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here is no question that Australia has recovered from its denial of being part of Asia. The investment '€” material and otherwise '€” in Indonesia and the rest of Southeast Asia in recent years shows Australia'€™s recognition that its future lies with Asian neighbors to the north, and not romanticized historical links with its
'€œWestern'€ past.

With over US$450 million in developmental aid to Indonesia, Canberra is putting its money where its mouth is.

The launch of the Indonesia Country Strategy Report during the visit of Prime Minister Kevin Rudd here on Friday shows just how serious Canberra is in upping the quality of the relationship.

The broad-stroke document outlines where Australia wants to be with Indonesia in 2025. Indonesia was identified as one of the five '€“ with China, India, Japan and Korea '€” initial priority countries for similar reports.

It is a well laid-out, readable text, just over 25 pages long: digestible in its advocacy and practical in its recommendations with regard to communities, business and government.

So accessible is the content that one would have thought it was authored by a production house, or a McKinsey-style consultant rather than bureaucrats.

The recommendations were partly taken from various consultations. Kudos to Australia'€™s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade for the kind of public input heralded in the report. For participants of Track Two and Three dialogues, many of these recommendations will sound familiar.

Unfortunately, the report often feels like a quick list of remedies that do little to address fundamental problems that will color the relationship.

In other words even if each of the report'€™s recommendations are carried out, the vulnerabilities would not diminish given the corrosive elements wedged in the fundamentals of the bilateral ties.

By nature Indonesians are not suspicious of Australia the way Australians are toward Indonesia. Any reservations that presently prevail here are a recent phenomenon instigated by events in Papua and East Timor (Timor Leste).

Even a Lowy Institute poll published last year shows that Indonesians have dramatically warmed toward Australia, with 61 percent of Indonesians in favor of a company, bank or investment fund controlled by the Australian government buying a controlling stake in a major Indonesian company.

But as long as Australia retains a security posture which remains '€œAmerican'€ in its strategic outlook there will only be amity with reservation between the two
nations.

Indonesian fears of being an arena of superpower strife are well founded. Australia'€™s battles will be fought on Indonesian territory.

Australia'€™s Defense White Paper published two months ago promotes strategic cooperation with Asian powers, but hints at the expansive archipelago as a trench line to block any threat.

'€œDenying an adversary our air and sea approaches in the archipelago is vitally important for deterring and defeating attacks on Australian territory,'€ it said.

Results of another Lowy poll which says 55 percent of Australians are comfortable with US bases in their country, does not bode well in how Indonesians think of Australia.

Canberra has been the driving force in dialogue and cooperative engagements. The Country
Strategy Report is stuffed with numerous photos and testimonies of such initiatives.

Yet these ceremonial exchanges have proved pro forma in the crunch of policy crisis.

The stationing of US troops in Darwin and suspension of live-
cattle exports are just two examples where a breakdown of communication created an unnecessary, albeit brief, impasse.

The Australian habit of hinging the relationship on one issue of the day, continues to highlight the vulnerability of the network of
relationships.

If it were not for the ingratiating statesmanship of the two leaders, the people-smuggling issue last week could have become another tripwire.

The temperature of the relationship remains susceptible to the chemistry of the leaders.

Therein lies the paradox of the report. Perhaps it is setting the bar too high, as if relations with Jakarta would one day be as cozy as Canberra'€™s bonds with Washington and London.

Proximity and democracy can be a glue, but they also expose the worst fears of each other as Indonesia'€™s own experience with Malaysia and Singapore (countries with which Indonesia has more in common than Australia) shows.

One of Australia'€™s preeminent strategists, Hugh White, put it best: '€œIn almost every dimension of national life '€” geography, history, economics, religion, language and culture '€” Australia is as different from Indonesia as two countries
can be.'€

Hence the two may surely become friends, but even more assured is that the two will never become
allies.