The fact that everyone's worst fears have been realised is no reason passively to accept the new electoral laws, but it does make some of the comments heard about them seem a little disingenuous. There are good reasons to decry the failure of the military government to observe widely accepted democratic principles and to acknowledge the clear wishes of the Burmese people. But no-one should act surprised that the laws are as restrictive as they are.

Indeed, given the tenor of a few comments heard over the past week, it is worth considering whether there might be some other reason why this issue has attracted so much attention, particularly from hard line opponents of the regime.

It is self-evident that, over the past 20 years, economic sanctions and other punitive measures levelled against Burma have failed to remove the military regime, or persuade it to abandon any of its core policies. It has refused to transfer power to a democratically-elected civilian government, or to engage in a substantive dialogue with the opposition movement and ethnic communities. Nor has the regime taken steps to improve its human rights record, release political prisoners (including Aung San Suu Kyi) or to introduce major economic reforms.

The harsh reality is that, despite all the pressures it has faced over the past 20 years, from both internal opposition forces and hard line foreign states, the military regime has become progressively stronger. It still faces some serious problems but, measured objectively against several criteria, the regime is now better off and more firmly entrenched in power than at any time since the abortive 1988 pro-democracy uprising. It would not be risking the transition to a new system of government if it was not confident of being able to control the process.

There are still some politicians and activist groups, however, who remain convinced that even stronger rhetoric and tougher sanctions will eventually bring down Burma's military regime, or at least persuade it to mend its ways. These advocates have strongly criticised the Obama Administration, and others like the ASEAN member states, for engaging with the military regime in an effort to ameliorate political, economic and social conditions in Burma. Critics of this approach have characterised it as naïve, while some have even branded it as immoral.

In these circumstances, it is worth asking whether some of the criticisms heard about Burma's new election laws — characterised by  US Senator Mitch McConnell as 'a farce' — represent at least in part an attempt to discredit the Obama Administration's policy of 'practical engagement'. By highlighting Naypyidaw's apparent indifference to US wishes, opponents of the Administration's more nuanced approach are able to press their case for a return to the hardline policies of the Bush era.

When it introduced its new Burma policy last September, the Obama Administration stated that political change in that country was going to be a long, slow and difficult process. It knew that there were going to be setbacks. It also accepted that, at times, President Obama would face accusations from his political opponents that Burma's generals were treating the US with contempt. And, indeed, over the past six months all this has proven to be the case. Yet this does not mean that the policy was misguided, or will easily be abandoned.

The US Government has publicly expressed its deep disappointment over the new election laws. It has stated plainly that, given their nature, Washington has no hope that the elections due to be held later this year will be credible. However, officials have also said that the US has not been surprised by the regime's failure so far to open up the political process. They have emphasised the continuing need for a strategic approach, taken in collaboration with like-minded countries, based on commitment, consistency and patience.

After all is said and done, perhaps the most obvious lesson to be drawn from the regime's new electoral laws is that meaningful political change can only come from within Burma, and from the Burmese people themselves. Whatever their policies, the ability of foreign countries and international organisations to influence internal developments will remain limited.

 Photo by Flickr user totaloutnow, used under a Creative Commons license.

Secondly, it assumes that the public are spoon-fed by discounting the fact that the public can access their own sources of news via the internet in a way that cannot be manipulated to the same levels as it could when local and national print media were all that were accessible. Even though I understand your analysis is crude, this means that the extrapolation from how much time commercial media gives to international news, to individual news choices is quite meaningless. Even if we accept your statistic that 27% of the time Australians are online is spent accessing news, this figure is not insignificant, nor is it one that can be classified into national/international as arbitrarily as you have.

I would think, unless the Lowy Institute’s mandate 'to provide an accessible and high quality forum for discussion of Australian foreign policy and international relations' is intended for an audience of policy makers and elites only, you are criticising the very thing that your institute sets out to do. After all, if defence and foreign policy matters are crucial for Australia, they are equally as crucial for Australians.

Note that the question Jo quotes at the beginning of her email, which she says indicates an elitist mindset on my part, is just that, a question. And it was intended to be a very specific one: when read in context, you'll see that what I'm really asking is whether it is desirable for Governments to launch public information campaigns to improve awareness of, for instance, our relationship with Indonesia. And if not, then what do we mean when we say that we ought to 'raise awareness' of such issues?

Nor should the crude statistical analysis I did about news media consumption be read as an indictment of Australians, or of hubris on my part about foreign policy being too complicated for the masses.

