Chinese Indonesians in Post-Suharto Indonesia: Democratisation and Ethnic Minorities by Chong Wu-Ling (review)

Chong Wu-Ling’s book is one of the latest additions to the growing number of titles dealing with the Indonesian Chinese in the post-Suharto period. The book was based on her dissertation submitted to the Department of Sociology at the National University of Singapore in 2014. It seems though that the book has not been sufficiently updated. It includes the July 2014 Presidential Election (on page 127, about half a page), but not the April 2014 parliamentary and local parliamentary elections.

The book is divided into two parts. Part I (pp. 25–60) covers the history of the ethnic Chinese and the resultant creation of a Chinese “pariah class” (p. 13) in Indonesia. This is followed by a discussion on recent developments of post-Suharto Chinese communities as well as democratization and ethnic Chinese in Indonesia. Part II (pp. 61–167) deals with the Chinese, especially businesspeople who became more visible after the fall of Suharto, together with their role and participation in electoral politics. These two parts are not well integrated; there is rich and interesting information on the post-Suharto Chinese Indonesians but it is not directly relevant to the major theme of the book.

The last section of Part II (pp. 120–67) is actually the core of the book. It focuses on the political participation of ethnic Chinese, particularly Chinese businesspeople in Medan and Surabaya where the author conducted her fieldwork. This part of her study is original and hence makes a new contribution to the existing literature. She also noted that Chinese Indonesians are not homogeneous culturally, arguing that Medan Chinese are more likely to speak Chinese while Surabaya Chinese are more likely to speak Indonesian. This division has coloured local Chinese politics.

As I see it, the author wanted to achieve two objectives in this book: to test Anthony Giddens’ theory of structure-agency against the post-Suharto Chinese Indonesian situation on the one hand, and to establish the relationships between democratization and Chinese businesspeople on the other. She noted that Giddens’ argument is largely correct, as Chinese businesspeople were not passive actors but were active actors in the political process in protecting their business interests.

The author argues that the Chinese Indonesian businesspeople were a “pariah class” (pp. 61–62), as they could not be independent and needed protection in order to survive and develop. They therefore needed to continue old practices, i.e., to collaborate with the indigenous elites/power holders, using bribery and even gangsterism to achieve this objective. As a result, the author maintains that Chinese Indonesians continued to be seen as playing a negative role in the ‘democratization’ process in the country.

The author divides local Chinese politicians into two types, the reform-minded on the one hand and the self-interested and self-centred on the other. The former consists of social activists while the latter comprises businesspeople. The local Chinese associations were also divided in their support for the Chinese candidates. There was no ethnic solidarity amongst the Chinese. The divided Chinese votes and political environment eventually led to the victory of conservative non-Chinese candidates in the local elections.

In the author’s view, Chinese businesspeople “on the whole … are both the victims and perpetrators of the muddy and corrupt business environment” (p. 116). She also notes that “many, if not most, Chinese businesspeople in post-Suharto Medan and Surabaya are agents of status quo instead of agents of change” (pp. 118–19).

To substantiate her arguments, she selected seven local Chinese politicians, three from Medan (namely Hasyim aka Oei Kien Lim, Sofyan Tan and Indra Wahidin aka Huang Yinhua) and four from Surabaya (Dede Oetomo aka Oen Tiong Hauw, Eddy Gunawan Santoso aka Wu Jiping, Simon Lekatompessy and Anton Prijatno; the last two do not have Chinese names or surnames). She tended to identify Hasyim, Sofyan Tan and Dede Oetomo as reformists, while the rest...