Tag Archive for: Indonesia

The outlook for Prabowo’s defence and foreign policy—and his choice of ministers

Prabowo Subianto, who will assume Indonesia’s presidency on 20 October, will be much more his own defence and foreign minister than was his predecessor, Joko Widodo (Jokowi). And he’s likely to rebalance policy in favour of national security over economic development.

But the ministers who take those portfolios will also exercise great influence, and Prabowo’s choices for the position are key issues for Australia.

Given his strong interest in foreign affairs and national security, Prabowo has been vocal about his views. He believes in the importance of military strength and that national security is integral to economic prosperity. As Indonesia’s current defence minister, he spearheaded efforts to modernise the military. As president, he aims to continue that focus, working towards boosting the defence budget from 0.7 to 1.5 percent of GDP by 2029, building indigenous defence capabilities, boosting technology transfer and facilitating joint production deals with partners such as France and South Korea.

While he had not expressed a foreign policy vision too distinct from his predecessors’, as defence minister he was also more understanding of Australia’s decision to enter into the AUKUS arrangement. This was in contrast to the concern expressed by the foreign ministry that AUKUS would feed into a regional arms race. In the past, he has also criticised the Jokowi government’s response to Chinese incursions into the Natuna Sea and the use of Chinese labourers in Indonesian infrastructure projects, though he also has demonstrated an ability to look the other way on China.

A president’s interest in foreign affairs and national security will not necessarily shift Indonesia’s foreign policy orientation. But it may help to address a longstanding issue with the absence of a centralised hub on foreign and defence policy under Jokowi. Jokowi’s lack of interest on foreign affairs led to fragmented policy execution, as his own disinterest facilitated bureaucratic competition.

But the ministers under Prabowo will not be passive implementors. While they will take guidance from him, they will be tasked with the tough challenge of managing the expectations of both the president and the ministries and agencies that they lead.

While many ministerial posts are being given to coalition partners, Jokowi is likely to appoint close confidants to the key four offices of the state: minister of home affairs, minister of foreign affairs, minister of defence and minister of finance.

On foreign affairs, the two leading candidates are Sugiono and Meutya Hafid, both of whom accompanied Prabowo during his August trip to Canberra. Sugiono is currently one of the deputy chairs of the First Commission of the House of Representatives, which deals with foreign policy, defence and security issues. The low-profile Sugiono is a longtime Prabowo loyalist and a Gerindra party stalwart.

Meutya Hafid chairs the First Commission. A journalist-turned-politician, she became an Indonesian household name after being kidnapped by Jaish al-Mujahidin in Iraq in 2005. Since 2019, her role as First Commission chair has afforded her the opportunity to lead the commission’s agenda to scrutinise the Jokowi government’s foreign and defence policy. She is also an alumna of the University of New South Wales, so she has a direct link with Australia.

Another candidate who is not a career diplomat is Fadli Zon, a prominent culturalist and parliamentarian who has been a close confidant of Prabowo’s going back to the 1990s. Fadli is known for his fiery and nationalist rhetoric, having raised concerns associated with the Jokowi government’s deepening economic engagement of China and its handling of the South China Sea disputes, particularly during Jokowi’s first term, when Prabowo was in opposition.

Other potential candidates for foreign minister include career diplomats Arif Havas Oegresono and Abdul Kadir Jailani, ambassador to Germany and director general for Asia-Pacific and African Affairs respectively. Indonesia’s permanent representative at the United Nations, Arrmanatha Nasir, is also known to be in the running. Even if these individuals do not become foreign minister, one may become vice-foreign minister, given that their bureaucratic and diplomatic experiences are crucial to support a ministerial appointee from outside the foreign ministry.

Any non-diplomat who became foreign minister would be the first to do so since 2001.

None of these candidates has proposed a distinctive vision of Indonesia’s foreign policy publicly, and it remains unlikely that we will see a strong departure in Indonesia’s approach—unless Prabowo demands it.

He is also likely to appoint a close confidant as minister of defence, who will need to administer and manage Prabowo’s ambitious goals for the armed services during his presidency.

The leading candidate for defence minister is Sjafrie Sjamsoeddin, who served as vice-defence minister under President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono. Sjafrie, a close associate and former military academy classmate of Prabowo, has been an adviser to the incoming president during Prabowo’s stint as defence minister. Privately, Sjafrie has already been introduced to some foreign leaders as a prospective defence minister. However, there is also the possibility that Sjafrie may be assigned to other important roles in government, such as minister of the state secretariat or head of national intelligence.

Other potential candidates for defence minister are Lieutenant General Muhammad Herindra and Air Marshal Donny Ermawan, who are deputy minister of defence and secretary-general of the Ministry of Defence, respectively. Both have worked closely with Prabowo and have been instrumental in implementing his vision for defence.

Making predictions is always risky. We are less than a month from Prabowo’s inauguration, and the horse-trading is likely to continue till the day he comes into office.

It’s too soon to be sure, but watch out for Prabowo tilting a little to China

Indonesia’s president-elect Prabowo Subianto may be inclined to re-balance his country’s non-alignment strategy more towards China and away from the United States. It is too early to be sure, because he will not take office until 20 October, but recent events and Prabowo’s background hint at a possible change.

While preparing to assume office in October after the election in February, Prabowo made his first overseas visit as president-elect to China, where he positioned himself as an ‘old friend’. He then stopped by a ‘great friend’, Russian President Vladimir Putin, from whom he requested closer relations through nuclear power technology imports. It was his fourth visit to Putin in four years.

Meanwhile, Prabowo, formerly a nativist of a type that targets Chinese Indonesians, has converted over the past years to become one of their great supporters. And he has done so amid China’s large and growing economic influence in Indonesia.

