One Day, Indonesia Will Be The Biggest Kid On The Block

[tuky]

Interesting read, I see a few truths in there.

I think Australias view of Indonesia is very short sighted and the below article only reassures that view.

Ok, Howard was the US deputy sheriff in the region, that might have worked last century but in these times I think Australia should be looking at developing a much stronger partnership with Indo.

Have a read and see what you think.

One day, Indonesia will be the biggest kid on the block

When a single unified state emerged as the successor to the Netherlands

East Indies after 1945, Australia suddenly had a close neighbour it

knew it would one day have to take seriously.

Indonesia’s huge population and territory gave it the

potential to exercise real power in Australia’s immediate region, and

hence shape Australia’s international environment profoundly.

Yet, for a long time that potential was largely unrealized.

Australians became used to the idea of Indonesia as a large but weak neighbour.

In all this, Australians have missed two big stories.

The first is Indonesia’s remarkable transition to democracy. This leads them to

underestimate both the potential of the relationship and the risks that

arise from the fragile and still incomplete transformation of

Indonesia’s political system.

The second is the biggest story of all:

Indonesia’s economy. Indonesia’s GDP has already overtaken Australia’s,

but that is just the beginning. A Citibank study published earlier

this year projected Indonesia’s GDP in 2040 at $8.27 trillion, which it says

by then would make it the fourth largest economy in the world.

Others are a little less bullish, but the underlying trend is unmistakable:

well before mid-century, Indonesia’s economy will most probably be twice

as large as Australia’s and possibly much larger still.

Shifts in relative wealth on this scale change everything.

If wealth is power, and if power is fundamental to relationships, then Australia’s

relationship with Indonesia is bound to change fundamentally as Indonesia

grows so much richer than Australia.

This will be new and unwelcome for a country that has never had a richer and more powerful

neighbour before - and so far the response has been denial.

A consequence is that very little thinking is being done about the kind

of relationship Australia should aim to have with Indonesia when it

becomes a great power, and what can be done now to start building it.

Instead, Canberra’s approach to the relationship is focused on third-order

issues of little long-term significance, like people smuggling and live cattle

exports.

The result is a relationship that is dangerously fragile. The clearest

warning of this came in President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono’s remarkable

speech to the Australian Parliament in March 2010, in which

he spoke very frankly about the misunderstandings and mistrust

between the two countries. The fact that his warnings received little

attention just reinforces how little Australia understands Indonesia’s

importance.

It also shows how seriously Australia has wasted the opportunity of

Yudhoyono’s presidency to set the relationship on firmer foundations.

Australia is unlikely to ever again have an Indonesian president so well

disposed to it. And time is not on Australia’s side. The more powerful

Indonesia becomes, the bigger the shock for Australia when it discovers

it can no longer set the terms of the relationship.

Take the shift in military power and strategic weight as an example. For

a long time, while Indonesia’s economy remained much smaller

than Australia’s, and its security concerns remained inwardly focused,

Indonesia had little money to spare for air and naval forces, and little

need for them as long as U.S. primacy in Asia remained uncontested.

It has therefore never built the maritime forces an archipelagic

nation needs to exercise strategic weight.

Australia, on the other hand, spent relatively large sums on

maritime forces.

Over the next few decades, this is very likely to change. As its economy

grows, Indonesia will have more money to spend on increasing its air

and naval forces, and it will have more need for them as Asia’s old

U.S.-led order is challenged by China. This could be bad news for

Australia because it will increase Indonesia’s weight as an adversary.

But it could also be good news because it will increase Indonesia’s

weight as an ally.

Most Australians find it impossible to see Indonesia in

this light, but the simple facts of geography mean that against any

threat from the existing great powers of Asia, a strong Indonesia would be

Australia’s greatest strategic asset.

If, as is clearly possible, the U.S. plays a smaller

role in Asia as the

Asian Century progresses, there is a real chance that Indonesia could

become Australia’s most important strategic partner.

Hugh White is professor of strategic

studies at the College of Asia and the

Pacific, at the Australian National

University.