3 - Indonesian Government Policies and the Ethnic Chinese: Some Recent Developments

Summary

This chapter aims to examine Indonesian government policies towards ethnic Chinese with special reference to recent and new developments. However, as Wang Gungwu has noted in one of his books, “[I]t is not really possible to understand what seems to be new, without reference to the past.” I shall thus present a historical background before discussing the various government policies.

PRE-COLONIAL AND COLONIAL PERIODS: THE ORIGINS OF THE ETHNIC TENSION

The Chinese had arrived in Southeast Asia in general and in Indonesia in particular long before the coming of the Western powers. Some of them were Muslims, and their numbers began to increase in the fifteenth century, coinciding with the seven voyages (1405–32) of Admiral Zheng He. These Chinese Muslims posed no problems for the Indonesian population as they were able to assimilate into the local communities.

However, the position of the Chinese began to change after the coming of the West, especially after the Dutch had established their colonial rule. The Dutch divided the inhabitants in the Dutch East Indies (colonial Indonesia) into at least three racial groups: Europeans (particularly Dutch), foreign orientals (particularly Chinese), and the indigenous people. These different racial groups played different economic roles. The Dutch were in the wholesale business, the Chinese in intermediary trade (acting as middlemen), while members of the indigenous population were farmers and small traders.

In fact, the Dutch introduced this “Divide et Imperia” (divide and rule) policy to bolster their colonial rule. They feared that if there was racial unity between the indigenous people and the Chinese, it would threaten and even put an end to their colonial rule.

The separateness of the Chinese from other racial/ethnic groups in colonial Indonesia was a fact of life. However, the Chinese themselves were divided into at least the singkeh (totok) and peranakan (local-born with mixed blood). The rise of Chinese nationalism in the early twentieth century also resulted in the reorientation of the Chinese in Indonesia towards China. Modern Chinese schools were set up and many ethnic Chinese children began to learn the Chinese language and Chinese culture. The Tiong Hoa Hwee Koan (THHK) movement, often known as a pan-Chinese movement, broke out in the Dutch East Indies. The Dutch authorities attempted to suppress this “overseas Chinese nationalism” by introducing the Dutch citizenship law and establishing Dutch and native schools for Chinese children.