Indonesia’s defence minister and president-elect Prabowo Subianto has for months left it to Richard Marles to talk up the significance of the upgraded bilateral Defence Co-operation Agreement, lending the impression it is more important to Canberra than Jakarta.
That changed on Wednesday, when Prabowo spoke of a “historic milestone” agreement that could help Australia and Indonesia together ward off future regional security threats.
The DCA could “significantly help anticipate future security threats in the Asia-Pacific region through collaborative defence efforts, ensuring lasting peace and security”, his defence ministry said. That the incoming president is openly framing the agreement in the context of upholding regional security is a notable shift to be welcomed in Canberra.
Indonesia takes its non-alignment seriously. Just days after Prabowo came to Australia last week to announce the conclusion of the defence upgrade, his ministry announced regular military exercises with China would begin next year.
Jakarta is always careful to emphasise its “friend to all, enemy of none” foreign policy doctrine, as was the incoming president on Wednesday.
“This is not a military pact or military alliance but a defence co-operation (signifying) our desire to maintain and continue close and friendly relations”, he said.
As ever with Prabowo, a former special forces commander whose unit was accused of human rights abuses in East Timor, there was an implicit warning over sovereignty: to maintain this level of strategic trust, Australia must never again intervene in Indonesian internal affairs, as Prabowo believes it did in East Timor.
None of that is news to Australia, which in 2006 signed the Lombok Treaty enshrining that commitment. Those caveats are built into our relationship with Indonesia.
But the fact the enhanced DCA paves the way for bigger and more frequent joint military exercises, and presents an opportunity for Australia to help build up Indonesia’s maritime domain awareness capacity, is unambiguously good news.
Like it or not, our geography dictates that Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia form the outer defence perimeter for Australia’s northern approaches.
Jakarta knows Chinese submarines – and those of other nations – regularly pass through its waters undetected, and is rightly uncomfortable about it. So is Australia.
Any help we can offer to help Indonesia plug its surveillance gaps is good for both countries, given the vast waters are the main buffer between our mainland and any threats to our north.
That Canberra is eager to do so represents another critical shift in thinking; a strong Indonesia positively aligned with Australia is better for our national security interests than a weak one.
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