TheJakartaPost
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A united and democratic Indonesia makes Australia more secure
Taking cues from the past, the pro-autocrats believe that sectarian and political conflicts in Indonesia often gained support from overseas.
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Brotherhood of the sea: Indonesian Navy sailors look on as a Royal Australian Navy warship passes during a joint exercise in the Java Sea on Oct. 29, 2021. The joint training, named Exercise New Horizon 2021, lasted until Nov. 3, 2021. (Courtesy of /Information Center, Indonesian Navy Eastern Fleet Command)
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n November last year, Defense Minister Prabowo Subianto made a startling revelation in Manama. He understood and respected Australia’s decision to embrace a new security partnership with the United Kingdom and the United States, known as AUKUS, despite the controversy it generated in Indonesia.
While Prabowo’s response to AUKUS was not outright supportive, he nonetheless accepted that AUKUS was Australia’s genuine reaction to China’s belligerence.
To speak of Australia and Indonesia as potential allies is too far-fetched, if not inconvenient, even for those who would like to see closer bilateral relations. But geostrategic convergence between the two is more apparent.
During the launch of AUKUS last September, Jakarta had been embroiled in a maritime standoff with Beijing over Indonesian oil and gas drilling in the South China Sea. The standoff was not the first in the area nor is it likely to be the last.
China’s flagrant violations of Indonesia’s maritime borders are not just a law enforcement issue, but a geostrategic one: They threaten to unravel the international legal basis of Indonesia’s tanah air (land and water), the political unity of Indonesia’s insular and maritime territories.
Given the serious geostrategic challenge China poses to Indonesia, the integrity of Indonesia’s maritime borders—indeed, Indonesia’s national unity at large—should make Australia more secure.
But the autocratic ways previous Indonesian regimes sought to maintain national unity were self-defeating. The unity of Indonesia, it was believed (and some still do), could only be preserved through “strongman” leadership. Like a lid on a boiling pot, autocratic leaders can only repress dissent for so long, which only accumulates over time until it boils over.
