Labour fails to deliver on Keating’s Indonesia promise

But in the case of Indonesia, too, there was an exaggeration. Marles, imploring the blessing of history, said that it was “the most profound … most important agreement ever concluded by our two countries.” He forgets that history is rarely kind to exaggerations.

His guest, however, did not share this view.

Prabowo was nowhere near the rhetorical heights the Australians were flying. The agreement, he said, “smoothed out some of the legal details” of increased defense cooperation.

It was clear why he had really come to Canberra: to get Australia more involved in the Indonesian economy, particularly in agriculture and the fight against drugs.

As Susannah Patton, Director of Lowy’s Southeast Asia Program, said This Australian Financial Review, “Prabowo did not say anything that could be seen as framing the relationship in terms of shared regional goals: everything was very pragmatic and focused on Australia as a neighbouring country with which we could have operational cooperation.”

The Australian side will need to be careful that the blow-up of the agreement does not undermine the genuine common ground in the closer relationship with Indonesia, a country still going through a rapidly compressed modernisation process.

The public will also need to know more about the deal. Questions remain. Who made the most concessions to get the deal done?

Prabowo expressed some surprise that the deal had been finalised, so were the Australians bending over backwards to secure a deal before he became president? It is true that the visit had been in the works since the beginning of the year.

If Canberra, not Jakarta, had backed down, we are unlikely to be informed. Still, Prabowo may also have been distracted by events filtering back to him from home, where the Constitutional Court ruling has seemingly made what looked like a smooth path to power for his coalition even more rocky.

“I think it’s worth taking seriously the fact that the government, and especially Marles, is attaching so much importance to an operational agreement rather than a strategic one,” Patton said.

“This agreement counters the idea of ​​Australia being strategically isolated in its own neighbourhood, which is a source of concern to Canberra. It is at least a plausible step towards the idea of ​​a deeper and more trusted strategic partnership with Indonesia, which would be extremely valuable to Australia if it could be achieved.”

Greg Fealy of the Australian National University, one of Australia’s foremost experts on Indonesia, also welcomed the agreement.

However, he warned that “in the past, the content of new agreements has not always corresponded to government announcements.”

“However, Prabowo, as defence minister, was frustrated by the lack of a budget that would have allowed him to more quickly expand and improve Indonesia’s military capabilities.

“Any element of the new agreement with Australia that he believes will facilitate the strengthening of military capabilities he will welcome.”

Fealy also added that Prabowo “has strongly reiterated Indonesia’s commitment to a free and active foreign policy several times in recent months, which usually means non-alignment and avoiding alliances.

“Indonesia, in particular, will be reluctant to engage in any strategic activity that antagonizes China. It highly values ​​its current neutral role as an ‘honest broker’ between China and the U.S. and its allies.”

Marles’ attempt to historicize the announcement was evident in his forgetting of the 1995 Security Interim Agreement negotiated by former Labor Prime Minister Paul Keating and President Suharto. The differences are stark indeed.

Asked for comment by Financial ReviewKeating said: “Soeharto and I were basically a mutual defense pact. Because a serious threat to one, given the geography, necessarily affected the other, had consequences for the other, or would have consequences.

“Suharto was seriously concerned about China’s future development, and so was I, but even then, 30 years ago, he was concerned about Indonesia’s inability to defend its vast archipelago against a competent force.”

Keating added that he wanted “an early cautious policy against the growth of Chinese military potential, not because of an unfounded fear of China. But as a reserve capacity to draw on some of Indonesia’s then 220 million to add to our then superior military potential.”

“The new Marles agreement is OK and good for both countries, but it does not resemble the obligations and terms of the 1995 treaty.

“It was repealed by Indonesia after (John) Howard lavished the then General (Peter) Cosgrove with a hero-like hospitality in Australia when he returned from a UN-sponsored mission, as if he were a local MacArthur returning victorious.

“Habibie, the president (of Indonesia), took offense to this and nullified the treaty. A huge loss for both countries.”

James Curran is International Editor of the Australian Financial Review and Professor of Modern History at the University of Sydney.