The Jokowi Administration is not the first Southeast Asian government to use name changes to obscure adverse developments on the water in the South China Sea.
Two back-to-back decisions have left Indonesia more religiously polarised than ever. One was politically inept, the second deeply unjust. Both may come back to haunt the Jokowi government.
Jokowi’s main interest is economic cooperation. As he joked in Sydney: 'Let’s talk more about economics, I don’t want to talk a lot about politics – it gives me a headache'.
We are so accustomed to hearing ministers spruik the close relationship between Indonesia and Australia, it can be easy to forget that tensions still simmer below the surface.
Finding common ground in the Australia-Indonesia bilateral relationship is getting easier these days, driven by two shared strategic realities: China is coming; and the US is going.