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Updated Wednesday, March 10, 2010 10:23 am TWN, By John Lee, Special to The China Post

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High level meeting offers Australian PM redemption

The result: in one sense, the Rudd government has delivered what he promised. He is one of the more tireless, imaginative, assertive and proactive heads-of-government in the region. But in a more important footnote, Canberra wound back some of the progress made in Australia's relationships with key states achieved during the Howard era. Whereas the whole point of “creative middle power” activism is to win new friends and influence powerful players, Australian moves inadvertently annoyed and enraged existing ones respectively.

Fast forward to 2010 and Australia has belatedly discovered that despite the flurry of multilateral activity in the region, stability and progress in Asia (like the rest of the world) is built on the back of strong government-to-government relationships and understanding between key states. Therefore, the visit by the Indonesian President is a chance for Rudd to show the region that he is indeed adept at the bilateral game.

The visit of Bambang is also fortuitous for several other reasons. Indonesia is the largest and most powerful player in Southeast Asia. When it comes to issues such as managing China's power and influence in the South China Sea, regional terrorism, people smuggling and other transnational crimes, as well as the multilateral future of Asia, little will be achieved without Jakarta's cooperation. Hence, deepening the bilateral relationship between Jakarta and Canberra ought to be one of the first priorities before regional “activism” on Australia's part.

Finally, the visit comes days before U.S. President Barack Obama sets foot on Australian shores. Rudd will want to show that Australia's “special relationship” with America makes Canberra more important and relevant to a changing region, rather than less. A productive meeting with both the Indonesian and American President is the Rudd government's first step toward regional redemption.

Dr. John Lee is the foreign policy fellow at the Center for Independent Studies in Sydney and a visiting fellow at the Hudson Institute in Washington, D.C.

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