Australia’s successful negotiation of an upgraded Defence Co-operation Agreement with Indonesia is undoubtedly positive, if not necessarily as profound a leap forward in the bilateral relationship as Richard Marles would have us believe.
While the pact smooths the way for closer military co-operation, including the expansion of critical defence education exchanges, it builds on an existing agreement and falls well short of a mutual security guarantee – something the avowedly non-aligned Indonesia would not countenance. Nor does it quite have the weight of a visiting forces agreement, such as that which Australia has with The Philippines.
Still, it is immensely valuable, as much for the opportunity it has presented to develop a closer relationship with Indonesian defence minister Prabowo Subianto, the incoming president of our most important neighbour.
Whether by design or good luck, this has turned out to be A-grade diplomacy by the Albanese government that gives it a genuine head start with Indonesia’s next administration.
Even if the new agreement does little more than remove legal obstacles to military collaboration on each other’s soil, the time and effort devoted to the project has been a canny investment.
Successive Australian prime ministers have been whiplashingly quick to declare their great personal friendship with Indonesia’s outgoing President Joko Widodo, a talented retail politician with an easy smile and relaxed manner.
By contrast, Prabowo is reputedly not always such easy company. The 73-year-old is said to have a short fuse and a long memory, even if his spin doctors were spectacularly successful in convincing Indonesian voters ahead of his February election victory that he is now a cuddlier version of his former self.
Whether or not that is the case, the Australian Defence Minister has clearly built a handy rapport with Prabowo during these negotiations.
The former Special Forces commander looked relaxed in Canberra on Tuesday as he thanked Anthony Albanese for being the first foreign leader to congratulate him on his election win, and assured him of his commitment to maintaining “good neighbour” relations.
His speech suggests he is well-disposed to Australia, and that he intends to look to it for help with agriculture and food security – a historical Indonesian ambition.
He has also said he wanted to collaborate with Australia on the “serious problem of drugs and narcotics”, suggesting closer bilateral co-operation on transnational policing to address the overwhelming source of the regional drug scourge, which is Myanmar.
Certainly, Prabowo seems less wedded to the ASEAN regional bloc, wholly ineffective in addressing the escalating civil war there, than was his predecessor Jokowi, for whom the concept of ASEAN centrality neatly aligned with his relative disinterest in foreign policy.
Not so Indonesia’s next president, who is impatient to make his mark, at home and across the region.
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