Jakarta is a city that knocks you around in the first year. If you survive that, use what you have learnt in year two, then invariably, Indonesia becomes the country that you can’t let go of. When I arrived in Jakarta in late 2010 for my posting in the ABC bureau as the Australia Network […]
Let’s Try Harder To Build Trust With Indonesia
At a conference on people-smuggling in Jakarta in mid-February, retired lieutenant general and former trade minister Luhut Panjaitan suggested Australia needed to reclaim “trust” if it wanted to rebuild relations with Indonesia. Not surprisingly, Panjaitan, a veteran of the invasion of East Timor, reminded the small audience of the loss of trust Indonesians felt over […]
Indonesia: A Golden Opportunity On Our Doorstep
It wasn’t that long ago that the world was mesmerised by the rise of Japan. I remember well the repercussions in the United States and elsewhere over Japan’s state-directed capitalism. Japan was, in the 1980s, the market to emulate. The Japanese had just-in-time management. Employees were loyal and highly productive. Japanese business models spread internationally […]