I don't think I said anything in the post to create that impression, and in fact, I'm on the record as supporting the view that public ignorance of certain political issues, while real, is in fact a pretty sensible time-management tactic, and certainly not an indication that the great mass of people are stupid. A glance at my output on this site should also put paid to any suggestion that I'm indifferent to government opacity or manipulation on foreign policy. I've been a consistent small 'l' liberal in that regard. 

The Lowy Institute's work is certainly not intended solely for policy-making elites, and part of our job is to expand the intelligent discussion of international policy beyond those elites. That's partly what The Interpreter was created for, so by extension I am personally dedicated to that task.

Then again, I'm also sensible enough to realise that The Interpreter is never going to rival news.com.au for hits. Thankfully, our readership keeps growing, so I guess part of what I'm trying to figure out is the natural limits to that growth — how much attention and debate we can reasonably expect to generate with a site like this?

To prove his point, King uses the Flesch-Kincaid method of determining ease of reading and applies it to Army documents that explain the recent Adaptive Army initiative, which plans to make Australia's army 'the best small Army in the world', according to the current Chief of Army. The Flesch-Kincaid method analyses a document and provides a score that indicates ease of readability. Flesch-Kincaid also identifies how many years of education would be required to understand what is being read.

The Adaptive Army documents fail on both counts, requiring the reader to possess between 4 and 7 years of university education just to understand what they are reading. This is problematic for a document that aims to drive cultural change in an organisation with an average education level at the Year 10 mark. For anyone who has ever read current Australian military publications the news that they are dense and incomprehensible will come as no surprise.

It is promising that not only can King write an article titled 'How Stupid Are We?' without being lynched by his military peers, but that he is part of an internal Army project called 'Towards a Smarter Army'. The ADF's tempo of the past decade may be producing more officers who understand that broad thinking and simple communications are required to solve military problems. This can only help in improving Australia's military thinking for both our Defence Force and those who work with it.

Photo by Flickr user Mark78_xp, used under a Creative Commons license.

Most importantly, China has lent muscle to Pakistan's military machine against India. In fact, the first formal step towards Sino-Pak defence cooperation was taken soon after 1965 Indo-Pakistan war. Pakistan's missile development programme was started in the 1980s with assistance from the Chinese.

Pakistan has benefited a great deal from Beijing's aid, which, unlike other aid providers, has come without strings. Their friendship probably reflects the commonly used refrain, 'my enemy's enemy is my friend' (South Asian giant India remains an adversary to both Beijing and Islamabad). So much so that on the eve of resumption of Indo-Pakistani talks in New Delhi on 25 February, Pakistani Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Querishi said in Beijing that China has a 'blank cheque' from Pakistan for mediating between Pakistan and India. 

But India, which has ruled out any third party mediation in Indo-Pak affairs, has been circumspect of Sino-Pak ties. Last year it lodged a strong protest with China over announcing support for hydro power projects in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir. Media reports suggest Beijing is not pursuing the projects.

Photo by Flickr user dreamX, used under a Creative Commons license.

Let's start with some crude statistical analysis. I can't find any specific stats on how much time Australians spend consuming news media, but here's a recent study showing that Australians spend around 56 hours a week consuming all media. And here's a somewhat dated academic paper claiming that 27% of the time Australians spend online is spent consuming news.

Now, I'm taking some liberties here, but if we assume that this 27% figure is true of all media (not just online), we can say that Australians spend about 14 hours a week consuming news.

How much of that 14 hours would go to international news? Half? A third? Given the time allocated to world news in the commercial media, I reckon we'd be lucky if it was one quarter, or three-and-a-half hours per week.

The broad point here is basic and uncontroversial — the public doesn't spend very much time thinking about our foreign and national security policies. The media doesn't spend much time or effort on these issues, and political leaders get very few opportunities to shift public consciousness on them.

Of course, governments can always bypass the news media by directly addressing the public. In my lifetime, I can think of a handful of public information campaigns that have truly changed awareness, changed behaviour and even changed the culture: HIV/AIDS (see the grim reaper ad campaign above), drink-driving, skin cancer, smoking. But we're talking about huge financial commitments here that take years to pay off.

My point is that I would like to see some more specificity to calls for 'greater public awareness'. Do we really want or need the great mass of Australians to worry about issue X, or are we just talking about slightly enlarging the small minority of people who are already interested in X?