If Prabowo is inclined to tilt away from Washington, he’d be extending distance that has appeared lately during the presidency of Joko Widodo (Jokowi). For example, Indonesia’s stand on the war in Ukraine has been muddled.

And Jakarta has been hostile towards Washington for its close relationship with Israel in relation to the war in Gaza. That has contrasted with the containment of Islamic outrage within Indonesia against China’s treatment of Uighurs.

Because Prabowo was subject to a visa ban by the United States until 2019, due to accusations of human rights abuses by a military unit he was linked to, he is unlikely to be as accepting of influence by Washington as past presidents.

Indonesia was the leading recipient of China’s Southeast Asian investments in 2023, attracting $7 billion. The same year also saw Chinese Premier Li Qiang confirm $22 billion in new investments in Indonesia. Meanwhile, the non-Chinese investment footprint in Indonesia is shrinking.

Chinese domination of certain Indonesian industries is notable. Indonesia has 22 percent of global reserves of nickel and accounts for 36 percent of the world’s supply of the metal. China-based companies built more than 90 percent of the nickel smelters in Indonesia.

Prabowo began his career as a paragon of nativism, reminiscent of his father-in-law, former president Suharto, who backed or tolerated pogroms and language-eradication programs. Prabowo’s conversion into a supporter of Chinese Indonesians has therefore been remarkable.

He explained that he had always loved Chinese philosophy and songs.

He’s made another switch, too, from a tough ex-special forces commander to a dove of the South China Sea, where Chinese territorial claims infringe on Indonesia’s exclusive economic zone. His change began during Jokowi’s administration, when he sided with officials who wanted to take a soft line in standing up to China’s claims.

None of this evidence should be taken too far. Prabowo is likely to be similar to Jokowi in pursuing neither permanent friends or enemies, only interests. Yet he seems more enthusiastic about considering China as a prop, rather than threat, to Indonesia’s rise.

If he does choose to shift closer to China, his strong nationalist reputation will protect him against accusations of deference. The reputation will also help satisfy a large nativist bloc that has grown frustrated by large influxes of Chinese labour and capital.

Altogether, we see hints of a shift towards China by an incoming president whose background suggests he may be inclined to make such a move and would be better positioned than other Indonesian leaders to do so.

Now we await further evidence.

Australia-Indonesia defence relations ascend the house of stairs

When Australian Defence Minister Richard Marles signs a new bilateral Defence Cooperation Agreement today with Indonesia’s Defence Minister and president-elect Prabowo Subianto, observers would be wise to treat Australian claims of its ‘historic’ significance with caution.

Australian officials who deal with Indonesia surely tire of commentators telling them to curb their optimism. Jakarta’s limitations as a security partner, shaped by its non-aligned foreign policy and threat perceptions that diverge from Australia’s, are well known and factored in.

And yet Australia sometimes struggles with positivity bias in its inter-governmental relations with Indonesia, especially at the political level. Canberra’s desire to project optimism across such a consequential, previously fraught relationship is understandable. But this can also lend itself to amnesia and hyperbole.

Over the past decade, Australia’s efforts to elevate defence relations with Indonesia have at least managed to stay aloft. But if Canberra has escaped the vicissitudes that previously marred Australia’s interactions with Indonesia, its defence cooperation initiatives have also failed to live up to their ‘historic’ billing.

The previous 2012 defence cooperation agreement (DCA) was upgraded as recently as 2021 under Australia’s previous, Liberal-National government. This upgrade was also heralded as a historic breakthrough. Yet it is now largely forgotten.

As far back as February 2024, the current Labor government was already predicting that its plans to conclude a new, treaty-level DCA ‘would be the most significant form of defence partnership in the history of relations between Indonesia and Australia’. Notably, Indonesia’s government has been much more circumspect throughout the negotiations.

Like the work of artist M C Escher, the ‘historic steps’ of Australia’s defence relations with Indonesia seem to wind back on themselves without fundamental purpose beyond perpetual ascent. Any perceived uplift in strategic cooperation from the latest agreement is likely to prove similarly illusory.

Admittedly, it is difficult to offer a conclusive judgement when so little detail about the new agreement is publicly available. We have repeatedly been told it will have treaty status, deepen reciprocal access between the two countries armed forces and improve inter-operability through enhanced exchanges and expanded exercises.

Given Indonesia’s geographical spread across Australia’s northern approaches, Canberra has obvious reasons to pursue greater access for the Australian Defence Force. If impactful projection is to be realised, it will depend greatly on the ADF’s ability to move through the Indonesian archipelago. Peacetime rights of maritime passage and overflight, mainly on a north-south axis, are already enshrined in international law and Indonesia’s own legal declarations.

The advent of AUKUS highlighted residual sensitivity in Jakarta, in regard to Australia’s future operation of nuclear-powered submarines near Indonesia. On the other hand, the nuclear submarines of AUKUS, with their greater endurance and payloads, could bypass Indonesia in any future major conflict by moving the viable zone of operations further north. Australia’s existing diesel submarines are more suited to interdiction operations within the archipelago.

But bilateral discussions on such sensitive subjects are likely to stay well out of the public domain.

Beyond transiting through Indonesia, Australia no doubt harbours grander ambitions to use enhanced defence cooperation with Indonesia in a diplomatic shaping context, presenting this as part of a common effort to uphold the rules-based order on an Indo-Pacific level. This is where Canberra and Jakarta are most prone to seeing past each other. Prabowo’s recent statements suggest he sees a mainly neighbour-to-neighbour relationship with Australia, including stability across the long, shared maritime boundary.

The big test here, one senses, is Prabowo’s willingness to accept Australian offers of capacity building that would improve Jakarta’s maritime domain awareness and ability to control its vast archipelagic sea and exclusive economic zone, including monitoring the increasing and sometimes undetected presence of China’s navy on and an under the water.

