This weekend, Indonesian President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo will make his first state visit to Australia. Both nations have much riding on this meeting, which comes after years of tensions sparked by incidents ranging from the execution of the Australian ringleaders of a group of drug smugglers known as the Bali Nine to a controversy in January, when teaching material on West Papua — a restive Indonesian region that is home to a militant independence movement — was discovered at a Perth army base by Indonesian troops during a joint training exercise. The find led to a halt in defense cooperation.

Jokowi’s visit was originally planned for last November, but canceled following mass protests in the Indonesian capital by Islamic fundamentalists seeking the ouster of the city’s ethnically Chinese, Christian governor. It comes at a sensitive time in regional geopolitics, following Donald Trump’s first phone call as U.S. President to Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull last month. In the call, Trump criticized a refugee struck earlier between the two countries as “dumb,” accused Turnbull of wanting to export the “next Boston bombers” to America and all but hung up on one of Washington’s oldest allies.

For many, the diplomatic debacle surrounding the conversation between the two leaders should make Australia finally sit up, realize its place in Asia, and assess who its friends really are.

Asia has long been vital to Australia in terms of economic, military and political ties, but it has remained more of a transactional and pragmatic relationship rather than one based on a genuine cultural and emotional alignment, Ramesh Thakur, of the Crawford School of Public Policy at the Australian National University, tells TIME.

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