Indonesia defence pact well timed

The shooting down over Canada of a third “high-altitude airborne object” on Sunday AEDT should leave democracies everywhere in no doubt about the threat from what appears to be a vast Chinese communist spying operation going on high in the sky above them. Like the huge balloon shot down off the coast of South Carolina on February 4, and another object shot down over Alaska last Friday, Beijing doubtless will claim the craft overflying Canada was no more than an innocent meteorological balloon.

Nothing looks more like hogwash. As Washington correspondent Adam Creighton wrote on Saturday, the Chinese spy balloon and events since are “a powerful symbol of a Chinese spying machine that is challenging, and perhaps eclipsing, the intelligence- gathering capabilities of the US and its Five Eyes partners”, including Australia and New Zealand. The challenge posed by what US Pentagon officials describe as “a sprawling surveillance program” overseen by the CCP’s People’s Liberation Army is, however, even greater than that. Aspects of Chinese high-in-the-sky surveillance in countries across the Indo-Pacific, revealed in The Washington Post, underline the vital importance of defence alliances among democracies. That was highlighted by Friday’s announcement in Canberra of negotiations to establish a crucial new defence treaty between Australia and Indonesia. Indonesia has been critical of Australia’s AUKUS nuclear-powered submarine deal with the US and Britain. As a founder of the misnamed and now largely moribund Non-Aligned Movement, Indonesia has warned that the deal will encourage nuclear weapons development and proliferation. To Jakarta’s credit, that objection did not prevent Defence Minister Richard Marles and his Indonesian counterpart, Prabowo Subianto, from announcing negotiations for a new defence pact that will have a profound effect on the bilateral relationship and enhance the importance to the entire region – not just Australia – of the AUKUS deal. Australia and Indonesia will negotiate a defence arrangement that will underpin the interoperability of our armed forces. Each will have access to the other’s training ranges. There will be reciprocal access to each other’s facilities. Joint training will be streamlined. The proposed pact, according to Australian National University international law expert Don Rothwell, will represent a “significant upgrade” in the Australia-Indonesia defence relationship similar to Australia’s historic 2022 reciprocal access agreement with close ally Japan.

Indonesia is the world’s fourth most populous nation and third-largest democracy. It has not been immune to Chinese threats to its sovereignty. The proposed defence pact between Jakarta and Canberra could hardly be more important and should do much to convince Indonesia of the value of the AUKUS deal in adding powerful heft to defend itself and other countries in the region. The sovereignty and security of all the world’s democracies have been shown to be at risk from China’s vast aerial surveillance program. “What the Chinese have done is taken an unbelievably old technology (balloons), and basically married it with modern communications and observation capabilities,” a US official said on Sunday.

The balloons and other “high-level airborne objects” can linger for hours or even days over a target, whereas satellites have only minutes to get a picture. And the balloons can be piloted remotely, with their paths unpredictable and difficult to track. Reports that the military assets of countries across our region already have been targeted underline the importance of the proposed bilateral defence pact with Indonesia. They also should add significantly to concern about the potential consequences of Beijing’s suborning of Solomon Islands Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare and the likely establishment in the Pacific Island state of another Chinese military base capable of operating the spy balloons.