The first leg of the trip will give us a new Guam doctrine on the US's continuing military presence in Asia. Richard Nixon did his doctrinal dance in Guam as the US extricated itself from Vietnam. Nixon's Guam doctrine was about allies henceforth taking primary responsibility for their own defence.

The Guam doctrine that Obama will bless is made flesh in the creation of a new multi-billion dollar US military superbase. The message can be encapsulated as: 'We're going to be here for a long time yet.' Given the politics of Japan at the moment, the message could be aimed as much at Tokyo as Beijing.

Beyond the personal history of Obama in Indonesia, the White House is briefing on the visit as an expression of the view that 'America has been somewhat absent from the region over the last several years and we are committed to re-establishing that leadership.'  It's a two-part US call to Asia: our attention may have wandered but we know about our interests.

Reading that briefing, I was struck by the joining of Australia and Indonesia as twin 'middle powers' and the description of the journey as another expression of 'the changing global governance' of the 21st century. You can use phrases like that when you brief in the White House.

For both Australia and Indonesia, the Obama trip will be the seventh visit by a US President in the past 50 years. That figure suggests Australia has been doing pretty well with presidential touchdowns while Indonesia continues to strive to get due recognition for its significance. Indeed (warning: incoming cliché) Australia may well have been 'punching above its weight' in gaining presidential attention. The figures are contained here at the US State Department accounting of presidential trips. 

Australia got off to a 'flying' start with two visits by LBJ; one in 1966 to express his friendship for Prime Minister Holt and one the following year to mourn Holt's disappearance in the surf. Then there was a 25-year gap, after which Australia scored repeatedly: George H Bush in 1992, Bill Clinton in 1996, and George W Bush in both 2003 and 2007. Obama's trip to Canberra means Australia will have enjoyed a touchdown by four US presidents in a row. In the touchdown stakes, that is close to the gold standard for 'middle powers'.

Photo by Flickr user Chrislrmo, used under a Creative Commons license.

At the moment, very few foreign editors will seek angles like this from their correspondents. So the hard-pressed correspondents barely spend any time developing them. But they know they are there, just waiting to be drawn out.

During a recent visit to Malaysia, my colleagues and I on the board of the Australia-Malaysia Institute were introduced to the considerable problems facing sporting authorities there, starved of competent on-air sporting commentators and coaches. In the area of volunteering, they're struggling, with super-busy parents simply not seeing this as part of a parental repertoire and precious few underlying institutions like Little Athletics or Oz Kick. They're very keen to know how we've developed these services.

The common complaint of 'no time for anything but basic family and work' is deafening in the region, once you get beyond surface chit-chat. In fact, it's more keenly felt than in Australia, much to our surprise. This is surely food for good stories.

A key issue I always raise with people in the region is: 'tell us about social change in your community'. The stories come tumbling out, with passion and usually some fear. We may think we have issues with Australian identity confusion amid fast change. They're nothing by comparison with what's confronting our neighbours. But we don't report it like this, whereas it could be so much more inviting if we did.

So while I sympathise with the frustrations of some of The Interpreter's respondents about Australia's outdated notions of modern Indonesia or Malaysia or Thailand, merely calling for broader coverage won't do the trick. No amount of fine, nuanced reporting by Greg Earl from the AFR or Rowan Callick in The Australian will seriously shift the consciousness of the mainstream in either country until we start seeking what's common as well as what's different.

Then, and I suspect only then, will we reach what I judge to be a bold goal: a series from Andrew Denton on Asian characters (a la The Elders series) or Q&A from Jakarta. Then we would be cooking with gas.

Photo by Flickr user permanently scatterbrained, used under a Creative Commons license.

1. Japanese public opinion: seems to be going off Australia, after years of steady improvement. The Cabinet Office in Japan regularly polls its population (all links in Japanese) on their feelings of warmth and affinity towards particular countries and regions. In October 2007, 67.7% of respondents expressed warm feelings towards Australia and New Zealand (Oceania) while only 20.8% expressed cool or cold feelings. Moreover, with a slight exception in 2003, Japanese feelings towards Oceania were gradually improving.

Fast forward to October 2009, and Japanese feelings towards Oceania and the Pacific (Australia, New Zealand and the Pacific Islands) tell a very different story. Only 51.1% expressed warm feelings while 40.3% expressed the opposite. 

