Gabriel Kereh – When the Australian government released its 2013 defense white paper earlier this month, a key point that emerged was the prominent role played by Indonesia in Canberra's overall strategy for security and trade in the region.
The white paper notes that "the archipelago to Australia's north shapes our strategic geography."
"As Indonesia comprises much of this archipelago, Australia's strong partnership with Indonesia remains our most important regional strategic relationship and the partnership continues to deepen and broaden in support of our significant shared interests," it says.
Those shared interests, says Hikmahanto Juwana, an international relations expert at the University of Indonesia, go beyond security and trade and also cover democracy and the environment.
He notes that as a "direct defense buffer" for Australia, Indonesia features greatly in the latter's security strategy and thus has a case to make for increased cooperation and burden-sharing on key issues.
"It's important to note that some of the issues that Indonesia deals with directly will also impact Australia directly if they aren't addressed properly," he tells the Jakarta Globe. "Thus these issues can be seen as regional issues."
Hikmahanto highlights counterterrorism, disease prevention and immigration as among the more prominent issues that have tested the ties between the two countries in recent years.
The academic says he believes that given Indonesia's importance in this regard, the level of cooperation and burden sharing that currently exists between the two countries remains low, and argues that the Australian government has not made every effort to help Indonesia address these issues effectively.
"Take the matter of defense cooperation, for instance," he says. "Yes, they have sent us some secondhand military equipment. But the question is, why secondhand?"
Hikmahanto adds that the Indonesian government has also not done enough to push for greater cooperation. "We should be the ones who request [defense aid and cooperation]. We shouldn't just accept whatever is being offered," he says.
The white paper also addresses ongoing developments within Indonesia as being of concern to Australia, particularly terrorism.
"Although the reach and potency of Southeast Asian terrorism has been constrained by the success of regional counterterrorism efforts – especially in Indonesia – it remains the case that it is in Southeast Asia that Australians are more likely to be targeted," the paper says.
On the matter of security, the paper also addresses China's growing clout in the region and the United States' "pivot" to counterbalance Beijing's influence.
The pivot includes the establishment of a permanent US military presence in the northern Australian city of Darwin – a point that Hikmahanto says should be of concern to Jakarta, given how close it is to Indonesian territory.
He argues that just as Australia needs reassurances of security from Indonesia, the relationship also goes the other way and Canberra should consider the ramifications of hosting a third country's armed forces in such close proximity to a country with which it shares what it calls "our most important defense relationship in the region."
The white paper contends that Indonesia will play an instrumental role, alongside the United States, in ensuring regional security.
"In addition to shared security challenges, Australia and Indonesia maintain a common commitment to regional security, which is reflected in our wider governmental strategic partnership," the paper says.
In addition to regional security, the white paper also focuses on the issue of trade, highlighting Indonesia as a major partner in that regard and also as the gateway to Asia and to seven of Australia's 10 most important trading partners – China, India, Japan, Malaysia, Thailand, South Korea and Singapore.
"Indonesia seems to be pretty instrumental in Australia's policy for nurturing good relations with other countries in the region," says Aleksius Jemadu, the dean of the school of social and political sciences at Pelita Harapan University.
Aleksius cites the paper's assertion that "Indonesia's importance to Australia will grow as its significant regional influence becomes global," and the additional comment that Australia benefits "from having a strong and cohesive Indonesia as a partner to our north, as Indonesia does from a secure Australia to its south."
Australia also has a vested interest in Indonesia's economic health, the paper suggests, hinting at the importance of the country as a target market for exports.
"Indonesia's success as a democracy and its economic growth will see it emerge as one of the world's major economies," it says. "We have a shared aspiration for the stability and economic prosperity of our region that underpins our partnership and is driving increased breadth and depth in our defense cooperation."
Richard Woolcott, a former Australian ambassador to Indonesia, summed up the relationship in a statement earlier this month at the University of Melbourne: "In the longer term, no bilateral relationship [in the region] is more important to Australia than that with Indonesia."