Albanese right to place highest priority on Indonesia

Notwithstanding their bromance, Anthony Albanese takes none of his cues on China from the ill-advised Mark McGowan. Picture: Sam Ruttyn

So does West Australian Premier, Mark McGowan now blame Peter Dutton and his undiplomatic language for Beijing’s dangerous intercept of an Australian maritime surveillance aircraft on May 26?

Notwithstanding their bromance, Anthony Albanese takes none of his cues on China from the ill-advised McGowan.

The shadow of China looms over the Prime Minister’s visit to Indonesia, as it does over all regional diplomacy. Of course, Indonesia is also intensely important to us itself. Indonesia is a nation of 270 million. Albanese is right to make it the highest possible priority of his government. Visiting with a big ministerial and business delegation is a good statement of purpose.

Indonesian President Joko Widodo, known as Jokowi, welcomed the Australians warmly. The Albo-Jokowi bike ride was a characteristic touch by the President. While we shouldn’t make too much of it, this sort of thing is a sign, to his own people not least, that the visit entirely enjoys the President’s favour.

Jokowi is an enigmatic, elusive, often difficult leader, especially for international interlocutors. It’s not that he is disagreeable or instinctively opposed to good ideas. It’s rather that, somewhat like the character Tom Bombadil in The Lord of the Rings, his mind just travels down different paths. His imagination is captured by odd bits of technology. Like many Indonesian leaders, like most Indonesians, he is focused on the internal politics and dynamics of his vast, complex nation.

His record as President is mixed – mediocre economic reform, episodic attachment to democracy, episodic lack of commitment to civil liberties, generally popular, religiously and socially moderate, and remarkably successful politically. It’s not up to any visiting Australian to contest any of that because, while we have an overwhelming interest in broad Indonesian success, most of those issues are, broadly, none of our business.

Albanese has exercised good judgment in his rhetoric. He has even, one might say, acted like a good diplomat, a diplomat being an honourable man sent abroad to lie in the interests of his country. “Lie” in this context is too harsh, but certainly it was gilding the lily, at the very least, for Albanese to comment: “Your planned national capital, Nusantara, is an incredibly exciting prospect – a nation-building project signalling where Indonesia’s headed.”

That was the right thing to say. Jokowi’s proposed new national capital, in Borneo, to replace Jakarta, is the apple of his eye. Yet there is hardly anyone in the world who thinks this eccentric idea a good way for Indonesia to spend tens of billions of dollars.

In much of Indonesia healthcare is rudimentary, schools impoverished and poorly attended, and all across the nation there is an acute lack of basic infrastructure. To divert so many resources to such an odd vanity project, which Jokowi conceives of as a model green city, is perverse. But if we earn some goodwill from the President by enthusiastically endorsing this project, and even offering some “green” expertise, that’s a no-brainer.

Albanese was also right to commit to attending the G20 in Indonesia, even if Vladimir Putin is there.

For despite its distinctive, enthralling, perplexing characteristics, Indonesia remains a big player in hard power. This is not because of the Indonesian armed forces, which are poorly equipped and resourced. But its size and location make Indonesia important, especially to Australia. Its 5000 islands sprawl across the southern flank of Southeast Asia. It is the world’s most populous Muslim nation. There are more Muslims in Indonesia than in the whole Middle East. It is the giant of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, more than twice as big as the next biggest nation. It can stop anything in ASEAN, and nothing in ASEAN can really move that Jakarta is not involved with.

If you want to think of negative possibilities, none of our neighbours, except China, has more capacity to do Australia harm if it ever were hostile. Say one day Jakarta decided to destabilise Papua New Guinea. We provide a de facto security guarantee to PNG. We could not cope with that. Say it decided one day to take a permissive attitude to international people-smuggling, so long as the illegal immigrants were headed to Australia, not Indonesia itself. We could not cope with that either. Say it decided to take a permissive attitude to Islamist terrorists provided they attacked us and not Indonesia. We certainly could not cope with that. Say it decided to close its archipelagic waters to international trade heading for Australia. Say it decided to fully join Beijing strategically and offer it military bases.

Absolutely none of those contingencies is likely. Some, such as Indonesia offering to host Chinese military bases, are unimaginable, given Indonesia’s own proud independence. But no other neighbour could so credibly provide unmanageable problems for Australia. Paul Keating was right to say that the securing of peaceful development and political stability in Indonesia was a huge strategic gift for Australia.

The potential upside is also substantial but very hard to realise. There are a lot of projections floating around this week having Indonesia become first a top 10 global economy, then a top four economy. I wouldn’t be too fussed about these projections. Economic projections are about as reliable as your older brother’s racing tips.

But underlying these projections is the reality that Indonesia is enormously big and will get much bigger. Incidentally, one consequence of that is that we too should get much bigger. From every point of view, Australia needs more people and a bigger economy.

It is true that Jakarta will never have quite the same view of Washington or Beijing that we do. There is less anti-Western sentiment in Indonesia than in most Muslim countries, but it is still substantial. Most Indonesians think little at all about Australia.

One key internal fault line in Indonesia has been at times savage ethnic hostility against Chinese-Indonesians. This is a wholly destructive sentiment, but it does put a limit on how pro-Chinese any Indonesian administration could become. Similarly, Jakarta has been quietly furious about Beijing’s illegal encroachments on the Natuna islands. One of the strongest Indonesian figures on this has been its formidable Foreign Minister, Retno Marsudi, a very good friend of Australia.

Our economic relationship with Indonesia is underdone, as everyone says, but Indonesia can be an intensely challenging environment for international businesses. Having the closest possible productive relationship with Jakarta is good for Australia from every point of view. Notwithstanding that Indonesia is never going to apply to join AUKUS, it is also absolutely critical in managing our intensely difficult interactions with China.

One early visit is a good start. But there’s plenty of work ahead for the Albanese government.