What’s made Indonesian students forget the China taboo?
Not that long ago, having a Chinese book was strictly prohibited in Indonesia. But now the country’s young people are attending Chinese universities by the thousands
Jevon Tantono is a confessed “mechatronics geek”. His eyes light up when he talks about the possibility of studying this mash-up of mechanical engineering, electronics, computer engineering and telecommunications. His dream job is to build industrial robots.
For him, there is only one place to chase that dream: China. Indonesia’s universities don’t have a mechatronics programme and Tantono would be stuck studying mechanical engineering were he to stay in his home country.
“That’s very much my second choice,” says Tantono, 18, the light fading from his eyes at the very idea.
Tantono, one of dozens of students at a recent university fair in Medan featuring many of the top institutes in China, is part of a growing wave of young Indonesians who are happy to cast aside the complex and difficult history between the nations in pursuit of studying in China – a taboo notion until recently.
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China is welcoming these students with open arms. There are 14,000 Indonesians studying in China, according to government data. Last year, Beijing announced it had created 197 full scholarships for Indonesians who would like to pursue undergraduate and graduate degrees. In 2015, there were only 15 full scholarships set aside for Indonesians.