Indonesia election: Widodo has courted Chinese cash. He’s about to find out the cost

Critics accuse President Joko Widodo of not protecting the country’s national interests in his drive to attract foreign investment from Beijing

Amid an increasingly charged political climate, anti-Chinese sentiment could be manipulated for political purposes, as it has been in the past

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Indonesians at a campaign rally on the resort island of Bali on March 26. Photo: AFP

Published: 1:00pm, 29 Mar 2019Updated: 1:22pm, 29 Mar 2019

Since Indonesia first established diplomatic ties with the People’s Republic of China in 1950, relations have been complicated – and more than those with any other country, continue to impinge on domestic affairs to different degrees.

Indonesia’s ethnic Chinese community asserts significant influence over the national economy and because domestic dynamics tend to serve as the primary drivers of the country’s foreign policy, public opinion – and that of the elite – is divided over the rise of China, which is seen as both a threat and an opportunity.

Increasingly close economic ties between the two countries, particularly under current President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo, have come in for growing domestic criticism, which is becoming more politicised in the run-up to the presidential election on April 17.

STATE OF TIES

Jakarta and Beijing established diplomatic relations on April 13, 1950, but these were frozen on October 30, 1967 by Indonesia’s military-dominated New Order government led by General Suharto, largely over suspicions that China was backing the Communist Party of Indonesia.

The Chinese in Indonesia were viewed with distrust and jealousy by indigenous communities, which was not helped by the efforts of successive governments in Beijing to mobilise support from Overseas Chinese. Suharto’s administration forced people of ethnic Chinese descent to assimilate completely into the local culture, and they were forbidden from publicly expressing their Chinese heritage.

But at the same time, a few major ethnic Chinese conglomerates were granted special economic privileges. Thus, the monopolistic practices and crony capitalism of the increasingly corrupt and repressive New Order regime again led to rising anti-Chinese sentiment. Anti-Suharto demonstrations in the midst of the Asian financial crisis in 1998 were marked by anti-Chinese racial riots in many parts of the country.