Australia is likely to view Prabowo’s elevation from defence minister to president as a helpful point of continuity, centring defence ties within the bilateral relationship. He is well known to Australia. But Prabowo also remembers Australia’s potential to be a thorn in Indonesia’s underbelly from his own military experiences in East Timor. Papua remains a latent but potent source of Indonesian suspicion towards Australia, which Canberra can only do so much to mitigate.

Inter-operability has some practical meaning in the military relationship. At the lower end of capability, Indonesia’s armed forces already use Bushmaster vehicles, while at the higher end, Australia’s operation of F-35As in exercises in Indonesia demonstrates increased trust and confidence, especially between the two air forces. But one significant constraint on inter-operability is likely to be Prabowo’s ambition to boost defence cooperation with Russia, affirmed on his recent trip to Moscow. In this context, Australia’s intelligence community will also be following Prabowo’s expressed intention to cooperate with Russia on civil nuclear energy.

Indonesia’s sometime prickly protectiveness of its sovereignty may constrain its defence cooperation with China, particularly if Beijing overplays its hand in the South China Sea. But Prabowo is also pursuing deeper defence links with China, in parallel to those with Australia. The more porous Indonesia becomes to Chinese and Russian strategic influences, the greater Australia’s difficulty in developing meaningful depth to the defence relationship with it.

Was the foreign aid effective? You need to check after a few years

To ensure the effectiveness of its foreign aid program, the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade must conduct more long-term evaluations of projects.

Some look good right after completion but not several years later. Early evaluations are also needed, but they often can’t provide a final appraisal.

A survey of the DFAT website suggests that it completes virtually all foreign aid program evaluations during a project’s duration or immediately after its end. When it fails to assess projects’ outcomes in the years after they finish, the department leaves itself with no way of knowing whether they have sustained benefits to the recipient country or to Australia and no way of addressing shortcomings if projects are ineffective in the long run.

Among the 43 readily accessible program evaluations labelled ‘final’, ‘completion’ or ‘end of project’ on the department’s website, all but three were conducted within one year of the project’s end date. DFAT completed at least 23 of these evaluations within six months of the end date, including seven that were published before some aspects of the project had finished. For instance, it published its final report on a water and sanitation project in East Timor on 8 June 2016, despite the project’s listed end date of 30 June.

Mid- and short-term evaluations of foreign aid projects are important: they can provide recommendations for the remainder of the project and reveal its immediate effects. But even projects that are successful during their implementation and immediately after completion can have unintended negative consequences that only become evident in a long-term evaluation.

For example, a growing body of academic literature warns that economic and political elites in aid-dependent countries sometimes divert foreign aid towards their own interests. A 2020 World Bank found a correlation between the timings of World Bank aid disbursements to 22 aid-dependent countries and deposits made into offshore bank accounts in tax havens from those countries. Some elites divert foreign aid directly into their pockets, while others use foreign aid for its intended purpose but divert other government resources to their personal interests.

The Cambodia Criminal/Community Justice Assistance Partnership, funded by the Australian Government, is an example of why long-term evaluations are necessary. The program ended in 2016, with an evaluation published in the same year. Among the listed outcomes was the establishment of a healthcare system in Cambodian prisons. But just four years later, Amnesty International reported a health crisis in Cambodian prisons, saying that Cambodian officials had blatantly disregarded basic hygiene practices and put inmates at high risk of a Covid-19 outbreak.

While this finding is not proof that the program failed, there is no way of knowing whether taxpayer money was used effectively to improve conditions in Cambodian prisons or to support Australia’s strategic interests without a long-term evaluation. We cannot know whether the healthcare system established by the program lasted beyond 2016. If the effort had poor results, we cannot know what caused this failure, nor how to avoid negative outcomes in the future. A long-term evaluation could provide insightful answers which would allow DFAT to improve its foreign aid practices.

The benefits of long-term evaluations can be seen in DFAT’s assessment of the Eastern Indonesia National Roads Improvement Project. The project ended in 2015 and an evaluation was completed in 2017. The report found that the condition of the roads remained good after two years, suggesting high materials quality. However, it also found an unexpected negative impact: with better roads, people began driving faster and road fatalities increased. So, the report suggested coupling future road building projects with road safety programs. Without this long-term evaluation, DFAT’s future programs would not have been able to benefit from this finding.

Aid projects with sustainable, long-lasting benefits are good for the recipient country and for Australia. They deliver improved living conditions for the recipient population, reduce the need for Australia to provide aid in the future and strengthen the relationship between the two countries. By completing only mid- and short-term evaluations, DFAT leaves itself in the dark about the long-term effects of its aid. Evaluations completed years after programs end should become standard practice so DFAT can know what’s working and what’s not.

Australia should seek a trilateral partnership with Indonesia and PNG

With relations between Australia, Indonesia and Papua New Guinea (PNG) strong, the time is right for Australia to advocate for a high-level Australia–Indonesia–PNG trilateral strategic partnership.

Australia’s 2016 Defence White Paper identified the Pacific and Southeast Asia as Australia’s second strategic defence interest, behind a secure and resilient Australia itself. Geography makes Indonesia and PNG the most important neighbours to Australia. They (and East Timor) are the closest. They also stand between Australia and China. At the same time, Indonesia is Southeast Asia’s largest country, and PNG is the largest Pacific Island nation.

While the strengthening of the set of three bilateral ties is welcome, a trilateral arrangement would be even better. Through it, the three countries could collectively address shared challenges. Achieving this would certainly be in Australia’s interest.

