Sweet talk on Jakarta lacks action to match by: Rowan Callick, Asia-Pacific editor From:The Australian November 21, 201112:00AM 4 comments JULIA Gillard yesterday made another attempt to set Australia's relationship with Indonesia back on an appropriately close footing. That cannot be knocked. But we have been here many times before. The welcome mat in Indonesia has been worn thin without the rest of the house being explored. The Prime Minister, after arriving in Indonesia for this visit, described it as "a great strategic partner and friend of Australia over many decades". The relationship, Gillard said, had never been more important. She praised President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono "for his efforts in building the friendship that our two nations enjoy". The countries, she said, wanted to work ever more co-operatively. But if we truly wanted to realise such rhetoric we'd make it a higher priority. Paul Keating crafted a security treaty with his Indonesian uncle-figure Suharto. But that did not last beyond the dictator's downfall. After John Howard's deployment of troops to help secure an independent East Timor, he built good relations with the emerging democratic Indonesia -- consolidated through the Bali bombings and the Boxing Day tsunami. Yudhoyono has been especially well disposed to Australia, as Gillard said. And Kevin Rudd has assiduously built good relations with Foreign Minister Marty Natalegawa, who was a postgraduate student at the Australian National University. But the political rhetoric -- of which we heard more over the weekend -- has rarely been matched by actions. Back in March last year -- when Rudd was still prime minister -- the neighbours agreed to hold annual meetings of their foreign and defence ministers at Australia's suggestion. But none has yet been able to be arranged, with Rudd's diary especially overflowing. During this period we have seen asylum-seeker issues boil over to weigh on our relations not only with Indonesia but also other neighbours including Malaysia, East Timor and Papua New Guinea -- who have all felt caught up in Australia's domestic political-judicial soap opera. The ban on live cattle sales was imposed without consultation with Jakarta. And now the plan to rotate thousands of US marines through the nearest Australian region to Indonesia has been announced only a few days after Jakarta was told it was a done deal. That helps explain the slightly peevish tone of Natalegawa's initial response, noting the potential of such developments "to provoke . . . tensions and mistrust or distrust, and that's why it's very important when a decision of this type is taken there is transparency . . . and there is no misunderstanding". Indonesia has become a global success story: a lively Muslim-majority democracy enjoying a boom economy, including the best performing share market in the world over the past year. The brittleness of the relationship becomes apparent every time an Australian gets into trouble in Indonesia, something that is bound to keep happening. People here react as if Indonesia should be run like Australia. Huge numbers of Australians have been to Bali, but many of them are virtually unaware of the country of which it is a small part. Our business is largely ignoring the opportunities there. The Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement that Gillard and Yudhoyono promoted yesterday should help, but it remains a way off. It was wonderful to be basking last week in the warmth of Barack Obama's words and his smile as he lauded closer links with Asia. But we still need more assiduous and practical leadership in this crucial relationship with our closest Asian neighbour. http://superkoran.info/forums/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=55100 [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] ------------------------------------ Post message: [email protected] Subscribe : [email protected] Unsubscribe : [email protected] List owner : [email protected] Homepage : http://proletar.8m.com/Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/proletar/ <*> Your email settings: Individual Email | Traditional <*> To change settings online go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/proletar/join (Yahoo! ID required) <*> To change settings via email: [email protected] [email protected] <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [email protected] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
