Australia’s Prime Minister Anthony Albanese met with Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto on his first foreign trip since his re-election, describing Jakarta as an “indispensable partner.”
Following his arrival in Jakarta, Albanese was greeted with a spectacular ceremony at the Presidential Palace, which included “dozens of soldiers on horseback, around 3,000 schoolchildren waving flags, and a military ceremony,” Reuters reported.
This was followed by talks with Prabowo and other Indonesian officials, which covered defense cooperation and included mutual calls for closer investment and trade ties.
Albanese, who was sworn into office this week after his Australian Labor Party won a second term in office, said that his visit showed the priority that his government placed on strengthening its relations with Indonesia.
In remarks to the press following his meeting with Prabowo at the Presidential Palace in Jakarta, he described Indonesia as “an indispensable partner” and said that “no relationship is more important to Australia than this one.”
Albanese also expressed support for Indonesia’s bid to join the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP), an important regional pact that was negotiated by the U.S. government before President Donald Trump withdrew from it in 2017.
In return, Prabowo said that Australia and Indonesia were “destined to be neighbors” and that “good neighbors are the ones who will help us in rough times.”
“Family may be far away, but neighbors are always there for us. Therefore, I am determined to maintain the best relationship with our neighbor,” the former general said.
During their meeting, the two leaders discussed ways to expand defense and security cooperation under the Defense Cooperation Agreement signed during Prabowo’s visit to Canberra last year, which Prabowo said his government planned to ratify soon. Australia has also committed $15 million to “enhance bilateral maritime cooperation” between the two countries, reflecting the two nations’ overlapping concern about China’s growing maritime power and ambition.
Prabowo and Albanese also talked about the possibility of greater economic cooperation, to take advantage of the Indonesia-Australia Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement signed in 2019. There is particular potential in green energy cooperation, the subject of an MoU signed by the two nations last year, designed “to support the energy transition and promote investment in energy infrastructure and clean energy manufacturing.”
As Hangga Fathana, Assistant Professor of International Relations, Universitas Islam Indonesia in Yogyakarta, wrote prior to Albanese’s trip, the MoU could help secure supplies of Australian lithium that would help support Jakarta’s plans to turn itself into a global hub for electric vehicle battery manufacturing, while granting Australia an additional export market for its critical minerals.
Prabowo invited Australia “to participate more in our economy” and to strengthen economic cooperation amid the current “global economy uncertainty.” Albanese likewise called on Australians to do more to capitalize on the various opportunities presented by Southeast Asia’s most populous nation.
“To convert extraordinary potential into concrete progress, then all of us – government, business, civil society – need to demonstrate greater engagement and ambition,” he said, as per the ABC.
Albanese’s comment hinted at the large gap that has historically separated rhetoric from reality in Indonesia-Australia relations. By choosing Indonesia as the destination of the first overseas visit of his first and second terms, following a custom followed by most recent Australian leaders, Albanese sent a strong symbolic message about Indonesia’s importance for Australia.
However, as Gatra Priyandita wrote recently for The Strategist, “the tangible reality of the relationship with Indonesia remains limited by diverging strategic visions, misaligned expectations, and a reluctance to address hard topics.” Relations have also been unsettled by issues including Australia’s bans on live cattle exports, the treatment of Australian prisoners in Indonesia, and allegations that Australia spied on the phone of the Indonesian president and other senior officials.
Some of these “hard topics” are hard to will out of existence. The most recent example of this was the April 14 report by Janes that Russia is seeking to base long-range aircraft at Manuhua Air Force Base in Indonesia’s Papua province. While the Indonesian government firmly denied the report, it raised eyebrows among the Australian defense community. A similar mismatch has characterized Indonesia’s critical response to AUKUS, the treaty signed in 2021 between Australia, the U.S., and the United Kingdom, under which Australia is set to be equipped with a fleet of nuclear-powered submarines.
This reflects a deeper incompatibility between Indonesia’s “free and active” foreign policy, which prizes balanced relationships with all competing powers, and Australia’s close alignment with the U.S. and its partners and allies, and support for a U.S.-based international order to which Jakarta has historically been ambivalent.
Susannah Patton of the Lowy Institute told ABC News that despite Prabowo’s apparent willingness to strengthen relations with Australia, the Indonesian leader “has also been keen to strengthen ties with many other countries, including China and Russia.” As a result, she said, “strategic limits will remain firmly in place.”