Black May 1998: 6th Commemoration (40 of 40)

Radio Australia
October 21, 2004
-transcript-

INDONESIA: Ethnic Chinese Fear Discriminatory Economic Policies

As Indonesia's new leadership team confronts the challenge of revitalising the country's moribund economy, concern is being expressed in some quarters about how the government plans to implement reform. Indonesia's ethnic Chinese are especially worried that they could be the victims of discriminatory economic policies. Changes have been foreshadowed by the new vice-president, Jusuf Kalla.

Presenter/Interviewer: Marion MacGregor

Speakers: Edi Lembong, Chairman of the Chinese Indonesian Association; Sofyan Wanandi, Indonesian Chamber of Commerce; Jusuf Kalla, Vice President of the Republic of Indonesia (2004-2009).

MacGregor: Jusuf Kalla is no stranger to controversy. He was kicked out of the Indonesia's biggest party Golkar for running alongside Golkar rival Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono. Now as the president's second in command, the 62-year old businessman will have plenty of opportunities to stir the pot.

In the weeks before the September poll, Jusuf Kalla made it clear in his typical direct style that Indonesia's Chinese minority simply wasn't big enough to make it onto the election campaign radar.

Kalla: The Chinese community is only three or four percent in this country. In economics they are very important, but in elections three percent I mean not so important compared with the others.

MacGregor: What's worrying many Chinese Indonesians now is how that approach will translate into policy over the next few years. They've become especially jittery since the Jakarta daily, 'Sinar Harapan', quoted the vice-president last week saying he was considering changes to lending policies, that would lower interest rates on loans to a group mainly comprised of Pribumi or majority Indonesian businesspeople. As Jusuf Kalla explained in that pre-election interview, he wants a level playing field.

Kalla: We need affirmative action to increase the SMEs, Small and Medium Enterprises, to get a balance in economy, harmony in economy. Chinese community don't like that policy.

MacGregor: Not true, according to the chairman of the Chinese Indonesian Association, Edi Lembong.

Lembong: We, the Chinese Indonesian association genuinely and wholeheartedly would like to support the facilitating of weaker economic group, but without making any distinction based on ethnicity. Practically we have to admit, the truth that most of the weaker economic group belong to the so-called pribumi people, but we reject the idea of based on ethnicity.

MacGregor: So if the weaker economic group that was predominantly made up of indigenous or pribumi traders were offered soft loans, you wouldn't be against that?

Lembong: No, because there are also many many poor Chinese business people.

MacGregor: Even though by Jusuf Kalla's own admission, it would be 'pribumi' Indonesians who would benefit most from the changes, he denies that they're ethnically-based. At the same time he says the policy would reduce discrimination against Chinese Indonesians, whose economic success he says was what led to riots in 1998 in which over a thousand Chinese Indonesians died.

Kalla: Because this is important see for Chinese, if too many gap between small and medium usually Chinese, every five years there are firing, there are conflicts. This means for the security of Chinese, needed affirmative action.

MacGregor: That's a position that the Indonesian Chinese Association strongly rejects.

Lembong: We certainly will not agree with him about his analysis that the May riots of '98 was a direct cause of the gap between the wealthy and the poor people. We don't agree with his vision.

MacGregor: Some of Jusuf Kalla's critics are also concerned that he's trying to re-introduce a variation of the so-called Sistem Benteng, created by founding president Sukarno... a system that provided direct loans to pribumi business people and gave them control over the distribution of food.

But Sofyan Wanandi, who chairs the economic recovery committee of the Indonesian Chamber of Commerce says those claims have no basis.

Sofyan: During Sukarno time there was policies that the government is doing against discrimination against the Chinese community, and giving a lot of facilities to the pribumis. You know the problem now what everybody is talking about Jusuf Kalla according to me is not true, that he would like to come back to that old process. You know he's a businessman sometimes he is too direct, but cannot explain that in the right way and that creates a misjudgement also from the Chinese community about him. And according to me it's quite fair enough, but I don't believe there will be a policy from the government to discriminate and have a racial policy specially against the Chinese, I don't believe that.

Black May 1998: 6th Commemoration (39 of 40)

SBY Through Chinese Eyes
By Jeffrey Robertson
Asia Times (Thursday, October 14, 2004)

An ex-military, US-educated president may seem like a stroke of strategic luck for Washington. But looking at Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, or SBY, through Chinese eyes reveals a different story.

