Why Chinese-Indonesians don’t have to hide any longer
Community was scapegoated in the violence that followed the Asian Financial Crisis, but in a post-Suharto, newly democratised country, their identity is no longer a hindrance
They are young and rich, scions of some of Indonesia’s most prominent commercial dynasties. And they’re not afraid to show it.
The latest generation of Chinese-Indonesian tycoons have come far since the dark days of the Asian Financial Crisis, when their parents and grandparents faced not only financial ruin but the threat of violence and murder as they became scapegoats in a spiralling, racially-charged chaos that left their factories looted and burned.
The new, mostly third-generation, leaders of family conglomerates run by the Riadys, Widjajas, Tanotos, Salims and Ciputras no longer feel the need to shun the limelight as many of their ancestors did. In a post-Suharto, newly democratised Indonesia, they are happy to be the highly-visible faces of their firms: their identities, achievements and wealth now something to be celebrated rather than hidden.
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Among the most prominent is John Riady, 31, the grandson of Mochtar Riady who founded the Lippo Group as Lippo Bank in 1948. John has helped diversify its business into property, insurance, media and technology, and grown its a presence in China, Hong Kong and Singapore. The company has recovered from near collapse in the crisis in 1998 to a position of great strength – according to Forbes, the Riady family and its Lippo Group are worth US$2.2 billion today, and he is building on this.
So far is the reversal of fortune that today John, who is leading the company’s charge into e-commerce, talks of the progress the country has made in capitalising on its racial, religious and cultural diversities. He told This Week in Asia that today’s Indonesia was “inspiring in its ability to be welcoming to and absorbing of so many different diversities, and yet still preserve the core identity that holds us together ... this requires a unique combination of humility and confidence that few societies have”.
Taking a similar high profile is Fuganto Widjaja, 35, the grandson of Eka Tjipta Widjaja, who in 2001 lost his Bank International Indonesia business and defaulted on US$14 billion worth of debt.
Fuganto, who holds senior roles in the family conglomerate’s main businesses, including as Chief Executive Officer of Golden Energy Mines, rose to prominence with a high-profile global bidding war he won against British financier Nathaniel Rothschild to acquire a UK-listed company mining coal in Indonesia. He has helped to build his family’s commodities and resources-based SinarMas group back into a position where it is now an international player listed in Singapore and the Indonesian partner of China’s AliBaba in Indonesia.