Jokowi and Anti-Chinese Policy

KOMPAS/DIDIE SW

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A study from just one decade ago found that the majority of Muslim mass organization leaders in Indonesia did not see China as a threat to Indonesia’s national interests, unlike the United States, toward which they felt animosity.

Indonesian Muslim leaders often perceived Deng Xiaoping’s country as a friendly nation, much like Saudi Arabia. They were not suspicious of China’s foreign policy or that it might harm Indonesia’s interests. In the eyes of these religious figures, neither the US nor China were committed to upholding democracy and human rights. The relatively easy access these figures had to information on US policies, especially in the context of Islam and terrorism, compared to the minimum insight they had on Chinese policies, might explain these different perceptions. This was one of the findings in a 2009 Maarif Institute study that aimed to find out the Muslim mass organization leaders’ perceptions on the foreign policies of other countries, including the US, Australia, China and Saudi Arabia (Ul Haq, 2017: 233).

Less than a decade has gone by, and we now find anti-Chinese sentiment stirred up on a massive scale and even fabricated in daily conversations in the public space, especially in social media. Much of it constitutes hoaxes and outright lies. Ahead of the 2014 presidential election, the Obor Rakyat tabloid spread the hoax that President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo (then just a candidate) was of Chinese descent and hailed from a family of communists. This narrative was a deliberate attempt of character assassination to undermine the former Jakarta’s governor’s electoral chances.

Once he was elected, Jokowi continued to be hit with such false claims. His administration is subject to a never-ending assault by political forces accusing his administration of advancing Chinese interests and siding exclusively with Chinese Indonesians.

Parties disappointed with and angered by the Jokowi-Kalla administration produce fearmongering narratives of economic colonization and the migration of millions of Chinese people to Indonesia. A handful of projects, including the Meikarta development, the Jakarta Bay reclamation program and the presence of Chinese workers in Morowali, Central Sulawesi, are exploited as purported evidence that “the Chinese are coming!” Several opposition elites, both in political parties and other groups, are seemingly enjoying the New Order’s propaganda legacy of exploiting anticommunism, anti-China sentiment and Islamophobia. The people are becoming increasingly politicized, divided and polarized.

A late 2016 study by Saiful Mujani Research and Consulting (SMRC) revealed the five most disliked groups by Indonesians: the Islamic State (25.5 percent), LGBTs (16.6 percent), communists (11.8 percent) and Jews (5.0 percent). Negative sentiment toward Chinese people was only 0.8 percent. Between 2001 and 2016, negative sentiment toward religious minorities (including Christians) and the Chinese people were stagnant. Anticommunism decreased the most over the 15-year period, from 29 percent (2002) to 11.8 percent (2016). Such findings show that fabricated anti-China sentiment and anticommunist sentiment are created and highly politicized by elites to attract potential voters.

Non-monolithic

Chinese Indonesian sinologist Leo Suryadinata categorized the Chinese diaspora’s attitudes toward mainland China in three general perspectives. The first comprises those who wish to maintain political and cultural ties with mainland China. The second are those wishing to maintain only cultural ties with mainland China. The third are those wishing to cut all political and cultural ties with mainland China. The first group has no presence in Indonesia.

In his speech at the plenary session of the Indonesian Independence Preparation Investigative Assembly (BPUPKI) on July 11, 1945, Liem Koen Hian, leader of the Chinese Indonesia Party (PTI) founded in 1932, urged for the recognition of Chinese Indonesians as Indonesian citizens in the draft of the Constitution. The party promoted Indonesian nationalism among Chinese Peranakan people and fully supported Indonesian independence (Suryadinata, 2005:119).

Karen Strassler said the Chinese Peranakan people’s involvement in establishing an independent Indonesia led to interethnic collaboration and proved that the nation was rooted in cosmopolitanism (Heryanto, 2018: 227). Chinese Indonesians had equal standing with those of Arab, Indian and Japanese descent. It was the New Order’s repressive politics that froze Chinese Indonesians’ diverse identities into a monolith, with all of them perceived as supporting the political whims of mainland China, where the Communist Party of China (CPC) rules as the sole governing party. The New Order’s anticommunist propaganda led to its anti-Chinese policies.

Chinese Indonesian figures have proposed solutions to ensure the ethnicity’s acceptance among Indonesians and to prevent racial attacks against the people. Junus Jahja (Lauw Chuan Tho) proposed total assimilation. Becoming Muslims is seen as a way for Indonesians of Chinese descent to be accepted by native Indonesians, considering that Islam is the country’s majority religion and assuming that religious solidarity would trump racial issues. Harry Tjan Silalahi has a different opinion. He saw that the integration of Chinese Indonesians into the larger Indonesian society would be a more adequate solution, considering Indonesia’s diversity.

Ironically, the New Order regime afforded Soeharto’s Chinese-Indonesian cronies special treatment in business. Nevertheless, many Chinese Indonesian businesspeople were pressured by the government’s monopoly policy. What is often forgotten in all of this is the huge number of poor Chinese Indonesians. They are often forgotten and have no place in the discourse on economic disparities. A Confucian community leader of Chinese descent in West Java once said proselytization by missionaries from Germany had seen many of his people convert to Christianity due to economic factors. He could not hide his anger.

Collective agenda

No other leaders of this country have been associated by their opponents with being of Chinese descent and supporting communism as harshly as Jokowi. The nation’s problems with China and communism are rooted in the preservation of the New Order political construction. Political courage and sincerity of all national elements is necessary to correct past mistakes and collectively find alternatives for the sake of national integrity. This will not be easy and, oftentimes, it hurts.

We need to reflect upon two recent political phenomena to break down the walls of ignorant identity politics and achieve reconciliation to put behind us quarrels of the past. The first is the support of Malaysia’s Democratic Action Party (DAP) – known for having widespread support in Chinese Malaysian communities – for Mahathir Mohamad’s Pakatan Harapan (PH) coalition. This had a huge role in toppling former prime minister Najib Razak. In the election campaign period, the leader of the Malaysian Islamic Party (PAS) – part of Razak’s Barisan Nasional (BN) coalition – had accused the DAP of hostility toward Islam and claimed that PH’s agenda was not in line with Islam.

The second phenomenon is the recent parliamentary election victory of the Saairun coalition in Iraq, comprising the Istiqama Party and the Iraqi Communist Party, which will form a collective government. The Istiqama Party is controlled by renowned cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, whose father Muhammad Sadiq al-Sadr opposed communism and secularism six decades ago. Wallahualam.

Fajar Riza Ul Haq, Member of Board of Supervisors, Maarif Institute for Culture and Humanity