Now, it could be that Japanese feelings towards New Zealand and its more diplomatic approach to whaling have soured significantly or that the inclusion of South Pacific states in the 2009 survey explains this sharp fall in public opinion. Or it could be that views of Australia (the dominant country in the region) explain much of this decline, especially as Australian public and official rhetoric on whaling changed significantly from 2007 to 2009.

2. The FTA: the Rudd Government's more strident anti-whaling rhetoric and repeated unilateral threat to take Japan to the ICJ puts it in direct confrontation with the powerful Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry. While the government ministry in Australia with primary responsibility for our anti-whaling policy is not a key player in the drawn-out FTA negotiations, its Japanese counterpart is.

3. Defence cooperation: the whaling issue has cooled Japanese political support for the planned bilateral defence logistics agreement that would be a significant advance under the March 2007 Japan-Australia Joint Declaration on Security Cooperation. Little progress on this agreement was noticeable from Foreign Minister Okada's first visit to Australia, a visit marred by the domestic politics of anti-whaling in Australia and the beginnings of the undeclared 2010 election campaign.

4. Nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament: even on this policy area, where the Rudd Government focused on Japan through initiating the Evans-Kawaguchi commission, all is not well.

In January, both Prime Minister Hatoyama and Foreign Minister Okada gave policy speeches to Parliament in which they mentioned nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation. Yet despite the launch of the Evans-Kawaguchi report in Tokyo by Prime Ministers Rudd and Hatoyama the previous month, neither of these parliamentary speeches mentioned this report. Both focused on the US-Japan alliance and President Obama’s interest in this issue.

In his speech, Okada did include this generic line on Australia: 'Australia is a strategic partner in the Asia-Pacific region. Japan will strengthen the relationship between the two countries in various areas including security and economic relations.'

Photo by Flickr user Thorsten Becker, used under a Creative Commons license.

Fraser's diary is not specific enough to say when this would be, but a couple of things make me think that dinner was probably later than 7pm – more like between 8pm and 10pm, or between 6am-8am in Washington. In any case, at the outside we can say that the Bush phone call to Washington must have been between 5-8am Washington time. It is also possible of course that the call began before the NSC meeting, and that Bush spoke to people before the meeting got underway. But that is just speculation.

So then I tried to find out what time the NSC meeting was held. This was unexpectedly difficult to pin down, however a few matters make it clear that it was  an early meeting, and an emergency meeting.

First, Haig's media conference announcing the shift in US attitude was after the 'emergency meeting' but before lunch, because by the time Reagan had lunch later that day, the news was already well and truly out, and had been absorbed by the press pack. I attach two news reports, both published 1 May but datelined 30 April, that report Haig's media conference and events surrounding it. One is from the NY Times, and is footnoted in the book. The other is from The Age.

Also see this transcript of Reagan talking to newsmen at 12.59 on the 30th of April, in which Haig's announcement is referred to as having happened 'this morning'. The NY Times on the same day published a transcript of Haig’s remarks, datelined 30 April, which it describes as having been made 'this morning'.

Again, it has proved very hard to determine exactly what time in the morning this was, but the standard White House press briefings at that time were usually at 9.30am.

So, it seems that by at the latest mid-morning of 30 April, the key decision to support Britain had not only been made, but Haig had a prepared statement which he read out, in which both the substance and detail of the decision to suspend all military exports to Argentina, and other sanctions, and to 'respond positively' to requests for materiel support from Britain, was all laid out. This supports the idea that the decision itself was made relatively early in the morning.

I also found in the Thatcher archives a dinner-time speech which she gave in Britain on 30 April, in which she says:

Nor, as we learn especially today, this evening, has our friendship with the United States changed. It is once more in full bloom again (hear, hear) (applause). We are very grateful indeed to Mr Haig for his strenuous efforts to seek peace. But you know it is not always easy between a dictatorship which stands for subjugation of the people and a democracy which only flourishes by the wishes of the people.

Washington is five hours behind Britain. If Thatcher was making a dinner-time speech in which she mentions the shift in the US attitude, this corroborates the other evidence that Haig's statement was made early in the day – in time to be absorbed and commented on by lunchtime, Washington time, and evening in the UK.

Finally, there is the amazing Jim Rentschler's diary, available here on the Thatcher Archives website. Rentschler was the White House official responsible for handling the Falklands, and he accompanied Haig on his shuttle diplomacy leading up to 30 April. 

