Editing Paul Keating (section)

===Foreign policy===
{{See also|Australia and the Indonesian occupation of East Timor#Keating era Keating era 1994–98}}
[[File:Clinton Keating.jpg|thumb|upright|Keating with [[President of the United States|U.S. President]] [[Bill Clinton]] (left) in 1993]]

Throughout his time as prime minister, Keating took a number of steps to strengthen and develop bilateral links with Australia's closest neighbours; he frequently said that there was no country in the world that was more important to Australia than [[Indonesia]], and undertook his first overseas visit to the country, becoming the first Australian prime minister to do so.<ref>{{cite news|last=Sheriden|first=Greg|title=Farewell to Jakarta's Man of Steel|work=The Australian|date=28 January 2008|url=http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,23118079-5013460,00.html|access-date=30 December 2008|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160322053012/http://www.theaustralian.com.au/nocookies|archive-date=22 March 2016|url-status=dead}}</ref> Keating made a conscious effort to develop a personal relationship with [[President of Indonesia|Indonesian President]] [[Suharto]], and to include Indonesia in multilateral forums attended by Australia. Keating's friendship with Suharto was criticised by human rights activists supportive of [[East Timor]]ese independence, and by [[Nobel Peace Prize]] winner [[José Ramos-Horta]]. The Keating government's cooperation with the Indonesian military, and the signing of the [[Timor Gap Treaty]], were also strongly criticised by these same groups. It was alleged by some that Keating was overlooking alleged human rights abuses by the Indonesian government as part of his effort to dramatically increase Australia's cultural, diplomatic and economic ties with Asia.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.abc.net.au/worldtoday/stories/s57063.htm |title=The World Today&nbsp;– 5/10/99: Howard hits back at Keating over criticism |publisher=Australian Broadcasting Corporation |date=5 October 1999 |access-date=31 July 2012 |archive-date=10 November 2012 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121110213709/http://www.abc.net.au/worldtoday/stories/s57063.htm |url-status=live }}</ref>

Following the creation of the [[Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation]] (APEC) Economic Forum by [[Bob Hawke]], Keating developed the idea further, winning the support in 1993 of recently elected [[President of the United States|US President]] [[Bill Clinton]] and [[Premier of the People's Republic of China|Chinese Premier]] [[Li Peng]] to expand APEC to a full Leaders' Meeting. This led to APEC becoming one of the most significant high-level international summits, and at the 1994 APEC Leaders' Meeting, hosted by Indonesia, members agreed to the Keating government's proposals for what became known as the [[Bogor|Bogor Declaration]], which set targets for a significant increase in free trade and investment between industrialised APEC countries by 2010 and between developing APEC countries by 2020.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.pecc.org/resources/regional-cooperation/601-back-to-canberra-founding-apec/file|title=Back to Canberra: Founding APEC|website=Pecc.org|access-date=28 June 2022|archive-date=29 March 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160329012108/https://www.pecc.org/resources/regional-cooperation/601-back-to-canberra-founding-apec/file|url-status=live}}</ref> In December 1993, Keating became involved in a diplomatic incident with [[Malaysia]] when he described Prime Minister [[Mahathir Mohamad]] as "recalcitrant". The incident occurred after Mahathir refused to attend the 1993 [[Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation|APEC summit]]. Keating said "APEC is bigger than all of us&nbsp;– Australia, the U.S. and Malaysia, and Dr. Mahathir and any other recalcitrants." The translation of the word "recalcitrant" into Malaysian rendered the word a more egregious insult, and Mahathir demanded an apology from Keating, threatening to reduce diplomatic ties and trade drastically with Australia, which became an enormous concern to Australian exporters. Some Malaysian officials talked of launching a "Buy Australian Last" campaign; Keating subsequently apologised to Mahathir over the remark.<ref>{{cite news |first=Philip |last=Shenon |title=Malaysia Premier Demands Apology |url=https://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9F0CE0DB113EF93AA35751C1A965958260 |work=The New York Times |date=9 December 1993 |access-date=16 June 2008 |archive-date=20 February 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240220054918/https://www.nytimes.com/1993/12/09/world/malaysia-premier-demands-apology.html |url-status=live }}</ref>