Yudhoyono, Indonesia's first president chosen through direct elections, has a staggering popular mandate. After a gruelling eight-month campaign marked by tempestuous debate, the odd intrusive interview and no less than three electoral contests, Yudhoyono has the confidence of the Indonesian people - but what are his policies?

The majority of commentators have noted that the election campaign was run largely on character rather than policy detail. And indeed, few details exist beneath the catch-phrases of fighting corruption, restoring economic growth, invigorating job creation, improving education and enhancing security. Even fewer details exist regarding foreign policy.

Foreign policy for Indonesia, like other regional states, is growing more and more difficult to perform. It is an increasingly treacherous high-wire act that necessitates balance between an economically important China and a demanding, security-focused United States. With China laying down the foundations of what may become a future regional dominance, and the United States interested in the region only as an extension of an overt focus on the Middle East, where does Yudhoyono stand?

The election of a US-educated military stalwart in Indonesia conjures up images of happy faces in Washington, salivating at the chance to further squeeze the links of al-Qaeda hidden in the world's most populous Islamic state. Yudhoyono has visited the US no less than five times for military education and maintains good relations with political and military leaders in Australia.

Indeed, on the face of it, Yudhoyono seems to be everything the US could have hoped for. He graduated at the top of his class at the national military academy, trained with US forces - including a stint in jungle warfare in Panama, commanded an infantry battalion, served as a chief military observer with the UN peacekeeping force in Bosnia, and impressed the US with his stern condemnations of terrorism as President Megawati Sukarnoputri's coordinating minister for politics and security. To an analyst in Washington, Yudhoyono holds all the punch of a 1970s military strongman a la Pinochet, with the decorations and trimmings of democracy to boot.

However, there is evidence to suggest that unless US diplomacy can be revived from its recent fit of unilateralism, Yudhoyono may yet prove to be a feather in China's strategic cap.

Throughout the election campaign, Yudhoyono touted foreign policy as an extension of domestic policy. Key domestic policies of fighting corruption, invigorating job creation and fixing the education system were expressed in foreign policy terms, such as the attraction of greater foreign direct investment, Indonesian competitiveness and the promotion of trade.

Importantly, Yudhoyono also has focused on security as a domestic problem - not one specifically requiring international cooperation. For a country such as Indonesia, this makes sense. From Jakarta, the perceived threat to Indonesian security does not come from international terrorist groups with limited local support but from long embedded, regionally popular secessionist groups, which threaten the very territorial integrity of the archipelago state.

For countries such as China and Indonesia, where the threat to security is often domestic in nature and political violence remains on the mind as a recent phenomenon, the threat of international terrorism cannot be accorded the same status as it is in the West.

Indeed for many Indonesians, the Bali and Australian Embassy terror bombings, both of which focused international attention on the country, do not compare to the threats they face every day, including communal violence fanned by regional, ethnic and religious tension, secessionist violence, or the lingering potential of a military coup.

It is this level of understanding that is absent in US approaches to combating international terrorism in the region. It is a level of understanding that may prove crucial in improving China's role in the region - along with its near-equal ability to offer economic incentives.

From all accounts, Yudhoyono is above all a pragmatist. His learned, academic nature, and his military experience, combined with his humble, devout Islamic background make him a man unlikely to embrace bold change. This gives China the upper hand.

The US seeks immediate change in Indonesia's efforts to control international terrorism within its borders. This potentially includes the outlawing of Islamic fundamentalist group Jemaah Islamiyah, greater controls on religious schools and action to ensure the conviction of prosecuted terrorists. US and Australian approaches in these areas have in the past placed undue pressure on Indonesian governments, essentially weakening their position to carry out the desired changes.

China's aims in the region are more long-term. It seeks to promote China's position on territorial integrity - specifically regarding Taiwan, continue pragmatism regarding the South China Sea territorial disputes, establish a secure and stable regional energy resource and more closely integrate the economies of China and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). These aims are conveniently congruent with Yudhoyono's policy aims and, if anything, will empower him and China to achieve more.

Without a change in US diplomacy, the choice for Yudhoyono will be between the immediate and unpopular dogmatism of the "crusade" on terror, or the long-term pragmatism and shared understanding of a rising China.

After the appointment of his cabinet early this month and a formal acceptance speech during his inauguration on October 20, the next indicator will be which way Yudhoyono heads on his first major foreign visit - East or West?

Note: Jeffrey Robertson is a political-affairs analyst focusing on Australian relations with Northeast Asia. He currently resides in Canberra, Australia.