Foreign policy: Think globally, act locally

Foreign policy: Think globally, act locally

J. Soedjati Djiwandono, Political Analyst, Jakarta

President Megawati Soekarnoputri's visit to North Korea has
been highlighted in the media coverage of her visit to four Asian
countries, including China, South Korea and India. From the
beginning, this particular visit seems to have been injected with
the idea, or at least the expectation, that President Megawati
would carry with her a special mission. This mission was to
persuade President Kim Yong-il to return to the negotiating
table.

She would thus embark "on possibly the most important
diplomatic mission of her brief presidency as she flies to
Pyongyang carrying an invitation for North Korea to again engage
in peaceful dialog", as this paper put it.

If successful, that diplomatic mission, which, according to
the newly appointed spokesman for the foreign office in a dialog
on television, was in line with the expectations of the "regional
powers", perhaps referring to Southeast Asia or East Asia, would
certainly boost the image of Indonesia's active foreign policy.

It would give it an aura of grandeur and glory, something
which at the moment is seemingly so badly needed by a Megawati
government and an Indonesian people that have been increasingly
losing their self-confidence as a result of the never-ending
crisis. In fact, there have been hints that none other than
President George W. Bush of the U.S., besides President Kim Dae-
jung of South Korea, conveyed such an invitation for President
Megawati to carry to Pyongyang.

Indeed, the President's visit to North Korea has provided a
rare occasion of what looks to be a neat cooperation in public
relations, if not by design, between the government and the
media, which has often been blamed by the foreign office, along
with its own less-than proactive diplomats, for its failure to
paint a good image of Indonesia overseas.

While the President herself has mostly been reticent about her
mission, public opinion, or at least published opinion, in both
the print and electronic media, strengthened by government public
relations maneuvers, has succeeded in turning what may have been
a mere myth into what many believe to be a reality.

Unfortunately, Indonesians seem to be somewhat notorious for
their penchant for myths. Again for the sake of grandeur and
glory, and perhaps for purposes of nation building. For instance,
as a nation we tend to cherish the myth that we obtained our
independence by revolutionary means rather than above all by
diplomacy. We love to hear praise from foreign countries that
Indonesia was a pioneer of the Non-Aligned Movement, whereas in
fact first president Sukarno was opposed to it from the very
beginning.

He preferred, rather, the extension of the unity and
solidarity among the newly independent Afro-Asian nations,
beginning with the Afro-Asian/Bandung Conference of 1955, so as
to include Latin American nations and the socialist countries
into the "new emerging forces" as opposed to the "old established
forces" of the industrialized West.

Indeed, if President Megawati should be interested in learning
from her late father's increasingly megalomaniac tendencies in
his foreign policy, she should learn more from his mistakes than
from his flamboyant style and demagogy. Dizzy with his success,
to borrow Stalin's words, in his strategy to recover West Irian
by using the Soviet saber to seduce the U.S. role in his favor,
he carried over too far into embarking on a confrontational
policy that finally led to his downfall.

It thus seems doubtful if references to the Bandung Conference
of 1955 and to Megawati's memories of her childhood encounter
with the present North Korean leader are of real relevance to the
present-day diplomacy.
`In the meantime, one should consider Megawati's lack of
diplomatic experience and her untested competence in such a
complex diplomatic undertaking, not to mention the possible lack
of Indonesian diplomatic credibility because of the acute crisis
that has beset the country so as to render it one of the pariahs
of today's world.

Therefore, much as we Indonesians would love to see our own
country play a meaningful and constructive role in the regional
and even world arena, there seems to be hardly any asset that
could sustain such a role with sufficient credibility and ensure
any degree of success. Indonesia is the largest archipelago and
now the fourth largest nation in the world in terms of
population, but that greatness has yet to be translated into
economic and military strength, and thus political influence.

Indeed, in a world still dominated by nation-states as the
main state actors, despite globalization, it continues to be a
valid maxim in international relations that a nation's foreign
policy is primarily motivated by what it perceives as the
priority of its national interests, however defined, at a given
moment.

For the moment, the top priority of Indonesia's national
interests should be economic recovery. And to that end, it badly
needs credibility in the eyes of foreign creditors and investors.
To regain that credibility, however, the Megawati government must
be able to resolve continuing communal conflicts in the country
in order to restore domestic peace and stability, and to
establish law and order.

In a nutshell, Indonesia must above all be able to put its
house in order first. All the efforts of its foreign policy, at
whatever level, ought to be focused on that top priority. The
President may think globally, but for some time to come she
should primarily act locally.