As part of such an arrangement, annual trilateral leaders’ and ministerial-level summits should be held. The partnership should also reaffirm the territorial sovereignty of all three countries, including unwavering support for freedom of navigation in the Indo-Pacific, and reinforce the need for the peaceful resolution of regional maritime disputes in accordance with the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea.

The partners could focus on areas of shared interests and concerns and promote cooperation in traditional security issues such as border security, maritime security, defence infrastructure development, and policing. For instance, they could together increase their maritime security capabilities by running regular maritime patrols, holding annual joint military exercises and training, and sharing critical information about maritime safety.

Illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing continues to pose a direct threat to all three neighbours’ maritime resources and borders. For example, PNG is losing 1 billion kina (US$260 million) annually due to IUU fishing, while Indonesia’s losses are US$23 billion a year. Meanwhile, Australia has the world’s third-largest exclusive economic zone and is therefore wary of the growing IUU fishing threat. In the trilateral partnership, an Australia–Indonesia–PNG hotline could be established to prevent illegal vessels from sailing from one country’s territorial waters to another’s.

The partnership should also collaborate on non-traditional security areas such as climate change, critical infrastructure, cybersecurity, health security, disaster risk reduction and transnational crime. Climate change, in particular, remains a major environmental security threat for Indonesia, Australia and PNG. Through the trilateral partnership, the neighbours could deepen their climate cooperation and strengthen the climate adaptation and infrastructure capacities of each of them.

Despite Indonesia’s and PNG’s geostrategic importance, Australia’s 2023 Defence Strategic Review failed to mention them. Canberra has deepened its two bilateral security relationships with them but has made scant efforts to advance a trilateral partnership.

In 2020, Canberra and Port Moresby elevated their relationship to a comprehensive strategic partnership (CSP), and last year the two countries signed a historic security agreement. Since 2020, through the Lombrum Joint Initiative, Australia has also been supporting PNG in its efforts to redevelop the Lombrum Naval Base on Manus Island, north of the mainland. Last year, Australia gave four Guardian-class patrol boats to PNG, helping it to guard territorial waters from transnational crime and IUU fishing.

With Indonesia, Australia shares the world’s longest maritime boundary. The two countries upgraded their strategic ties to a CSP in 2018. In recent years, the bilateral relationship has been further boosted by the graduation of Indonesian military cadets for the first time from the Royal Australian Military College, Duntroon. The two neighbours are also planning to sign a new treaty-level defence cooperation agreement this year. In the Australia–Indonesia CSP, they committed to working together in the Pacific in trilateral cooperation with an unnamed third country from the Pacific.

Indonesia–PNG relations improved in 2023 when they ratified an agreement governing their border, which is sometimes crossed by insurgents opposed to Indonesian possession of West Papua. PNG unequivocally recognises Indonesia’s sovereignty over West Papua.

This year Jakarta and Port Moresby ratified and expanded their defence cooperation agreement. PNG hopes that the new deal will expand bilateral security cooperation in the areas of ‘joint border patrols, and military exercises’.

Ultimately, amid growing unpredictability in the Indo-Pacific, a solid Australia–Indonesia–PNG trilateral partnership would contribute to greater stability in Australia’s immediate region.

Australia’s future must be made in global supply chains

Economists hate it, and nationalists yearning for the Australia of yore love it. The Albanese government’s A Future Made in Australia policy will need to be understood with a bit more nuance than its name implies.

The address to the Lowy Institute by Treasuer Jim Chalmers on 1 May injected some reality into the policy. His contribution was this: we can’t do everything at home; we still must work with other countries in making things, doing our bit where we have a comparative advantage.

‘A Future Made in Australia doesn’t mean a future made alone,’ Chalmers said. ‘It will take an outward focus on securing our own supply chains and plugging into our region’s supply chains.’ More than 70 percent of Australia’s traded products were made as part of supply chains involving multiple countries, the treasurer added.

Our goods and services trade is equivalent to half of our gross domestic product, making Australia much more trade-exposed than, say, the United States.

Although their name makes them sound linear, global supply chains are actually multi-nodal networks in which the stages of production of goods and services are interlinked in many directions across borders. Any Australian industry, including manufacturing, depends on other nations as sources of inputs and as destinations for outputs: raw materials, business services, intermediate products and final goods and services.

As Chalmers highlighted, it is routine for many nations to supply the inputs for any one final product. Complex manufactures are no longer delivered from raw materials to finished products in one country, even though they are finally assembled in one location. The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade demonstrated this in 2015 by showing that 16 suppliers from eight countries contributed to production of an Australian passport.

It’s not just physical things. Knowledge-intensive services are also key components of global value chains. Manufactured products contain high levels of embedded services, from design to installation and through-life support. Builders of commercial aircraft engines, for example, monitor the performance of their products in real time as the turbofans produce thrust in flight.

Australia’s most recent trade and investment agreements recognise the trend to global value chains, which enable countries to specialise in areas of comparative advantage and work with others to achieve what no one nation could do efficiently on its own. Indonesia termed this process ‘powerhousing’ when signing the Indonesia-Australia Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement. The agreement promotes collaboration between Australian and Indonesian companies along value chains.

An old example is the growing of grain in Western Australia, its milling into flour in Indonesia and three other countries in Southeast Asia then transformation into malt and noodles that are exported to the world. Australia and Indonesia have pledged to work together across the electric vehicle value chain, supporting the production of minerals, battery chemicals and components variously in the two countries and leading to assembly of electric vehicles in Indonesia.

Commitments by Australia and like-minded partners to develop secure and sustainable critical minerals supply chains highlight the important role of Australia both as one of the world’s largest suppliers and, through its companies, one of the world’s largest investors in exploration and mining across all inhabited continents.

