Promoting U.S.-RI partnership important: Ambassador
The following is an excerpt of remarks made by the United States Ambassador to Indonesia J. Stapleton Roy at a party hosted by the United States-Indonesia Society on May 10.
JAKARTA: Having seen in this century the consequences of withdrawing into isolationism, we are trying to do something that we have never successfully accomplished in our history. That is, to continue playing a leadership role in non-bipolar world that now lacks the stark security that marked the Cold War.
We will withstand the pressures in the United States to focus on our domestic affairs to the detriment of our international relationship. U.S alliances in the Pacific enjoy bipartisan support. Some of us focus on political alliances, others on economic, others on strategic, and still others on moral alliances. But all of us recognize that those alliances need strengthening. The question is how to prioritize our objectives. Recent developments in this region, including President Clinton's visit to Japan and Korea, illustrate that the mood in the United States is not to pull back from Asia.
At the same time, we also face another challenge, which is to adapt the style of our diplomacy to dealing with the more fluid global situation that has emerged in the post-Cold War world. The United States may be the strongest individual country both economically and militarily, but we have neither the desire nor the capability to dominate the world, and it would be foolish and costly to try to meet potential future security challenges on our own. Rather, with its preeminent power, the United States is the single country best positioned to maintain both global and regional power balance that will provide the stability essential for continued growth and economic development.
The United States recognizes that our military presence in East Asia is essential to maintain the region's security and prosperity. As a result, President Clinton has stated that we will maintain 100,000 troops in Asia, a number roughly equal to our troop presence in Europe. As an Indonesian analyst wrote in a recent article in The Jakarta Post. "The U.S. presence is vital to the maintenance of a minimum balance of power in the region. In that sense, the U.S. military presence is not a temporary phenomenon, but a fundamental part of the strategic development of the Asia-Pacific in the future..."
The United States has the will and resources to play a confidence-building role, but we are not, nor do we aspire to be, policemen. We seek a close, collaborative relationship and peaceful engagement with all Asian-Pacific powers, not the establishment of sentry posts.
To play this role effectively in the post-Cold War world, the United States must pursue a form of enlightened pragmatism that avoids the extremes either of sanctimonious moralism or cynical realpolitik that does not suit the American character. Ideals and principle must be related to our longer term goals, and not used as restrictive tests for the practical measures that will maximize our ability to foster the trends most compatible with our interests.
Secondly, we need to give greater attention to the problems and challenges faced by developing countries. During the Cold War, our paramount security concerns provided the underpinning for our close relationship with developing economies such as the Republic of Korea and Taiwan whose domestic political systems were repressive and authoritarian. With our relationship stabilized in this fashion, the rapid economic growth in these economies, sustained over three decades or more, helped spawn political transformation that made their political systems more compatible with American values.
In the post-Cold War world, however, security arguments are less compelling as the basis for tolerating the systemic inadequacies that characterize much of the developing world. This undercuts the U.S. ability both to stabilize our relationship with countries struggling with problems of development and to play the balancing role that our interests require during this promising but potentially dangerous transitional period in world affairs. With our own exceptionally stable political institutions, we sometimes give too little attention to the interrelationship between stability and economic development that lies at the heart of the development process.
Thirdly, in dealing with giant developing countries such as Indonesia, we need to ensure that our perspective does not become dominated by too narrow viewpoints. Crises and acts of violence make headlines and shape perceptions. The United States-Indonesia Society can play an important role in promoting the broad, informed mutual understanding that must underpin long-term cooperation between our two countries.
Indonesia for its part also faces important challenges as it looks toward the 21st century. With the world no longer divided into the blocs that marked the Cold War, the significance of the Non-Aligned Movement, in which Indonesia has played such a leading role, will inevitably change, just as the military alliances that helped stabilize the Cold War are facing readjustments and reexamination. While it would be premature to advocate simply discarding such tested relationships because circumstances have changed, prudent thinkers will recognize that they cannot continue in their old forms.
Indonesia is well positioned for such readjustments because of the dramatic success of ASEAN in providing a focus for cooperation in Southeast Asia and more broadly in the Asia- Pacific region. Indonesia's recent defense agreement with Australia indicates that the country's leaders are indeed adapting Indonesia's diplomacy to the changing world scene. This is a positive development that can pave the way for the emergence of a new type of cooperative partnership between Indonesia and the United States that can promote stability and prosperity.
Secondly, Indonesia faces the challenge of contributing to and helping to sustain the open global trading system without which the East Asian economic miracle would not have happened. Free and open trade among nations is in the interest of all countries, developing and developed alike. The United States is fully committed to the APEC goal of free and open trade and investment in the region by 2010/2020, and President Clinton strongly supported President Soeharto's initiatives at Bogor in 1994.
As Indonesia succeeds, so does the United States. Indonesia's dynamism creates enormous new markets for our products. We have learned that prosperity is a two-way street; our best suppliers are also our best customers. In 1995, Indonesia exported US$7.4 billion worth of goods to the United States, an increase of over 70 percent in just three years. In the same year, the United States exported $3.3 billion to Indonesia, an increase of 20 percent in just one year.
Indonesia's rapid economic growth has been based on the comparative advantages it enjoys in world trade: low labor costs, an extraordinarily rich range of natural resources, and an important strategic location at crossroads between two continents and two oceans. Building on this strong base, Indonesia has taken a number of positive steps to improve its competitive position, but so have other countries. More remains to be done.
The Indonesian experience has shown that the fastest way to improve economic productivity is by improving the business climate, thereby attracting both domestic and foreign investment. Deregulation plays a crucial role in this process. In 1993, foreign investment approvals came to only $9 billion. In 1994, the year of deregulation, investment approvals soared to $23.7 billion. And last year, the government approved $39.9 billion in foreign investments.
Improving the transparency of government decision-making on economic and business issues is another critical element in this strategy. Investor's perceptions -- a country's reputation as a place to do business -- is a critical factor in deciding what kind of business gets done -- and where.
The same considerations apply to protecting intellectual property rights. A recent International Finance Corporation report noted that improved intellectual property protection laws and their effective enforcement are likely to translate into significantly larger inflows of foreign direct investment. This issue is of great importance to the United States, and we welcome Minister/State Secretary Moerdiono's recent announcement of plans to intensify enforcement of existing anti-piracy laws and to update these laws as well.
Indonesia also faces a third challenge faced by all rapidly growing countries; that is managing the social and political changes that are an inevitable and essential part of the development process, while avoiding the extremes of instability or repression. Strengthening the rule of law and respecting human rights is a common interest of all of us. Moreover, in the modern world, countries conduct their domestic affairs in the full glare of the international publicity that is an inseparable part of the information age. Infractions of human rights, whether in East Timor or in America's inner cities, attract instant attention around the world and can have far reaching impacts on relationships.