as China, South Korea, Japan and India.\u00a0It\u2019s countries like these, rather than \u2018declining\u2019 nations like Australia and the US, that he believes hold lessons for Indonesia as it prepares to be a major economic power.<\/p>\n

The executions issue has highlighted the difficulties that Australia will face in seeking to have good relations with the Jokowi government.\u00a0To begin with, Jokowi was personally unperturbed by the international outcry over his policy of executing convicted drug smugglers, even though many of his advisors and prominent foreign affairs commentators warned him of reputational harm to Indonesia.\u00a0In the months before the execution of Chan and Sukumaran, Jokowi made clear to his inner circle that he didn\u2019t even want to discuss the matter and would not resile from his executions policy.\u00a0This proved immensely frustrating for the Australian government as its intensive advocacy and lobbying efforts proved incapable of budging the president.<\/p>\n

Jokowi and senior ministers took particular umbrage at a number of statements from the Abbott government.\u00a0Prime Minister Abbott\u2019s linking of tsunami aid with clemency aroused considerable ire, as did Foreign Minister Bishop\u2019s offer that Australia would pay the costs of keeping Chan and Sukumaran in prison should the president choose to spare their lives.<\/p>\n

As Australia seeks to rebuild its relations with the Jokowi government, it will need to take account of the fact that the Indonesian president is pursuing a much narrower foreign agenda than any of his predecessors. Arguably he is less inclined to show favour to Australia than any president since Sukarno in the 1960s.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It was widely expected that President Joko Widodo would present far more diplomatic problems for Australia, than did his predecessor, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono.\u00a0Over the past eight months it has become apparent just how much more …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":349,"featured_media":20593,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[17,1056,1130,8,931,486],"class_list":["post-20591","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general","tag-australia","tag-bilateral-relations","tag-death-penalty","tag-indonesia","tag-jokowi","tag-susilo-bambang-yudhoyono"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nJokowi: why the game is not the same | 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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