Australia’s task and opportunity extend well beyond simply mining and processing its own critical minerals and supplying them to customers. Australia has an integral role in global supply chains. It is a destination for minerals investment and a major source of investment elsewhere. It is involved in exploring, mining and processing minerals at home and also in other countries. It should work with other countries to ensure supply chains are secure and sustainable and that markets price in the cost of responsible mineral production. And Australia is a destination and source of manufactures that use critical minerals.

The government justified the new made-in-Australia policy as a necessary response to economic and national security imperatives. Chalmers said the choice was a binary one between ‘nostalgists and strategists’, the former evidently wanting to cling to free markets and the latter thinking more about security.

To some degree there is no choice: A Future Made in Australia must be focused on the kind of supply chain collaboration in which our nation creates and adds value where it has advantages.

2024 geopolitical calendar for a world near the brink

This looks to be a year when we hold our breath and hope the world doesn’t come undone. Here’s a guide to some of the summits, events, announcements and key dates to watch out for as we navigate the next 12 months.

January

As voters in Taiwan, a nation of 23 million people, elected their next president, China was quick to declare the election a matter of ‘war or peace’. That pressure intensified when front runner Lai Ching-te was elected. There will be more to come from Beijing.

The 120 member states gather in Uganda for the 19th Summit of the Non-Aligned Movement from 15-20 January. The Third South Summit of the G77+China, with 134 member states, will also meet in Uganda from 21-22 January.

From 15 to 19 January, global leaders and business elites gather in Davos, Switzerland for the World Economic Forum.

Tuvalu holds its general election on 26 January with opposition leader and former prime minister Enele Sopaga promising to throw away the Australia–Tuvalu falepili union agreement if he is elected.

Finland’s presidential election takes place on 28 January as Russia scales up its hybrid activities to exert pressure on the Finns.

February

Australia’s parliamentary sitting year begins on 6 February.

On 8 February, the US Supreme Court will consider whether US states can disqualify Donald Trump from the presidential ballot due to his attempts to overturn the 2020 election result and his role in the 6 January insurrection. Here’s a list of Trump’s other criminal and civil cases for 2024.

On 8 February Pakistan will vote in an election dominated by the military establishment.

From 9 to 10 February, Australia will host the Indian Ocean Conference in Perth.

Indonesia holds its presidential election on 14 February, with the front runner Prabowo Subianto who has faced allegations of human rights abuses. The former general was the son-in-law of long time president Suharto. His vice presidential running mate is Gibran Rakabuming, son of current president Joko Widodo. Some have raised concerns that the election campaign bears signs of weakening democracy.

The Munich security conference from 16–18 of February brings together international leaders and experts in Europe to discuss pressing security challenges.

From 21 to 23 February, the Observer Research Foundation convenes the annual Raisina Dialogue in New Delhi.

It’s the two-year anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on 24 February, with no end to the conflict in sight.

NATO stages its biggest military exercise since the Cold War in February and March. Steadfast Defender—Europe 24 will involve more than 30 countries and 40,000 troops. The exercise will take place across Germany, Poland and Baltic nations and will focus on readiness and interoperability in response to a Russian invasion.

Australia will host the AUKMIN talks in 2024. Dates haven’t yet been announced, but last year it was held in February. With an election due in the UK, it’s likely to be earlier in the year again.

March

Iran will hold elections on 1 March, the first since widespread protests erupted in 2022. The regime is expected to consolidate control with a low turnout likely.

The 50th anniversary of Australian–ASEAN relations will be marked from 4–6 March with a special summit in Melbourne. Leaders from across Southeast Asia have been invited and here’s a rundown of the issues likely to be discussed.

On 5 March, it’s Super Tuesday, a critical day in the US presidential primary season with multiple states holding primary elections to choose delegates.

South Korea’s presidential election, on 10 March, looks being a tight race. The republic is also scheduled to host the second global AI safety summit around March/April.

Russia’s presidential election is scheduled for 17 March. In this case, the ‘tight race’ will be between Putin and … Putin.

Ukraine was due to have a presidential election on 31 March, but Volodymyr Zelensky announced that the poll could not proceed because of the war with Russia and the ongoing state of emergency.

April

India’s general election campaign will run through April and May. Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party is widely expected to win despite concerns that he has cracked down on political opponents and consolidated power since 2014.

From 19 to 21 April, the annual spring meetings of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank in Washington will bring together finance ministers and central bank governors to discuss global economic challenges.

May

Australia’s budget is likely to be released on 15 May. The promised national defence strategy may be made public at the same time.

Taiwan’s new president will be inaugurated on 20 May. Expect a reaction from China.

The International Institute for Strategic Studies will convene its annual Shangri-La Dialogue from 31 May to 2 June in Singapore.

June

The 80th anniversary of the D-Day landings and the Battle of Normandy will be commemorated on 6 June.

From 6 to 9 June, voters across the European Union will cast their ballots to choose the next members of the European Parliament. There are concerns that more far right candidates will win seats for the five year term.

Italy will host the G7 summit from the 13 to 15 June, focusing on pressing global issues like AI, climate change, food security and economic recovery.

July

Celebrating the 75th anniversary of NATO, leaders will convene in Washington DC for their annual summit from 9 to 11 July.

From 15–18 the US Republican party will meet to chose its presidential nominee at its national convention.

Exercise Rim of the Pacific (RIMPAC), the world’s largest maritime military exercise, will be held in late July. Australia, the UK and US are also scheduled to conduct joint maritime drone exercises, maybe off the back of RIMPAC.

From 15 July to 1 August, The Royal Australian Air Force will host Exercise Pitch Black in Northern Australia with many nations participating.

The 31st ASEAN Regional Forum will be held in Laos (the 2024 ASEAN chair) from 21–27 July. A list of ASEAN meetings in 2024 can be found here.

