The Australian government may have first announced its cuts to foreign aid six months ago, but in Indonesia they are widely perceived as a reprisal for the Bali nine executions.
Indonesia is Australia's largest aid recipient, so it is self-evident the republic will be hit by the 20 per cent cut to Australia's overall foreign aid budget in 2015-16.
But in Indonesia - where the population is still smarting from Tony Abbott's clumsy link between the $1 billion in tsunami aid and the lives of the two Australians - the cuts are seen as punitive.
"Canberra's latest move suspiciously looks like a retaliatory backhand aimed at Jakarta," trumpeted an editorial in the Jakarta Globe, suggesting the aid cut was likely to push the already strained relationship to a "new low".
The generally sober newspaper even suggested Indonesians would be reminded of former president Sukarno who memorably told the US to "go to hell with your aid" in the mid 1960s.
Indonesia has not quite told Australia to go to hell with its aid, but some of the rhetoric is coming close.
At a press conference last week Foreign Ministry spokesman Arrmanatha Nasir baldly stated that Indonesia no longer needed help from other countries or international organisations.
"The assistance provided by Australia is their effort to strengthen our partnership, so it is their right to give it, but Indonesia did not ask for development funding assistance," he said.
Aid expert Peter McCawley from the Australian National University said Australia needs to consider how Indonesia will respond to the cuts.
"We should not assume they will do nothing," he said.
Dr McCawley, a former AusAID official, said the Australian public tended to view aid as philanthropic. However the Indonesians viewed it as something Australia does to achieve its foreign policy objectives.
"I think it's clear that there is a questioning to what extent Indonesia should receive foreign aid and under what conditions they should receive it," Dr McCawley said.
Indonesia famously refused aid from the Netherlands in 1992, after the Dutch government became increasingly critical of former president Suharto.
"This shows Indonesians are capable of responding," Dr McCawley said. "It would be useful for Australia to recall what happened to the Dutch program."
