Timor-Leste’s Good Neighborhood Policy: An old myth?

The new cabinet has been formed a few weeks ago after dramatically efforts from the most voted party, a Revolutionary Front for an Independent Timor-Leste (FRETILIN) to form an inclusive minority cross-party government in Timor-Leste for a period of 2017-2022. The new government headed by Prime Minister Mari Alkatiri, an elder political generation, and the first Prime Minister since independence in 2002, and now returning on power after his resignation on 2006.

After he sworn on power and delivery his speech, Alkatiri have made a two critical affirmation that would be a central concern for his administration ahead, the first is institutional effectiveness and the second was external engagement. The latter continue to be more similar in some parts, although he have expressed the good neighboring policy as continued focus of external behavior.

However, I saw so much troubling and it’ll probably criticize for those of the living-institutional figures and elderly politician that supplying the state principles for both domestic and internationally, but in all it just intend to make some counter-mind on this holly constant need of good neighbor principle that highly needed to defended from national leaders.

Timor-Leste is a newest nation-state and one of the poor Asian country that currently enjoyed a relative stability. While Timor-Leste has proved it’s democratic consolidation that revolved around political and social stability, and successfully promoted via it’s leadership in a global South forum such as g7+ and  former Portugues speaking language group(CPLP), therefore, a new cabinet are expected to asserted a seriously economic agenda to forging ahead a highly disparate society to faces up a dispersed economic challenges in the future.

Timor-Leste’s external engagement well set to be activism, but for it’s own region it continually suffered minuscule influence. In neighboring, Australia despite of Dili’s biggest donor, but was regarded as a reliable partner due to the past deceptive action on the East Timor incorporation to Indonesia until the ongoing talks on maritime boundary dispute and the existence oil and gas in the Timor sea. In another, with Indonesia, an important trading partner and former de facto administrative power over Timor-Leste, which since the independence, both relation evolved gradually to shifted from cooperation toward the brotherhood countries.

In another, from senior national leader such as Xanana Gusmao and Jose Ramos-Horta and those from government official and academia have been clearly speaking and proposed on how importance of the good neighborhood on Timor-Leste foreign policy, and this was inevitably reality. Thus,  it  is not only inherit on states relation, but when it comes to local society, as socially interpretes “when a family suffering, neighbor come in first assistance”. This can be reflecting on Australia lead military intervention after the militia-lead violence in 1999 and communal conflict in 2006.

Most immediately, Horta criticize to a Japanese journalist Jun Suzuki on his recently published paper on Nikkei, that he demonstrated a growing influence of Chinese in Timor-Leste that could have to fired a concern for Australia and Indonesia, and Horta responded on his official facebook page by comparing the importance and more engaging of US, Australia, Indonesia, Portugal, European Union with those of Chinese for many aspects that generated the pattern of security and defense cooperation until the economic domination and influence in Timor-Leste.

However that, when it came to foreign policy, it’s constitution was the major kind of construction on facilitating the fundamental ideas on how to engage in externally. In it’s short point, Timor-Leste outside behaviour shall have to maintain a non-alignment principle and playing an ever-increasingly the good neighboring within the moral-guided foreign policy.
This good neighboring principle has fueling it’s existence on the anarchic international system and move towards to self-accommodated into the regional security community of Southeast Asia. The principle aimed to serve this small state’s grand strategy that pursuit to ensure a durable peace on the region, where it belong to.
While the problem inhibit on the sacral of good neighboring policy on ensuring it’s independence via those are geographically closed to each other or shared the direct domain of borders with Timor-Leste, where in fact, it is a myth and expressed a limitation of strategic culture that could be best to define a properly activism in light of good neighboring on the geographical proximity in regional and globally.

Mongolia for instance, is a land-lock countries surrounded by both great power such as the territorial expansionist Russia and the economic powerhouse of China, but it has no direct territorial dispute and political tension with these two giant, while to maintain it’s security and deeper engagement with international community as well as global economy, Ulaanbaatar enhancing it’s distant geographical strategic partner with US that, they have defined as a third neighbor. As Peter Drysdale from East Asia Forum wrote that, Mongolia’s confidence in it’s dealing with it’s powerful neighbour and in it's diplomacy around the world is no accidental outcome.  Cuba is in another, it has proven to act effectively in securing their survival, while closely friend and ally with Soviet Union-socialist block and neighboring with United States, it’s central enemy which in the meantime was the global hegemonic power.

Despite of their utility, a claims from some politicians and intellectual in Timor-Leste, perhaps it reflected on an outdated and incoherent of perception from national leader that continued to perceive Timor-Leste position in the vulnerability essence in dealing with regional strategic environment, particularly with the essentially part of Indonesia and Australia in securing Timor-Leste’s long term stability and independence.

The way how Timorese leader define the neighbor can’t be simply derived from geographical factor, but on how far they could play an art of neighbor with distant neighbor in an amicable and balancing way.