Kazakhstan will host the 2024 Shanghai Cooperation Organisation’s annual summit in Astana before its chairmanship ends in July 2024.

August

Tonga will host the 53rd Pacific Islands Forum in August.

On 15 August it will be three years since the withdrawal of US and Western forces from Afghanistan which was soon followed by the Afghan government’s fall and the Taliban takeover.

The US Democratic Party will hold its National Convention in Chicago from 19 to 22 August.

September

The 79th session of the UN General Assembly begins on 10 September, with the first high-level general debate on 24 September.  The UN’s Summit of the Future will be held on 22 and 23 September, aiming to forge a new global consensus and multilateral solutions to current and future problems.

October

The 75th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China will be marked on 1 October amid increasing economic troubles. The anniversary will be a major focus of Xi Jinping this year,

The 75th anniversary of Russia–China diplomatic relations will be marked on 2 October when it’s likely the ‘no limits’ friendship will be taken to new heights. In October, Russia will also host the largest-ever BRICS summit, the first with new members Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Iran, Egypt and Ethiopia.

The first anniversary of Hamas’s attack on Israel and the resulting conflict in Gaza will be marked on 7 October.

The Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) will be held in Samoa on 21 October, the first with King Charles as head.

November

On 5 November, all eyes will be on the US presidential election.

From 11–24 November, Azerbaijan will host COP29. It is already following in the UAE’s footsteps, by appointing an oil executive to lead the climate talks.

On 12 November, Palau will hold its general election.

Brazil will host the G20 Summit from 17 to 18 November in Rio de Janeiro.

The ASEAN Summit and the East Asia Summit dates for this year have not yet been announced, but normally fall in November. The ASEAN Defence Ministers meeting will run from 26 to 29 in Laos.

Peru is hosting the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) meeting in 2024, with the leaders’ summit to be held in November.

France is due to host the third global AI safety summit in November.

December

Ghana’s election takes place on 7 December.

Algeria and Croatia are due for presidential elections with dates yet to be set.

Other significant events

Last year Prime Minister Anthony Albanese commissioned an independent review of Australia’s intelligence agencies. The findings will be presented to government in mid-2024.

Indo-Pacific Endeavour, the Australian Defence Forces’ annual regional engagement exercise, is likely to take place, as usual, in the second half of the year.

UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has confirmed he’ll call a general election in the second half of 2024.

The Quad Leaders’ Summit, which was to be held in January in India, has been postponed to late 2024 with a new date yet to be set. Quad foreign ministers will meet in Japan in 2024 on dates which are also still to be announced.

For a full list of the global elections scheduled in 2024, click here.

Vale, John McBeth, groundbreaking Asia correspondent

John McBeth, one of Asia’s pre-eminent journalists with a record of scrupulous and groundbreaking reporting, has died after a short illness. He was 79.

Over a career spanning more than 62 years, McBeth helped shape events in countries including South Korea, Thailand, the Philippines, Vietnam, Cambodia and Indonesia. He was a blunt-speaking old-school reporter and author whose writings pulled no punches and influenced many of the region’s policymakers over decades.

McBeth was born in Whanganui, New Zealand, on 31 May 1944, the son of Taranaki dairy farmer Sandy McBeth and Isla Dickenson. After attending New Plymouth Boys’ High School he commenced his journalism career on the Taranaki Herald in 1962 and moved to the Auckland Star in 1965.

Like many New Zealand journalists of that era, he was attracted to London’s Fleet Street and headed off on a cargo ship that inadvertently grounded during a night-time entry into Tanjung Priok harbour in Indonesia.

Stepping ashore, he immediately fell in love with Asia and never left. McBeth took pride in being an Asian ‘lifer’—often chiding many of his colleagues who came to the region for a few years but never stayed.

After spending time in Jakarta and Singapore, McBeth settled in Thailand, where he worked for publications including the Bangkok Post, London’s Daily Telegraph and the Hong Kong–based Asiaweek, and for Agence France-Presse and United Press International.

He was one of the first Western journalists to uncover the Khmer Rouge’s reign of terror in Cambodia, often arriving at the border to interview survivors after a long and arduous overnight bus journey from Bangkok.

McBeth’s reporting of the Khmer Rouge’s purges was initially met with incredulity by many other correspondents. He revealed how Cambodian refugees, unable to cross into Thailand, were forced back into the Khmer Rouge’s minefields.

His early reporting from Thailand focused on the Indochinese refugee crisis and the Vietnam War, as he wrote with passion about the plight of refugees and war victims.

He exposed the Thai pirates who raped and murdered Vietnamese boatpeople.

In May 1979, McBeth joined the staff of the Far Eastern Economic Review, then Asia’s top political and economic affairs publication. He covered five coups, including the abortive one that killed his close friend, Australian cameraman Neil Davis, in 1985.

McBeth was a larger-than-life member of Bangkok’s hard-living and hardworking international press corps, loving Thailand and its people. It was in Bangkok that he met his future wife, Yuli Ismartono, a prominent foreign correspondent from Indonesia.

He wrote analytical pieces and many exclusive reports from offices in Bangkok, Seoul, Manila and Jakarta.

Collaborating with colleagues Nayan Chandra and Shada Islam, McBeth broke the story that North Korea was developing a nuclear weapon.

While based in Manila, McBeth had a leg amputated, but he was determined the setback would not impinge on his career and he was soon back writing exclusives for the Review. Yuli helped him through his illness and restored his confidence so he could return to field reporting.

He wrote about Filipino warlords, the fall of Indonesia’s President Suharto and, in a series of articles in 2002, he covered comprehensively the Bali bombings, among countless other stories.
From the end of 2004 until early 2015, John wrote columns for the Singapore Straits Times, specialising in Indonesian and regional affairs.