Rentschler was at the NSC meeting in question. Sadly he does not give a time for the meeting, but he does give a detailed account, which I have copied below. So far as the degree of Bush and Fraser's influence is concerned, the diary entry is not enlightening, and might be read as going against the idea that Bush's intervention was influential. Rentschler describes the conversation as 'desultory, with future historians unlikely to extract any zingers'.

Rentschler describes, and gives a transcript of, the record of the resolutions that were announced by Haig later that morning:

If ever a ship was in the sand, Haig's "peace shuttle" is it. The moment of South Atlantic truth is upon us this morning, and while I derive some faint satisfaction that a Reagan-chaired NSC comes down on the policy option I favor, that feeling ain't gonna do much for our interests in the Hemisphere. The discussion in the Cabinet Room is desultory, with future historians unlikely to extract any zingers from the verbatim I prepared later in the day (with the possible exception of Jeane Kirkpatrick's half-assed idea that "The Argentines will do anything to avoid war, they don't want it, they'll slip out of it, I would even anticipate a UN démarche which will settle the issue this weekend"; to which the President responds "Wouldn't it be nice if, after all these years, the UN actually did something to promote peace?").

There are a number of specific actions which emerge from this morning's exchange, and are you ready for this? – there is even a decision to make them a matter of permanent record – surely an unprecedented move for this NSC! Hence the draft NSDD I do up for circulation to principals entitled "U.S. Actions In The South Atlantic Crisis": "Pursuant to the decisions reached at the meeting of the National Security Council of April 30, 1982, we are taking, effective immediately, the following actions in connection with the dispute between the United Kingdom and Argentina over the Falkland Islands:

• Issuance of an NSC-approved press statement which summarizes the U.S. position in the South Atlantic crisis and includes an explicit pro-UK tilt and the announcement of concrete steps underscoring US determination not to condone the use of unlawful force to resolve disputes.
• The suspension of all military exports to Argentina. This action covers deliveries of all items in the pre-1977 – i.e., pre-Humphrey-Kennedy– FMS pipeline, primarily affecting spare parts in the amount of $3.9 million; it also covers the issuance of export licenses for Munitions List items (which will affect non-government as well as government end-users, thereby reaching a category not previously covered by Humphrey-Kennedy).
• The withholding of certification of Argentine eligibility for military sales (which includes the US decision not to act on license requests for dual-use items and related COCOM-type material).
• The suspension of new Export-Import Bank credits, insurance, and guarantees;
• The suspension of Commodity Credit Corporation guarantees (which affects agricultural products worth approximately $2 million).
• A private warning to Argentina that the measures announced do not encompass the full range of economic sanctions which the US has at its disposal and which could be applied depending on circumstances (note: under existing statutory proscriptions, third-country transfers of munitions and related items are already covered).

The other notable thing about the Rentschler diary (written shortly after the events described) is that, while it does not give a time for this meeting, the previous entries make it clear that it was not at all unusual for  key bodies and decision makers to meet at all hours of the day and night during this crisis. Indeed, he often comments on the lack of sleep, and the sense of urgency is palpable.

On the other hand, and against the idea that Fraser and Bush's intervention on 30 April was crucial, the possible damage to NATO from a US decision to back Argentina or remain neutral was clearly in Haig and Rentschler's mind from mid-April onwards, with Rentschler strongly favouring backing Britain.

In his entry of 16 April, Rentschler signals what the NSC meeting of 30 April will decide, and describes it as an endorsement of his own ideas of what should be done. But the attitude of Kirkpatrick, and the fact that Reagan's own mind was not made up, is also clear.

So, that is as far as I got. Fraser and I thought the record corroborated Fraser's memory sufficiently to include the anecdote. The extent to which his conversation with Bush, and Bush's call to the NSC, was decisive is more than I can say. Bush may have been flattering his host when he told Fraser that it had been decisive. Or Bush may have overstated or overestimated his own influence. Or the call may indeed have helped tip the balance between the competing considerations that Rentschler's diary identifies as preoccupying the Administration.

There is one way in which more information could be obtained. See this webpage, part of the Reagan archives. Under 'White House Staff and Office Files' there is Box 91284, which seems to be a record of the National Security Meeting in question. The budget for our book did not extent to a trip to the USA for me to go and see what's there.

The situation in West Papua was apparently not on the agenda, despite the efforts of Port Moresby's Governor, Powes Parkop, to present a petition to the Indonesian President calling for greater Papuan autonomy. The PNG Government will not have missed President Yudhoyono's warnings to the Australian parliament about respect for sovereignty and territorial integrity. 

