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Donald Trump’s trade war risks changing the Asian power balance, forcing Indonesia to move from its historic stance of neutrality to get closer to China. Duncan Graham reports.
Jakarta is not a charmer, but her assets are attractive. Beijing and Washington have long been wooing the Indonesian capital for her strategic power and influence. She’s stayed coy until now, but the time has come to decide. It’s been hastened by discovering that one suitor is coarse, brutal, untrustworthy, and ignorant.
That’s not just President Donald Trump. His Defence Secretary, former TV host, soldier, and alleged public drunk Pete Hegseth couldn’t name the ten nations in ASEAN. The 57-year-old regional block representing double the US population was founded and headed by Indonesia with the encouragement of then-President Lyndon Baines Johnson.
Another insult: While the US put on a fireside chat with a powerless president since departed, China staged a State banquet for Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto, red carpet, honour guard– the works for a guest who loves parades and protocols. Beijing was the first overseas capital the leader visited after his election. He has yet to meet Trump, a fellow egotist.
US President beware. Indonesia embraces Russia, BRICS to build trade … and military
Losing face
There’s been a face slap: Prabowo’s government has already killed a 3,000-hectare resort project on Bali involving Trump and his Indonesian business partner billionaire Hary Tanoesoedibjo. Previous President Joko ‘Jokowi’ Widodo had reportedly given the deal tax breaks and permits.
So, the choice forecast by some Indonesian academics has been made.
The lover will be China.
Economists, the market and big traders will be delighted with the match. But many relatives and friends will feel anxious for there’s a strong streak of Sinophobia in Indonesia. Jealousy is rampant, and primitive hatreds lurk.
President Prabowo knows his people’s prejudices and will have to assure pious citizens that there’s no hidden deal for the kafir (godless) to take over as they tried in the 1960s.
After the upstarts were purged, Communism was banned, and its treacheries hammered hard in schools, unis and the media. Indonesia’s McCarthyism still draws breath in right-wing crevasses.
Are the Reds returning, not through Das Kapital but the renminbi currency? Indonesia already owes more than $US27 billion, mainly borrowed during the 2014-24 term of President Joko ‘Jokowi’ Widodo for infrastructure projects and nickel smelters in Sulawesi.
Corruption
Along with corruption, Sinophobia is a nasty and dangerous side of Indonesia’s otherwise alluring culture. The topic is largely taboo; the government prefers to highlight jolly lion dances and shows that promote unity and tolerance.
There’s little need to hunt for examples of discrimination as in Australia. In Indonesia, it’s commonplace across the archipelago. To Australians who believe in and practise equality, the scene in many small shops is distasteful. The undertone is distrust.
In central East Java, where this keyboard is being tapped, local stores selling hardware, electrical goods, food, kitchen needs and medicines are run by Chinese families.
Against many back walls is a small platform – like the teacher’s stage common in old classrooms. The elevated owner sits at a desk strewn with paperwork, keys and mobile phones. She watches all, missing nothing and no one. The Javanese staff stepped up and gave her money and customers’ accounts.
She checks the sums, stabs the calculator and counts the change. The rest gets swept into a drawer. When she needs a break, a grandchild takes over, often much younger than the employees.
There’s a lot of shouting; the boss and staff seem to get on OK, but that’s cosmetic.
The toilers know that however hard they work, they’ll never rise in the ranks.
The shadow of 1965
Resentment lurks just below the surface. Following the 1965 coup allegedly engineered by Communists, second President Soeharto oversaw the slaughter of maybe 500,000 real and imagined Bolshies, a genocide revealed in detail by Australian scholar Dr Jess Melvin.
In May 1998, riots in Jakarta, Medan and other cities saw the Chinese and their businesses trashed. Queensland University research claims at least 1,000 were killed and 400 raped. Stores were looted and firebombed. The police and military were allegedly involved.
Only 3% of the Republic of 280 million are ethnic Chinese, but they reportedly control 75% of the nation’s wealth and more than 80% of the largest companies.
Their wallets have been filled through smart cash-lined links with generals wanting silent partnerships and politicians with permit powers.
A more benign explanation is that the ethnic Chinese work hard, prize education, treat women as equals and spend more time facing the till than Mecca. A minority have become Muslims and built exclusive mosques, though funding far more temples.
Most are Christian. They’ve donated big sums to build glossy churches as launch pads to heaven but, as a side effect, splitting the faithful. More than 80 denominations are ecumenical Protestants.
Chinese banking dominance
They also control the banks, and the reason is ironical. Soeharto ordered the ethnic Chinese to change their names to sound more Indonesian, banned Mandarin and forbade military and public service.
So they turned to banking, a service they now dominate. The Chinese, known politely as Chindos or Tionghoa, rudely as bacin (equal to the N-word), aren’t all tycoons. Many are poor and live in overcrowded kampong, but in the minds of bigots seeking scapegoats, their facial features make all residents of ostentatious villas jacking prices of basic foods.
Some families have been in Indonesia for centuries. They’re Indonesian citizens; few speak Mandarin or read Hanzi, though that’s changing as some youngsters are studying in China and seeking their roots.
They stay close to their clan – marriage to pribumi (Indigenous Indonesians) or ‘bule’ (Westerners) is rare. Human rights champion and fourth President Abdurahman (Gus Dur) Wahid reversed Soeharto’s restrictions, and the oppressed came out.
Indonesian neutrality
Since 1948, Indonesia’s foreign policy has been “rowing between two reefs.” Then came the idealism of fifth president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono’s “a million friends and zero enemies”,
an impossible position now that brash and immoral Trump is in power and showing his claws.
The now slashed US$153 million USAID programme for Indonesia targeted corruption, climate change, education and health. There are reports Australia might fill some gaps.
By comparison, Xi Jinping looks acceptable. He may be a sinister ‘commo’ schemer, but unlike Trump, he stays refined – a singular factor for traditional Javanese like Prabowo; his focus on manners rather than detail led him to be outfoxed by Chinese diplomats negotiating the South China Sea nine-dash line.
The PRC is Indonesia’s biggest trading partner, mainly exporting coal and refined materials. The shops are full of Chinese gear. Pragmatically, the Beijing union is inevitable and positive for trade.
There’s just the remaining problem of Sinophobia.
“Sit down, shut up, get money”. Indonesia’s Prabowo shifts back to the right
Duncan Graham has a Walkley Award, two Human Rights Commission awards and other prizes for his radio, TV and print journalism in Australia. He now lives in Indonesia.