His work has also appeared in The National (Abu Dhabi), the Nikkei Asian Review, the South China Morning Post, The Strategist and more recently the Asia Times. McBeth’s 2011 book, Reporter: forty years covering Asia, describes many of his experiences.

In 2016, he wrote The loner: President Yudhoyono’s decade of trial and indecision, which reviewed the decade that Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono spent in power.

McBeth was a confidante of many of Asia’s diplomats, politicians and policymakers.

He was a mentor and inspiration to many of the region’s journalists, particularly those working for local publications, and railed against journalists whose writings failed to make clear what was fact and what was opinion.

John McBeth is survived by Yuli, and a host of friends and admirers.

Australia–Indonesia leaders’ meeting mustn’t avoid sensitive issues

Indonesian President Joko Widodo will meet with Prime Minister Anthony Albanese in Sydney this week on his third (and possibly last) state visit to Australia, a country he once referred to as being Indonesia’s ‘closest friend’.

Few would argue against the claim that the relationship has been doing well. But being the closest of friends requires a higher concerted effort in addressing areas of distrust, as well as a degree of alignment in strategic visions—the latter of which is difficult to see materialising.

Friendship among states is driven by shared strategic and material interests and deepened by understanding, both at the political level and through business and cultural ties. Despite the positive trajectory in the past few years, the future of the Australia–Indonesia relationship is threatened with either stagnancy or divergence if we pursue differing strategic visions for our region.

Albanese and Widodo’s amicable bicycle ride on Indonesian presidential palace grounds in Bogor last year symbolised the recent positive progress in the relationship. The comprehensive strategic partnership signed in 2018 was filled with many promises of future cooperation, and demonstrated high aspirations for the relationship.

Following the implementation of a comprehensive economic partnership agreement in 2020, trade and investment ties have steadily developed. And defence engagement, the bedrock of the relationship, is on an uptick. Bilateral ties were upgraded in February to reflect a security relationship that has deepened in the past two years with increased dialogue and more joint training.

These developments sound even better when we consider that when Widodo first came to power in 2014, the relationship was still recovering from the 2013 phone-hacking scandal, when Australian intelligence services targeted key members of the Indonesian political elite. Ties would suffer further after Indonesia executed Australian drug smugglers Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumuran in April 2015. In response to each incident, the countries recalled their ambassadors.

Fortunately, friends can only stay angry at each other for so long. Common security concerns, ranging from the rise of Islamic State to persistent problems with people smuggling, meant that cooperation was a necessity. With a high-profile visit by prime minister Malcolm Turnbull to Jakarta in November 2015, the relationship was on the mend.

There is considerable historical mistrust to overcome. For Australia, the relationship has long been haunted by the spectre of Indonesia’s authoritarian past and the problem of human rights abuse. While Indonesia has developed into an imperfect but still stable democracy, continued risks of human rights abuses easily become political fodder in Australia that threaten to damage ties.

Meanwhile, Indonesians hold fears of Australian (and US) interference in its domestic affairs, rooted in the debacle that followed the fall of Indonesian leader Suharto and the Timor-Leste referendum. While Australia has committed to respecting Indonesia’s territorial sovereignty, the historical memory of intervention continues to linger. Although still very fringe, some officials still hold concerns about the possibility of Australian involvement in the independence movements in West Papua.

Against these historical deadweights in the relationship, there have been plenty of moments of cooperation—from Australia’s support for Indonesian independence to the mutual provision of assistance amid humanitarian crises, and cooperation on counterterrorism and counter-people-smuggling.

Beyond the ups and downs of particular bilateral irritants, the relationship will depend heavily on strategic calculations.

And there’s the risk that disappointment in the relationship will be compounded by diverging pathways in responding to dynamics in great-power competition. In many ways, the 2020s will continue to be an era defined by power politics and the tensions in Sino-American rivalry.

Both Australian and Indonesian officials have expressed concerns about the implications of China’s growing power and the prospects of great-power rivalry.

Both also share a longstanding preference for keeping the US militarily, diplomatically and economically engaged in their shared neighbourhood. But they differ in their preferred approaches to respond to great-power competition.

Australia is more steadfast in its preference for US leadership. With the AUKUS security partnership, among other things, Canberra is deepening its cooperation with Washington and looking to use the alliance—along with strengthened partnerships with other like-minded nations—as a driver of greater regional stability.

Indonesia, meanwhile, has remained deeply committed to managing relations with major powers, including the US and China, by engaging them in the layers of multilateral cooperation centred on ASEAN.

These divergent approaches have created another source of tension. While Indonesian officials—including Widodo himself—seem to be warming up to the idea that both the Quad and AUKUS offer as many opportunities for Indonesia as they do challenges, that shouldn’t be mistaken as an overt form of endorsement of Australian and US balancing against the rise of China.

Despite some anxiety in Jakarta about the implications of China’s growing military and economic power, there are deeper concerns about the effects Sino-American rivalry will have not only on Indonesia’s security but also on its prospects for development. Furthermore, minilateral arrangements focused on China hit at the heart of Indonesia’s own anxieties about its status as an activist middle power in the Indo-Pacific.

Given its longstanding status as ‘first among equals’ in ASEAN, Indonesia has long depended on ASEAN centrality as a means of signifying its middle-power credentials. The emergence of minilateral arrangements risks eroding Indonesia’s preference to ensure that ASEAN stays as the driver of regional order.

While Australia and Indonesia didn’t choose to be neighbours, they have chosen to be friends. But the test of this friendship lies in how they can communicate their differences. Overcoming these challenges require a willingness to mutually hash out and discuss the hard topics that cause the most sensitivity in the bilateral relationship, including how to manage great-power competition (particularly the rise of China) and how to respond to a potential crisis in West Papua.

