Australia, RI still need to overcome distrust

Hilman Adil, Research Professor, Indonesian Institute of Sciences (LIPI), Jakarta

In an apparent effort to improve the troubled relationship between Indonesia and Australia, the visit of Australia's Prime Minister next month should be assessed in the wider context of the global situation, and the Asia-Pacific region in particular.

After the crisis in East Timor in 1999, Indonesian-Australian relations plunged to the lowest point in its history. As Indonesia canceled official visits by president B.J. Habibie and other officials and attacks on Australia became common in the Indonesian media, the Australian government came face-to-face with the consequences of soured relations with its neighbor.

The business community raised concerns over the future of bilateral trade. Some academics in Australia questioned the government's commitment to the Southeast Asian region. Decision- makers in Canberra pondered the added difficulties that an openly- hostile Indonesia would add to Australia's already- delicate regional diplomacy. Countries in Southeast Asia questioned whether the worsening of Australia's relations with Indonesia represented a shift in its regional policy.

The Foreign and Trade Policy White Paper, released in September 1997,listed Indonesia as one of Australia's foremost bilateral relationships, alongside the United States, China, and Japan. Thave been many in both countries who have sought to improve what has been a troubled relationship.

But despite these efforts, Australian attitudes towards Indonesia are influenced by the fear of a foreign invasion that has been consistent throughout the nation's history. The historian Werner Levi once wrote: "In all Australian debates on foreign relations there has always been an undertone of fear which breaks out at the slightest provocation. Fear is the leitmotif of Australian thinking on foreign policy and Australians never lack a potential aggressor".

Descriptions of Indonesia's 200 million plus population, its low levels of political and economic development and its status as the world's largest Muslim nation especially after Sept. 11, all play deeply on the Australian people fears of Asia.

The images and metaphors used to describe Indonesian society and assumptions about differences in national character reflect a persistent negative view of Indonesia. Or as Desmond Ball put it, but not necessarily in a negative sense: "Although geography has placed us next door to each other, we are in many significant respects strangers". Prime Minister John Howard, asserted more extremely that Australia is "a European, Western civilization with strong links to North America", Australians no longer have to fret about whether they are part of Asia.

They can participate in regional affairs on their own terms. He concluded that a more muscular Australia, confident of its values and identity and willing to fulfill the responsibility to defending these values in the Southeast Asia region, has already proved its bona fides through the East Timor intervention.

This view forms the core of the "Howard Doctrine" and was reflected in the 1999 white paper on defense. In an interview published by The Bulletin on Sept. 20, 1999, he sees Australia acting in a short of "deputy" capacity to the global policeman role of the United States.

It was a time when Australia was in a self-congratulatory and self-satisfied mode in the context of its East Timor peacekeeping operations. On whether Australia should see itself as an Asia- Pacific country, the coalition government under Howard differed in its orientation with previous Labor policy which allegedly distanced itself from its traditional allies, particularly the U.S.

The Howard government seems more inclined to agree with Samuel Huntington who went so far as to suggest that Labor's policy was in danger of turning Australia into a "torn country". According to Huntington, Australia was disengaging from its Western orientation and was moving into the Asian sphere.

From the perspective of his "clash of civilizations" thesis, this meant that Australia was attempting to straddle the civilization divide and such an approach was bound to bring significant tensions and conflict.

It is not clear what Prime Minister Howard is trying to accomplish during his visit, apart from an effort to improve the troubled relationship between the two countries by removing some misunderstandings in the past where the politics of identity played an important role. The question is whether differences in social-culture which is regarded as a problem could be overcome by increasing high-level contacts and in deepening the relationship, or in Gareth Evans' words, putting ballast in the relationship.

The idea that understanding is related to the dissemination of information to skeptical circles in both countries and regular contacts between the political elites, ignores the emotional and irrational aspects of the politics of identity. It also ignores the ways in which domestic politics can dissipate the goodwill built up in the bilateral relationship if situations prescribe that political capital can be gained by attacking it or manipulating it.

For example, if political parties or social organizations are resorting to "patriotic" assertions of national identity.

In this visit the Prime Minister should therefore underline a relationship which is based on shared interests and mutual respect. These principles will provide the basis for a realistic framework for the relationship between Indonesia and Australia, and offer the best prospects to maximize shared economic interests, advance both countries' political and strategic interests, and manage differences in a sensible and practical way.

These policies and actions are to show Indonesia that the strategic outcomes the Howard government will pursue are consistent with Indonesia developing a key role in regional, economic, and security issues commensurate with its strategic location in the region.

The foreign policy objective of any Indonesian government has been the need to become a unified and internally stable country, which can produce a more productive, realistic, and sustainable relationship between the two countries.

There is, however, a cluster of opinion in Australia which believes that Indonesia's obstacle will be the serious internal problems it is facing: Corruption, unemployment, and political instability. They also argue that unless Indonesia can overcome these problems it would be difficult to expect a bright future.

This cluster of opinion which would like to see a prosperous and internally stable Indonesia argues that in pursuit of these goals it will also alter the nature of its society and the regional order.

They point to the growing interdependence and the continued economic dynamism of the Asia-Pacific region, despite the Asian crisis, as the most direct route to attaining prosperity and power. The incentives for Indonesia to foster these interdependent links are through regimes promoting trade liberalization, regional stability, and greater understanding. Asia-Pacific institutions, like APEC, the ASEAN Regional Forum and others, provided that no other crisis will occur, might all gain in strength and effectiveness.

These interdependencies and the regimes that advance them are judged to be more important than the sporadic tensions and conflicts that flare up in the region.