http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,25084090-25377,00.html
Neighbours in US embrace Greg Sheridan, Foreign editor | February 21, 2009 Article from: The Australian HASSAN Wirajuda, Indonesia's urbane and classy Foreign Minister, is jumping on the Barack Obama bandwagon. Wirajuda flew directly from meeting US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in Jakarta to Sydney for a giant conference on the Australia-Indonesia relationship, celebrating 20 years of the Australia Indonesia Institute. He led a delegation of three senior Indonesian ministers and, at 74, the biggest overall delegation from Indonesia to visit Australia. Wirajuda has an understated and soothing style that can lead people to underestimate just what a profound effect he's had on Indonesian foreign policy during the nearly 10 years he has been at its helm. He and his ministry have overseen a quiet but profound dynamic of new institutional arrangements that point the way to the values that govern the new Indonesian foreign policy. These have to some extent travelled under the radar of the big headline foreign affairs commitments on trade and security, but include such things as democracy and human rights forums, and inter-faith and inter-civilisational dialogues. They point to a pervasive new concern with human rights and democracy issues in Indonesia. Perhaps Wirajuda's greatest accomplishment, however, has been to recast Australian-Indonesian relations such that he claims they have never been closer or stronger. He may be about to repeat this with the US, a change that would be at least as revolutionary as that which Jakarta has undertaken with Canberra. Yesterday I caught up with Wirajuda for a long discussion in his Sydney hotel. He is nuanced but quietly declarative about the new level of intimacy Indonesia is seeking with the US. "The new policy the Obama administration has adopted is to engage much more with the Asia-Pacific region," Wirajuda says. "During the Bush administration - presumably because of its preoccupation with the Middle East - the US had not engaged Asia as Asian countries would have wished. We welcome the new engagement." Jakarta has set some important limits to this new engagement, but in its own way is highly ambitious for it: "Initially Hillary Clinton talked about a strategic partnership, but in the US traditional thinking is to distinguish between allies and friends. Certainly Indonesia doesn't want to be, and can't be, an ally, but we want to be considered as more than just friends. By agreeing to a comprehensive partnership (between Indonesia and the US) we are not just friends. We agreed to expand and deepen every aspect of our bilateral relationship. Both the US and Indonesia share fundamental values of democracy, human rights and pluralism." Clinton, as Secretary of State, has committed the US to signing the Association of Southeast Asian Nations Treaty of Amity and Co-operation and committed herself to attending the ASEAN ministerial meetings later in the year in Thailand, whereas her predecessor, Condoleezza Rice, had an appalling record of snubbing ASEAN meetings. Combined with Clinton's visit to Indonesia, there is a serious effort by the US to re-engage Southeast Asia. Wirajuda also told the Indonesian press, in Clinton's presence, that Indonesia very much wanted Obama to visit. Wirajuda's words about Indonesia pursuing a comprehensive but not strategic partnership with the US may appear to be diplomatic nitpicking but he and his Government are pushing as far forward as they possibly can with the US. This represents a moment of historic opportunity for Washington in Indonesia, which is also full of import for Australia. It would be wrong to characterise Wirajuda as anything but upbeat about the Indonesia-Australia relationship. But he is not writing any blank cheques. Kevin Rudd's proposal to form an Asia-Pacific community stretching from the US to India and dealing with all security and economic issues has not stirred the slightest enthusiasm in Southeast Asia. Wirajuda's response to the idea is diplomatic but telling: "We are still waiting for the results of the Australian study and consultation under the leadership of ambassador (Dick) Woolcott. It's good that he has conducted consultations with many countries in the region. We are waiting to see what the substance of the Australian proposal is." That seems to be an exquisitely polite way of yawning in the face of a boring initiative and it's probably fair to say Wirajuda is more sympathetic to it than most of that tiny group of Indonesians who have heard of the proposal. The Asia-Pacific community idea does not look set to be a triumph of Rudd diplomacy. Wirajuda is also navigating the international dimensions of his country's response to the global financial crisis. He sounds like an Australian cabinet minister in arguing that his country is in a better position than most others, but still has a lot of pain to endure: "As a result of the Asian economic crisis 10 years ago we restructured our economy and reformed our banks and financial institutions. We also pursued a very prudent fiscal policy. We do not take new loans and we reduced our debt to GDP ratio, which was once around 80per cent, to 32 per cent last year. "Secondly, our banks and financial institutions were not directly exposed to Wall Street. And thirdly our economy has been relatively dynamic." In recent years, he says, economic growth ran above 6 per cent a year. Even this year, Wirajuda forecasts, in the midst of the GFC, Indonesia will still have an overall growth rate of more than 4 per cent. "Only China, India and Indonesia will achieve this kind of growth rate," he says. Nonetheless, Wirajuda acknowledges that the worst effects of the GFC will be felt in Indonesia around the middle of the year, or in the second half of the year. He doesn't say so but this is important not only for the human suffering it will cause, but because this acute economic distress will coincide with Indonesia's presidential elections. Although Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono is still heavily favoured to win, a result Canberra devoutly prays for daily, this could be thrown into doubt by economic dislocation. Wirajuda seems to agree with Rudd about the perils of excessive neo-liberal, free market purity: "This has been discussed in the G20 (Group of 20 including Australia). Even the US says it cannot rely only on the market. Their own experience was primarily because their banks and financial institutions were inadequately regulated and they expected that the markets would be self-correcting." The G20 is a good example of the emerging diplomatic partnership between Jakarta and Canberra. It includes a mixture of developed and developing nations, with a much greater weighting towards Asia. It is a significant part of Rudd foreign policy for the G20 to become more central in global economic policy. Says Wirajuda: "The G20 is new in the sense that, in the past, global economic issues were the domain of the G7 or G8. There is an understanding now of the need to include countries from our region such as South Korea, Indonesia and Australia. This is a good development." He is also adamant that Indonesia will not retreat down any protectionist path and he has a persuasive case to make. Even in the East Asian financial crisis of a decade ago, which became a multi-dimensional and cathartic crisis for Indonesia, Jakarta did not embrace protectionism. Indonesia recently donated more than $US1 million ($1.57 million) to victims of the Victorian bushfires and some technical forensic assistance as well. This was an act freighted with moral and psychological significance for both countries, and certainly for Wirajuda: "Our region is prone to disasters, natural and man-made. That's why co-operation is so important. "Indonesia has experienced multiple natural disasters. We know that for disasters of that magnitude you cannot cope alone. That's why we were really touched by the compassion the international community extended to us (after the 2004 tsunami). This month when bushfires struck the state of Victoria, we were very clear in our memories about the assistance the government and people in Australia had given to us. "So it was a natural reaction on our part to think how can we help reduce the burden, psychological and physical, that Australians must endure in this. It is a very modest contribution by us, perhaps, but it is a reflection of our friendship and partnership with Australia." You can't ask for much more than that. [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
