The four-day visit by Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono to Australia is timely as the Indonesian leader and his counterpart, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd will discuss a number of matters such as trade, cooperation on asylum seekers and regional security. But the real value of Yudhoyono’s visit for the Rudd government is political.
With few foreign policy achievements to speak of, and several high profile missteps in Asia, the Australian PM’s domestic and international reputation has taken a blow. By meeting one-on-one with Australia’s most important and powerful regional partner, it is a chance for Kevin Rudd to show his critics two things:
First, he still has the respect of powerful friends in the region.
And second, he will no longer attempt to be the lone ranger in determining Southeast Asia’s future but learn to consult with leaders of the region’s key states.
The blow to the Australian PM’s foreign policy credentials is somewhat surprising. Having positioning himself as Australia’s intellectual, Mandarin-speaking statesman-in-waiting while in Opposition, experts expected that PM Kevin Rudd would usher in an enhanced era of Asian engagement.
The prime minister had promised to ramp up Australia’s “middle power” activism and creativity in Asia. Asian leaders and elites appreciated an Australian leader with an avowed interest and expertise in Asia. Yet, under Rudd’s leadership, Canberra has managed to enrage Beijing, irritate New Delhi, antagonize Singapore and annoy Tokyo and Jakarta.
When it comes to Southeast Asia, the government stumbled when Rudd first proposed a security structure in 2008 for an Asia Pacific Community (APC) that could take its inspiration from the European Union and discuss the full range of strategic, security, and economic issues in the region within the one new multilateral forum. He has been trying to recover ever since.
There were two problems with this proposal.
The first is that it misread the strategic zeitgeist. Like all states in the region, the main question revolves around what to do about China’s rise. Most states – large and small — want to avoid the formal discussion of top-level security matters (eg., great power tensions or an increased role for the Chinese navy) in any all-inclusive multilateral security forum for fear of having to explicitly “rebuff” Beijing.
Furthermore, the unspoken preference of most Asian states is to resist offering China a forum for a more equal say in security matters, especially regarding matters in the South China Sea, until China is truly enmeshed and committed to regional rules and norms. This is not yet sufficiently the case and the APC would have diluted existing leverage over China without Beijing offering any meaningful commitments in return.
The second problem is one of both leadership style and substance. Known for making foreign policy and other big decisions “on the run”, Rudd never bothered to consult with regional leaders before launching an idea that could radically change the way strategic and diplomatic interaction is to take place.
In insulting an already skeptical region, his special APC envoy, Richard Woolcott, was reportedly offered the post only two hours before it was first announced. Worse still, when it came to substance, the APC would presumably eventually replace the so-called “weak” institution of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) even though Australia is not a member of ASEAN. Canberra, smugly enjoying the American security guarantee, was telling Southeast Asia how to reorganize its strategic future without the Australian leader having even discussed his ideas with key regional leaders.
The result: in one sense, the Rudd government has delivered what he promised. He is one of the more tireless, imaginative, assertive and proactive heads-of-government in the region. But in a more important footnote, Canberra wound back some of the progress made in Australia’s relationships with key states achieved during the Howard era. Whereas the whole point of “creative middle power” activism is to win new friends and influence powerful players, Australian moves inadvertently annoyed and enraged existing ones respectively.
Fast forward to 2010 and Australia has belatedly discovered that despite the flurry of multilateral activity in the region, stability and progress in Asia (like the rest of the world) is built on the back of strong government-to-government relationships and understanding between key states. Therefore, the visit by President Yudhoyono is a chance for Rudd to show the region that he is indeed adept at the bilateral game.
The visit of Yudhoyono is also fortuitous for several other reasons. Indonesia is the largest and most powerful player in Southeast Asia. When it comes to issues such as managing China’s power and influence in the South China Sea, regional terrorism, people smuggling and other transnational crimes, as well as the multilateral future of Asia, little will be achieved without Jakarta’s cooperation.
Hence, deepening the bilateral relationship between Jakarta and Canberra ought to be one of the first priorities before regional “activism”on Australia’s part.
Finally, the visit comes days before US President Barack Obama sets foot on Australian shores. Rudd will want to show that Australia’s “special relationship” with America makes Canberra more important and relevant to a changing region, rather than less. A productive meeting with both the Indonesian and American President is the Rudd government’s first step toward regional redemption.
The writer is the foreign policy fellow at the Center for Independent Studies in Sydney and a visiting fellow at the Hudson Institute in Washington, DC.
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