The 2nd ASEAN Reader

89. The Rhetoric of Australia's Regional Policy

The Rhetoric of Australia’s Regional Policy 443 By: ROS Size: 7.5" x 10.25" J/No: 03-14474 Fonts: New Baskerville 89. THE RHETORIC OF AUSTRALIA’S REGIONAL POLICY JAMES COTTON Reprinted in abridged form from James Cotton, “The Rhetoric of Australia’s Regional Policy”, in Asia-Pacific Security: Policy Challenges, edited by David W. Lovell (Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies; and Canberra: Asia Pacific Press, 2003), pp. 29–46, by permission of the author and the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies. THE IMPLICATIONS OF THE EAST TIMOR INTERVENTION From a realist perspective, Indonesia is the key to Australia’s defence. It commands the nation’s northern approaches from which or through which any conventional military attack on Australia would be launched. A stable and friendly Indonesia is therefore crucial for Australia’s security. From a common security perspective, there are added (or perhaps alternative) reasons for fostering good relations with Jakarta. Indonesia is the key to any wider multilateralist strategies for creating regional order. Indonesia is the dominant power in ASEAN, and this group is both the core of the ASEAN Regional Forum and the pioneer of the modalities for cooperation adopted by APEC. From this perspective, the negotiation of the 1995 ‘Agreement on Maintaining Security’ with Indonesia was widely regarded as reconciling two potentially different conceptions of regional security and thus finally resolving the most important issue in Australia’s strategic neighbourhood (Hartcher 1996). If there is one policy that has had broad bipartisan support in the last 25 years it has been Indonesia’s forcible annexation of East Timor (Cotton 1999). In acquiring the territory, Indonesia violated the international norm against aggressive and forcible action and also denied the right of the inhabitants to self-determination, these transgressions being reflected in the censure of Jakarta by the UN Security Council and the refusal of the UN to recognize the acquisition as legitimate. Nevertheless, Australia under a Coalition government extended de jure recognition to the annexation in February 1979, a position reaffirmed by the Hawke Labor government. The reasons for this policy were an uncertain and variable mix of the perceptions of Indonesia noted above. The decision by the Howard government to overturn this bipartisan legacy was the most significant development in policy towards the Asia-Pacific region since the Vietnam War. 089 AR Ch 89 22/9/03, 12:59 PM 443 444 James Cotton By: ROS Size: 7.5" x 10.25" J/No: 03-14474 Fonts: New Baskerville Global changes constituted the background to (or preconditions for) this policy shift. These included the rise in the post Cold War era of the doctrine of intervention and also the fact that a democratizing Indonesia in economic crisis was more amenable than in past times to international pressure. But a novel understanding of Australia’s regional role was undoubtedly a factor in the government’s calculations. As the Prime Minister was reported to have said in a widely quoted magazine interview: [The East Timor operation] has done a lot to cement Australia’s place in the region. We have been seen by countries, not only in the region but around the world, as being able to do something that probably no other country could do; because of the special characteristics we have; because we occupy that special place — we are a European, Western civilization with strong links to North America, but here we are in Asia (Brenchley 1999, 24). Australian leadership of the INTERFET (International Force East Timor) intervention in the territory in October 1999 was a watershed event. The impact of the East Timor commitment had nothing less than a profound effect on many aspects of Australia’s regional security and defence posture. Australian-Indonesian relations were placed on a new footing, past and future regional engagement became the subject of vigorous debate, and defence priorities were re-ordered. Relations with Indonesia took a wholly new course with the intervention. Prior to 1999, there were expectations that the emergence of democracy in Indonesia, especially in the context of Australia’s US$1 billion contribution to the International Monetary Fund relief package provided as a response to the regional financial crisis, would put relations with Jakarta on an entirely new basis. Australian support for the infrastructure necessary to stage the 1999 parliamentary elections was indicative of the awareness that the progress of democratic consolidation was vital for Australia’s national interests. But this support counted for very little in the balance as against what...