This will no doubt be disappointing to Vanuatu, West Papua's most vocal supporter in the Pacific Islands region. PNG's desire to enhance and protect its relationship with Indonesia seems certain to continue to trump Vanuatu's efforts to use the Melanesian Spearhead Group to promote the West Papuan cause.

Photo by Flickr user SouthernAnts, used under a Creative Commons license.

I have reviewed Robert Gottliebsen's first article and your response and feel that you are justified in saying that he misrepresented (or at least misinterpreted) your comments as an endorsement.

I also noted his disarming statement: 'I have always been nervous writing about defence matters – it is not my area of expertise'. However, I have a solution for you both:

1. Australia should convert its order for the JSF F-35 to a reduced number of F-35B aircraft to be operated as short take-off vertical landing (STOVL) aircraft from shore in primitive cleared areas and, most importantly, from the two large LHD ships being acquired for the Navy (and which already have the ski-jump facility designed for the STO capability (the VL is straightforward for any ship with a strengthened deck).
2. Undertake an Australian air power study along the lines of the recent RAND studies on Taiwan air defences, that looks at all of the factors including ballistic missiles, long-range ground and sea-based air defences, unmanned air vehicles, the necessary command, control, communications and electronic warfare capabilities and, most fundamentally, how to keep airbases (and ships) operational when subject to sustained attack by missiles.
3. Then and only then, lobby for Australia to acquire the F-22 provided the study shows it is viable to operate from hardened airfields and has the range, with air-refuelling, that we need.

More generally, estimating so-called 'equilibrium' values of the real exchange rate turns out to be very tricky and extremely sensitive to the model you use and the assumptions you make. The resulting uncertainty represents a major constraint on policy advice: just how much should China revalue by? Since the honest answer appears to be 'we're not sure', that doesn't make for a massively compelling piece of advice.

4. The obvious alternative to picking a percentage target for revaluation – leave it to the foreign exchange markets to set the value of the RMB – does not look like a particularly attractive proposition hot on the heels of the biggest demonstration of financial market failure since the 1930s. Selling that one is going to take some effort right now.

5. Moreover, maintaining an undervalued — Beijing would probably prefer the term 'competitive' — exchange rate has in fact been a remarkably successful policy as far as China is concerned (which is of course more evidence that the level of the exchange rate does indeed matter). This success means that it's hardly a surprise Beijing is reluctant to surrender this policy tool without something in return.

6. Finally, it's also clear that China's exchange rate policy is now having adverse consequences for the rest of the world. In particular, it places the global trading regime under strain by fuelling protectionist pressures. And there's an unfortunate circularity at work here. China's exchange rate policy creates resentment among other trading partners, which helps undermine support for an open trading system. However, many of the proposed responses to the manipulation of the RMB — for example, levying tariffs on Chinese imports – would themselves wreak severe damage on that same trading system, precipitating the very crisis that Beijing's critics are warning of.)

These six points suggest that resolving the policy debate over the RMB is likely to be a tricky proposition. Which is why the conventional argument has been that the best hope is for China to opt to exit from its current policy regime for its own domestic reasons; external pressure only makes Beijing reluctant to be seen to submit to international demands. Trouble is, this conventional argument has been around for a while, and it now seems that the patience required for this approach is running out. 

Photo by Flickr user Robert S. Donovan, used under a Creative Commons license.

The reasons are actually pretty simple. First, it would be pointless and self-defeating to try to match Chinese or Indian air capabilities. We're a much smaller economy so buying as much kit as them would bankrupt us. And in any case, there's almost no chance of us ever going to war with either of them without the Americans on our side.

Second, we're in precisely the opposite situation in regard to Indonesia. We are the regional big dog when it comes to air power, and even if Indonesia does buy the Russian T-50 fighter, it will likely be in very small numbers, with inadequately trained pilots, no support aircraft (eg. tankers, AWACS) and poor maintenance.

Which leads me to one last point: Gottliebsen says in his latest piece that the Russian T-50 fighter 'will be supplied' to China, India and Indonesia. I know of no evidence to support this claim in regard to China and Indonesia. As for India, it is in advanced negotiations with Russia about co-developing the T-50, but those talks have not concluded.

So when the Japanese worry about the growing strength (including military strength) of China, they naturally look to the US for reassurance. That may make Japan appear less than 'equal' to the US, but it is internal factors that have prevented Japan from expanding its conventional military role and capacities.