The global race to secure critical minerals heats up

The World Trade Organization last week ruled that Indonesia had no right to ban the export of nickel or to require that raw nickel ore be refined in Indonesia.

Handing a comprehensive victory to the complainant, the European Union, the WTO decision highlights the clash between national security and global trade rules over critical minerals.

At least 14 nations, including Australia, have drafted special national-security-focused arrangements governing investment and trade in critical minerals. Nickel—a crucial input of batteries and stainless steel—is on seven of those lists.

Indonesian President Joko Widodo made clear that the WTO ruling won’t be the last word on the matter. ‘Even though we lost at the WTO on this nickel issue … it’s okay. I have told the minister to appeal,’ he said.

The WTO’s appellate body is defunct, with the US having refused to approve the appointment of new tribunal members since 2017, so the appeal will stay the decision until there’s a resolution, which may never occur.

US President Joe Biden’s administration has shown little interest in trade policy and hasn’t explained what would satisfy it to re-establish the appeals tribunal. The EU led the creation of an alternative WTO body to handle appeals, but Indonesia isn’t a party to it. Indonesian officials have said they have five to 10 years to build their domestic processing capability.

The WTO said the only justification for Indonesia’s export ban would be if there were a critical shortage of an essential material, but that’s not the case. The EU argued that the Indonesian action breached the WTO requirement that countries grant as much access as possible to international trade.

Indonesia was the world’s biggest supplier of nickel until the export ban, imposed in 2020. Chinese resource groups have responded to Indonesia’s call for investment in nickel smelters and downstream processing. Chinese investment in Indonesia reached US$3.6 billion in the first half of this year, double last year’s level, with new smelters mainly behind the increase. Indonesia has also imposed restrictions on export of coal, copper and aluminium. Possible new bans on tin and lead are now being considered.

‘We want to be a developed country, we want to create jobs. If we are scared of being sued, and we step back, we will not be a developed country,’ Widodo said.

Indonesia’s controls on its resource sector are imposed through its mineral and coal mining law, which permits policies that give priority to domestic interests, including the imposition of obligations for mining companies to purify and process minerals in the country.

Further domestic processing is also a priority for Australia’s critical minerals scheme, although it’s focused on government subsidies and investment controls rather than export bans. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s government is developing a formal critical minerals strategy to replace the one released by its predecessor in February.

Last week, the government released a discussion paper. It notes that Australia produced almost half the world’s lithium in 2020, produces nine of the 10 minerals used in lithium-ion battery anodes and cathodes, and has projects seeking to develop refineries for the 10th (graphite). ‘Australia is the largest producer of titanium and zirconium and is the fourth largest producer of rare-earth elements. Australia is also well placed to supply cobalt, tantalum and tungsten, and many other critical minerals,’ it said.

The emphasis of the discussion paper is on clean energy. It doesn’t mention national security or China, but hints at Australian concern about China’s domination of supply chains for critical minerals, saying: ‘Like-minded countries are increasingly concerned about the pressure growing demand can place on critical minerals supply chains, given many are vulnerable to supply chain disruption.’

The paper says the control of foreign investment is crucial to managing that risk.

‘Australia’s domestic demand alone cannot sustain a large critical minerals sector. Attracting international investment and offtake can enable Australian projects to access key markets and create the scale needed to be commercially viable,’ the paper says.

‘How should Australia engage with international partners to support the diversification of supply chains? What should this engagement focus on (including which countries)?’, it asks.

The central aim of the paper is to solicit views on ‘how Australia can leverage its existing resource endowments and capabilities to support higher value-add activities by bringing more downstream processing projects online’. This is very similar to Indonesia’s goal and is an approach based more on national economic development than on national security or supply-chain resilience.

A new review of the critical mineral strategies of 14 nations by the trade analysis group Global Trade Alert says the resource-rich countries that produce critical minerals have a different focus from the consuming nations.

‘Countries that currently enjoy a production advantage focus more on maintaining this dominance and ensuring that the economic benefits of this growing demand ripple through their economies, often with the goal to develop downstream-related industries. Australia, Canada, China and Indonesia are good examples of this approach.’

‘On the other hand, countries with higher existing levels of import dependence tend to focus on developing their domestic production capabilities and substituting importance.’ The report names the EU, Japan, the UK and the US in this category.

‘The type of trade policies and industrial policy actions adopted to achieve these objectives include classic trade barriers, the provision of state aid, the use of public procurement, as well as the screening of inward FDI [foreign direct investment]. Some countries have also built up strategic reserves.’

Investment controls are widespread. Australia’s national-security amendments to foreign direct investment legislation from 2020 require foreign companies to notify the treasurer of any investment in a national-security-sensitive sector regardless of threshold and signal that this would include anything in the critical minerals area. Similar controls have been introduced or updated in Canada, China, the EU, Japan, the UK and the US.

Canada last month ordered three Chinese companies to divest their stakes in Canadian lithium mines. Industry minister François-Philippe Champagne said Canada welcomed foreign direct investment from companies that ‘share our interests and values’ but would ‘act decisively when investments threaten our national security and our critical minerals supply chains’.

The Global Trade Alert paper notes that the different policies linked to critical materials allude to strategic industries such as defence and aerospace, electronics, wind and solar energy production, and the automotive and mobility industries, among others. The technologies mentioned on national lists include microchips, computers, hydrogen fuel cells, traction motors, LED lighting, photovoltaic panels, certain health devices, robotics and drones.

The analysis shows that there’s widespread momentum behind the regulation and state-directed development of critical minerals. WTO trade rules are unlikely to prove a significant restraint.