Dr John Chipman
Thank you very much. I think we will return to the panel now. Many of the questions were addressed to Juwono Sudarsono on the Indonesian navy, on the Indonesian/Singapore defence and cooperation agreement, and the like. We also had questions for the Philippines on your arrangement perspective with Australia and I am sure the foreign minister would like to also address one or two of the questions relating to cooperation which some of the other countries.
Professor Juwono Sudarsono
Thank you John. On the question posed by Mr Prakash on the capacity of building between the two navies, we look forward to any kind of exercise with any external power to enhance our capability in the area of naval defence. Our country is too large and too complicated to be effectively policed by our defence and police security forces. We lose about 20 billion dollars a year from illicit traffic, illicit activities in and around the Archipelagic state of Indonesia. We have an interest in cooperating with our neighbours, principally with Singapore and Malaysia, to secure the safe passage of maritime traffic in the Malacca Straits because it affects our economy.
We would like to emphasise the need for capacity building. We have no aims to develop strike force capability beyond our borders because we have enough domestic problems to face principally poverty, unemployment and inequities in development. So we wish to assure our neighbours in the region that the real need for capacity building in our defence forces is to provide that semblance of governance which is necessary to provide economic development and economic recovery for Indonesia.
The link with the Malacca Straights has to do with oil prices in the Middle East because that affects our financial budget and that affects our defence budget. Our defence budget is less than 1% of GDP. Indonesia is now about 400 billion dollars GDP, but we spend less than 3.2 billion dollars a year on our tri-services. That defence budget is less than the defence budget of Singapore, so the contrast is very stark. One very large country, 220 million, about 80,000 kilometres and coastline, and Singapore very hot spot, laser-like precision defence, has a defence budget of 4.40 billion. That is why we have to work with our neighbours to develop a capacity and to fulfil and put substance in the notion of what we call sovereign defence particularly in maritime security.
At the moment I have been encouraging my naval officers to study in Japan, and one of my EDCs has been trained in Japan, he is a lieutenant. He went on a five-year course in the National Defence Academy in Japan and next September I will be visiting Beijing to try and get more young officers to be trained in China, so that our capacity to develop these linkages at the personal level as well as professional level will be developed.
In addition to links with defence training in Australia, in the UK, in the United States, etc which we have traditionally sent our young officers from all of the services, including from the navy. So we are doing our job and looking ahead, training young officers, captains and majors to be trained in defence management and defence planning to really learn from Japan, from China, from the United States, from Australia, to develop this capacity to interface among officers, united by profession, to secure the future of sea link communications in that area, in our area.
Barry Desker, I have just learned from you that the United States is considering it. I think one of the reasons why they did not accept the one clause in 1982 was with regard to seabed mining and the users of the American companies, the objections were related to the provision of the benefits of what we called common heritage for mankind was not in the interest of the American companies. I do not know what change has happened within the United States business community to allow for some reconsideration of the clause. I suspect that it has to do with some of the interface between the United States committee and Chinese committee because as I mentioned in my presentation, these two super lenders and super exporters are affecting the double deficits that the United States faces: the trade deficit and the current account deficit.
I think the realisation of the link between economics and security has registered its concern in the business community in the US United States and also in the house of congress, so I think there is a sea change in the mindset of many people within the United States congress, and my guess is this has to do with the economic linkages between the United States economy and the rise of Japan and China.
David asked what the United States and the DCA and Ache , I think all of the states that we interact with, principally, our neighbours, and including the United States, realise that the unity and cohesion of Asia is important not only in terms of the strategic waterways across the Straits of Malacca. Six senators endorsed the unity of Ache province in North Sumatra to Indonesia some four and a half years ago. That was a signal support, and very important politically for us, but also it showed the strategic interest of all the states, including the United States, in providing the governing of the Malacca Straits in the hands of Jakarta.
We did try to support the peace process on the basis of the strategic dimension, that it was in the interest of all parties using the Straits of Malacca not to have a separate state in the northern tip of Sumatra that would cause tremendous problems would affect the economies of all of East Asia and Southeast Asia because of the dangers to all supplies since 70% of the oil and gas from the gulf area passes through the Straits of Malacca and the Straights of Indonesia. It is in the interest of all states, including the United States, to provide that agreement.
