“Sakarepmu!” (up to you, I don’t care!) President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo’s responded (in my imagination) when Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison called him on Sept. 20 to assure his Indonesian counterpart that Australia was not seeking to acquire nuclear weapons or establish a civil nuclear capability and that Australia would continue to stick to its nuclear non-proliferation obligations.

President Jokowi was reportedly upset by Morrison’s diplomatic snub, even close to a betrayal, because Australia kept mum about its security pact with the United States and the United Kingdom, dubbed AUKUS, until the very last minute.

Jokowi had received an intelligence briefing about the security pact formation before its official announcement. That was why he turned down the request by PM Morrison to make a stopover in Jakarta on his way home from Washington, DC, citing as the excuse that he would be out of town at that time.

On Sept. 9, Foreign Minister Retno LP Marsudi and Defense Minister Prabowo Subianto met with their Australian counterparts Marine Payne and Peter Dutton, respectively, during the Indonesia-Australia Foreign and Defense Ministers two-plus-two meeting in Jakarta. The Australian side flattered Indonesia as one of Australia’s most strategic partners and nothing would ever change this fundamental strategy.

Instead of informing their hosts about the planned AUKUS pact, Payne and Dutton only gave a very vague tip that left Retno and Prabowo guessing.

“The Australian ministers simply told their Indonesian hosts that there would be an announcement on a security issue, but without any further explanations,” diplomatic sources told The Jakarta Post recently.

The two Australian ministers called Retno and Prabowo just a few hours before US President Joe Biden’s official announcement on AUKUS on Sept. 15.

Jokowi knows that Morrison is now busy winning the heart of Biden who intends to contain China with the help of US allies, because no single nation currently has the courage to fight Beijing alone.

Jokowi, on the other hand, wants Indonesia to keep a clear distance from the two conflicting sides, although that could be at the cost that neither of the contending parties trusts or cares about Indonesia.

Biden bestowed a nuclear-powered submarine fleet on Australia following the establishment of AUKUS. This should be a huge consolation for the Australian leader to compensate for the suffering he had to endure during Donald Trump’s presidency. According to 7NEWS.com.au, Morrison was among foreign heads of governments who were “bullied and disparaged” during “sadistic” phone calls with Trump.

Morrison eventually called Jokowi on Sept. 20, four days before he attended the first offline summit of the Quad – a strategic alliance of the US, Australia, Japan and India to contain China – at the White House, Outgoing Japanese PM Yoshihide Suga and Indian PM Narendra Modi also attended the Sept. 24 summit.

“I spoke to President Widodo on the way over here. We had a very warm conversation. I was able to reassure him, particularly about the issues on non-proliferation and further explained the arrangements around AUKUS,” Morrison said, as quoted by the Post.

For Morrison the phone conversation with Jokowi was a sort of diplomatic courtesy. Morrison was apparently in a euphoric mood as Biden frequently flattered him in public. Patience and perseverance eventually paid off for Morrison, who now shows no hesitation about taking confrontational stances against China and openly criticizing Chinese leaders. Morrison obediently follows all Biden’s multilateral campaigns (ordinary Indonesians would call it ganging-up) against China.

Indonesia also needs to pay attention to Morrison’s next steps, which may give Indonesia a serious headache. Do you remember the history of independence for Timor Leste (previously the Indonesian province of East Timor)?

Many Australians are worried about the economic implications of Morrison’s “all-out war” against China, the world’s second-most powerful economy. China has imposed severe economic sanctions on Australia, which relies on China as its major export destination.

But as explained by Roland Rajah of the Lowy Institute, although there has been damage to Australia’s economy as a result of China’s boycott, the impact has been far more modest than predicted by many.

Morrison has “officially” gained the status as US deputy sheriff in Asia Pacific, the second one after then PM John Howard, who was in office from March 11, 1996 to Dec. 3, 2007. Indonesia cannot forget the first deputy sheriff’s “success” in liberating East Timor from Indonesia. Of course Indonesia should blame itself in the first place because its military brutality and corrupt bureaucracy had created fertile ground for independence aspirations in East Timor.

Howard’s letter to then president BJ Habibie in December 1998 provoked the latter’s anger. Instead of following Howard’s suggestion to provide a 10-year transition before granting independence to the then 27th province of Indonesia, Habibie told his Cabinet ministers one month later that he was even ready to grant independence to East Timor as soon as possible.

In August 1999, a referendum in East Timor resulted in a landslide victory for the independence option. Widespread acts of violence ensued, involving pro-Indonesia militias, allegedly with the help of the Indonesian military.

As in the case of East Timor, Australia has repeatedly vowed that Papua is an integral part of Indonesia, but history often repeats itself.

Do not ever rule out the possibility that the second deputy sheriff will repeat Howard’s trick. You may laugh, but Indonesia should not be surprised if Morrison persuades Papua to emulate East Timor, if Papuans do not feel they are at home in their own motherland.

As long as we cannot win the hearts and minds of the Papuans, independence aspirations will loom large. No matter how small the chance is, Morrison could repeat the history of Howard.

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The writer is a senior editor of The Jakarta Post.