That I think illustrates a more general point, which is that the role the US plays in regard to a particular country depends not only on the US but also on the other country. And in the case of China, the US is dealing with a huge and formidable country in the throes of dynamic change, uncertain both of the eventual shape of its internal development and of how it will fit in to the international community. 

That uncertainty manifests itself from time to time in confrontational behaviour towards the US, in Copenhagen for example. In that instance it seemed that it was not a case of the US failing to treat China as an equal, but of China treating the US and its president with scant respect.

How will these issues of equality and partnership be resolved? Hugh sees an Asian Concert as the answer, although rather surprisingly he doesn't 'think the EAS or other regional multilateral forums matter much', as 'they reflect, rather than shape, the regional order'. It might be that the US sees another alternative. For years, observers have seen a tension in US diplomacy between its recognition of the virtues of multilateralism and the advantages of bringing its great weight to bear in a one-on-one situation. Perhaps with China, seen as its only challenger in Asia and perhaps in the world, the US will emphasise the bilateral relationship — the 'G2'.

My own view is that, whatever strategy the US adopts, its main problem will be to devote enough resources — of time and attention as well as physical and financial — to the Asia-Pacific. 

Speaking of President Obama's coming trip to Indonesia and Australia, White House spokesman Robert Gibbs was reported as saying that the visits were important because 'the US has been absent from the Asia-Pacific region'. The current Administration is clearly trying to reverse that, but it will be very difficult given its military tasks in Iraq and Afghanistan, and its preoccupations with Pakistan, Iran and the Israel-Palestine issue.

Photo by Flickr user holeymoon, used under a Creative Commons license.

Indonesians are proud people who cherish our national unity and territorial integrity above all else. Our nationalism is all about forging harmony and unity among our many ethnic and religious groups. That is why the success of peace and reconciliation in Aceh and Papua is not trivial but a matter of national survival for us Indonesians. We would like Australians to understand and appreciate that.

And why else would he think it necessary to remind his audience about the undertakings Australia made in the Lombok Treaty? 

...both sides commit themselves to respecting each other’s sovereignty and territorial integrity. That means each side will in no way support any separatist movement against the other.

Separatism is hardly a problem in Australia, so it must be our support for separatism in Indonesia he is talking about. And he clearly believes this promise is important – he called the treaty 'a paradigm shift' in the relationship. By signing onto this agreement we were changing course and reinvented Indonesian-Australian relations for the better. 

It sounds as if SBY does not think Indonesian fears of Australian support for separatism are merely the misperceptions of the ignorant masses. And just to be sure, he reminded us why Indonesians suspect Australia of fostering separatism: 

There were periods when we were burdened by mistrust and suspicions at both ends. There were times when it felt like we were just reacting to events and were in a state of drift. There were moments when we felt as if our worlds were just too far apart.  During the East Timor crisis in the late 1990s our relations hit an all-time low.

This is remarkable stuff from the head of state of a close neighbour speaking as an honoured guest of our parliament. The grace and charm of much else he said makes it clear he is no Australiaphobe himself, which only makes these stern messages all the starker.

So how should Australia respond? First, we need to take SBY’s message seriously and accept that Indonesians do not trust us because they think we support separatism that threatens their immensely complex and diverse country. That is a pretty sobering realisation.

Second, we need to recognise that the Indonesians have high, and I would say unrealistic, expectations of the Lombok Treaty as a way to manage this issue. Tellingly, considering the way SBY spoke about the treaty, Rudd did not mention it at all. As I have said before, Indonesia believes the treaty commits Australia to preventing the support of separatism from our soil, not just by the Government but by private citizens. That is totally unrealistic, but Canberra has apparently done nothing to correct this impression. That needs to be fixed. 

Third, and most important, Australians need to understand more about Indonesia – what it is, what it has become, where it is going, how it sees us, and what it means to us. There has been some excellent debate about this, sparked by Fergus' excellent paper last week, and taken up in different ways on The Interpreter by Stephen Grenville and Greg Earl. 

My take on the debate between Stephen and Greg is that helping Australians understand Indonesia is not ultimately the media's job, but the Government's, and in particular that of our political leaders. They are the ones who need to step in and explain how Australia's international environment is changing and what we should do about it, and they need to do that even when the messages conflict with comfortable assumptions and easy prejudices. That is why last week I called our ignorance of Indonesia a failure of political leadership.