Australia and Indonesia’s leaders yesterday signed a security deal, one of a series of agreements that Canberra has secured with neighboring countries to reinforce ties and limit China’s influence in the region.
At a signing ceremony, Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto told Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese that “this agreement reflects the determination of both countries to work closely in safeguarding national security and to make a tangible contribution to peace and stability in the Indo-Pacific region.”
“For Indonesia, this represents a firm commitment to the principle of good neighborliness, and to our free and active foreign policy,” Prabowo said.
Photo: AFP
Albanese said there was no more important nation for Australia than Indonesia, and that the “treaty reflects the close friendship, partnership and deep trust between our two nations.”
Albanese has signed a series of defense, public security and aid deals across the Pacific region since taking office in 2022, attempting to boost its influence and to try and limit that of China. The effort has intensified under the administration of US President Donald Trump, as Washington leans on allies to take up more of the burden in deterring Beijing’s growing military power.
Late last year, Australia concluded a security deal with Papua New Guinea, which sits north of Australia and east of Indonesia. Albanese visited Timor-Leste last month, signing a new agreement to provide various kinds of aid and support.
Indonesia’s sovereign wealth fund, Danantara, would also explore coinvestments in Australia, a joint statement said, adding that both nations are looking to invest in each other’s critical mineral industries.
“The government can be very pleased with the agreements it signed across the Pacific,” Lowy Institute security program director Sam Roggeveen said.
“Indonesia is in a different category because of its size and also because of this historic commitment to to non-alignment,” he said, referring to the country’s efforts to seek a middle path in the Cold War.
The deal is largely based on an agreement signed by then-Australian prime minister Paul Keating and then-Indonesian president Suharto 30 years ago that Jakarta abrogated following East Timor’s vote for independence from Indonesia. It also builds on a 2006 Lombok treaty between the two nations.
China deployed a record number of coast guard, scientific research and other ships near Taiwan’s waters last month, the Coast Guard Administration (CGA) said, as Beijing dials up pressure on Taipei. The coast guard warned of an increasingly severe situation, as analysts say the increased activity is part of China’s bid to map the region for submarine warfare. The number of Chinese ships detected around Taiwan proper soared to a record 244 last month — an average of nearly eight every day, official data showed. That compares with 55 ships detected in June and 30 in May, and 58 in July last year. In
The Hualien District Prosecutors’ Office yesterday launched an investigation following allegations by a former foreign correspondent in Taiwan of widespread vote-buying in Hualien County. In an interview with Formosa TV (FTV, 民視) aired on Saturday, former Financial Times Taiwan correspondent Kathrin Hille spoke about Taiwan’s democracy and said that she now lives in rural Hualien, where “all the votes are bought.” Neighbors would talk about who had come by and leave cash on the table showing “how much each vote was worth that year,” Hille said. The practice needs to be addressed, considering Taiwan has been a democracy for many
Taiwan is bracing for heavy rain in the south and rough seas around outlying Lienchiang County (Matsu), as Typhoon Saudel passes north toward eastern China, with forecasters yesterday warning of localized flooding over the next two days. Saudel is expected to pass closest to Taiwan today, when its outer rain bands are forecast to brush past Matsu, before making landfall at about noon in China’s Zhejiang Province and weakening significantly, the Central Weather Administration said. The storm’s outer bands, combined with strengthening southwesterly winds, are expected to bring heavy rain to southern and southeastern Taiwan today, it said. As the storm approaches Matsu,
LIMITED: The bill’s NT$40bn annual spending cap would prevent Taiwan from effectively building up its drone combat capabilities, National Defense Minister Wellington Koo said The legislature yesterday rejected the Executive Yuan’s NT$210 billion (US$6.62 billion) special budget proposal to buy military drones and instead passed its own plan, which earmarks NT$40 billion per year over six consecutive years. The Executive Yuan said its plan to buy about 210,000 drones by 2031 could not wait, as the wars in Ukraine and Iran showed the importance of uncrewed systems in modern warfare amid a rising threat from China. However, the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) used their opposition majority to pass a bill providing NT$240 billion through annual budgets over six years, with annual
RSS