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AUSTRALIA AND SOUTH-EAST ASIA: EMBARGOED
by Dr Damien Kingsbury,
Senior Lecturer, Deakin University.

ASIALINK SEMINAR
MELBOURNE - 31 May 2001

Australia may be on the cusp of a significant shift in its relations with South-East Asia. After decades of struggling to get it right, Australia’s relations with the region now have the potential to move into what might be called a mature phase.

Australia effectively had no links into the region before the early 1960s, from which time it developed an immature relationship with its neighbours. This was when the region was not seen to be what it was, but what Australia wanted it to be. To this end, Australia supported continuing Dutch colonialism in West Papua and was enthusiastic about the American war in Vietnam.

The policy of opposing the Indonesian takeover of West Papua was the right one. The problem was that, at the time, it was taken for all the wrong reasons, including lingering colonialism, anti- Indonesian sentiment and forward defence. All of these qualities added up to what was thought of as ‘stability’.

Australia’s policy in Vietnam was for similar reasons. Australia wanted a buffer state to help ensure ‘stability’ in South-East Asia. This view, of course, completely ignored Vietnam’s history and its aspirations for both independence and unity. Australia’s involvement in Vietnam was, consequently, a mistake. But the requirement for ‘stability’ continued as paramount. During the Cold War, ‘stability’ equated to opposing communism.

The communist states of South-East Asia have been, to varying degrees, repressive. The communism of Laos was relatively repressive. But it could not be compared to the brutality of Cambodia’s Khmer Rouge. Similarly, the feudalistic ideas that inform much of Philippine politics are also distinct from the pre-feudalism that informs much of Indonesian politics. Understanding such differentiation is critical in our regional relations.

Understanding the causes of ‘instability’ is also critical, even if it is in most cases obvious. Nationalism, separatist aspirations based on ethnic oppression, and structural poverty are all real causes of instability.

Yet failing to recognise this, in seeking stability Australia has endorsed tin-pot dictators: Diem and Ky in South Vietnam, Marcos in the Philippines and Suharto in Indonesia, among others. Australia has even moved closer to the military dictatorship in Burma, even though it has the world’s worst human rights record and, according to its own constitution, an illegitimate state structure.

Closer to home, Australia’s foreign policy ‘experts’ have watched with horror as Indonesia edges towards fragmentation. Australia officially liked Suharto because his New Order government provided ‘stability’, even if at a brutal price. This was nowhere more evident than in Australia’s acquiescence over Indonesia’s bloody invasion and occupation of East Timor.

But what Australia’s New Order supporters refused to acknowledge was that its so- called stability was morally, and then financially, bankrupt. And in endorsing the New Order, successive Australia’s governments committed the worst of foreign affairs crimes - they tried to deceive the Australian people. They failed, as they will in a society that retains the freedom to inquire and to speak. But for many years Australian governments and their Jakarta-lobby lackeys did try to obscure the truth about both Indonesia and East Timor.

In seeking to understand South-East Asia, history offers a clue to the question of ‘stability’. Prior to colonialism, the defining characteristic of the region was not stasis but flux. Historically, if a state was not expanding it was contracting. Centres of power rose and fell, states divided, morphed, sometimes reformed and some quite major states entirely disappeared. Lan Na, Champa, Aceh and the Bangsa Moro are now parts of larger countries. Other states were incorporated into Burma, Thailand and Indonesia. Laos and Cambodia came within a whisker of disappearing.

This flux and change of regional politics was effectively stopped with the process of colonisation, more or less setting contemporary borders. This replication of the recently acquired stasis of European borders was intended to avoid conflict between colonial powers in the region. But this new stability was imposed, and not inherent.

In the post-colonial period there have been tensions, and sometimes conflict, between South-East Asian states. But more importantly there have been assertions of local identity within the states that are somewhat arbitrary post-colonial constructions, Burma and Indonesia being the prime examples.

How could Australia cope, Australia’s foreign policy elite has asked, if there was no Indonesia but a number of smaller states? Could Java survive without access to its richest sources of natural wealth, in East Kalimantan, West Papua and Aceh? To this end, the foreign policy elite has loudly proclaimed the continuing necessity of ‘stability’.

Yet such calls ignore two critical factors. The first is that calls for ‘stability’ from within Australia are rhetoric bereft of influence. The second factor is the seeming ignorance of the underlying causes for instability. Post-war Indonesia does not correspond to any earlier nation, and repression and structural poverty within were and remain rife. Instability is, therefore, a given.

Australia’s commitment to ‘stability’ was nowhere more pronounced than in relation to East Timor. Successive Australian governments endorsed its incorporation into Indonesia, despite the illegality of the incorporation, massive loss of life and the continued oppression of and resistance by the East Timorese people.

Even as East Timorese were being killed and their homes burned in the lead-up to the 1999 independence ballot, the Australian government _ and the Foreign Minister Alexander Downer - continued to pretend that the situation was under control. What was claimed to be desirable, that the situation really was stable, or would become so, conflicted sharply with the truth of growing violence and mayhem.

Rather than cover up, the response to this should have been to deal frankly with the situation and to step up international pressure on Indonesia before the ballot, rather than belatedly intervene after it. The international community was strongly on side, and real results could have been achieved.

There has been a failure of policy on East Timor, as some foreign policy critics have noted. But it was not because Australia acted and consequently damaged its relationship with Indonesia. It was a failure of policy that led to our sorry role in East Timor in the first place.

Australia needs to have a strong and constructive relationship with Indonesia, and with other regional states. In doing this, it could take a cue from its own people, and their practical endorsement of universal principles of political and civil rights. Where it counted, the prevailing public view on East Timor was right from the beginning.

In its regional relations, Australia need not be obsequious. As a good global citizen, this country has a right and a responsibility to make its views plain. This can and should be done with grace and dignity, without bluster or threat, but also without apology.

Australia need not call for the dismantling of Indonesia to recognise that within it there are legitimate aspirations for self-determination. Where the situation is more ambiguous, Australia can simply stay quiet. When Australians are called the ‘white trash of Asia’, or ‘recalcitrant’ neighbours demand apologies, we can smile gently, stay quiet and disregard such empty grandstanding.

There is therefore no need to support individuals or states we have genuine reservations about, regardless of their political power or proximity. And Australia should certainly avoid being drawn into the patron-client relations that typified previous government’s relationships with Suharto, and the corrosive secrecy that came out of it.

But most importantly, Australia needs to be intelligent about the region. When parts of South-East Asia change, as they invariably will, the answer will not be to recite the empty mantra of ‘stability’. In a region characterised by change, Australia’s can only be served by clearly understanding what is actually happening and why it is happening.

Australia then needs to act deftly, and with precision and honesty. And following the values of the people it represents, in regional relations Australia’s government could do a lot worse than to base its relationships on at least a minimal amount of moral courage.