Chinese minority keeps low profile and private jets ready for a getaway

While the lunar new year was celebrated with fireworks and dragon dances in Beijing, Hong Kong, Singapore and other world capitals…

While the lunar new year was celebrated with fireworks and dragon dances in Beijing, Hong Kong, Singapore and other world capitals on Wednesday, Chinatown in Jakarta remained eerily quiet.

The usually crowded streets with their electronics stores and restaurants in the Glodok district were deserted. There were no lanterns or firecrackers, only an occasional police patrol.

The following evening, in stark contrast, dozens of open trucks packed with young Muslim men, some banging metal drums and waving flags, careered along the broad avenues of the Indonesian capital and jammed the city roundabouts as they celebrated the end of the month-long fast of Ramadan.

The Chinese did not observe their special day because the government had ordered them not to, under Presidential Instruction No. 14/1967 on Chinese religion, beliefs and culture, which stated the New Year should not be celebrated at Buddhist temples or in restaurants or public places.

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City officials said the ban was enforced to prevent ethnic riots which could erupt at any time. "We are afraid that if there were celebrations they could spark jealousy in some people," a public order official, Mr Toha Reno, said.

"The tougher action is needed because of what is happening nowadays. People could easily get angry over trivial things." Given the history of friction between Indonesia's Muslim majority and its six-million strong Chinese community, and the frightening new tensions caused by the economic crisis, the Chinese hardly needed to be told not to draw attention to themselves.

Indeed many of the most prosperous have already left the country, mainly for Singapore, apprehensive about what the future might bring.

Residents say Chinese children have quietly been taken out of expensive schools and sent overseas. The departing Chinese have transferred an unknown quantity - probably billions - of dollars abroad, contributing to the capital flight from Indonesia.

Their fears were understandably heightened when the armed forces spokesman, Brig-Gen Abdul Wahab Mokodongan urged newspapers two weeks ago to criticise ethnic Chinese business leaders for allegedly failing to join a "Love the Rupiah" campaign designed to assist the falling Indonesian currency.

"When they were wearing drawstring pants they needed us," he said. "Now they are wearing business suits they have gone away." Thirteen ethnic Chinese tycoons were singled out for special attention in a tactic of intimidation which critics say underlines the political insecurity of the Suharto government.

They received telephone calls from military officers pointedly asking them to join public efforts to turn dollars into rupiahs. Gen Wahab told the Jakarta Post that he "did not conceal his disappointment at their absence" as "they reaped so much profit when the economy was stable that it was natural to expect them on the front line". On top of this ominous warning, one of Indonesia's most respected Chinese businessmen and a spokesman for his beleaguered community was pulled in for questioning last week by the military after his name was allegedly found in documents at an apartment where bombs were allegedly being made for a communist cell linked to the outlawed People's Democratic Party. The attitude of the military underlines how the integration of the ethnic Chinese into Indonesian society, seen by many analysts as a matter of urgency, has been slow and ineffective.

In Dutch colonial times, the Chinese minority acted as middlemen and Indonesians were banned from commerce. The Chinese were consequently excluded after independence from the political and bureaucratic leadership and top academic posts. But during Indonesia's steady economic growth since the 1960s, the Chinese made many lucrative partnerships with wealthy and powerful members of the family of President Suharto.

The ruling elite used the regional networks of the Chinese to provide opportunities for friends and military officers, while Chinese tycoons gained access to monopolies and rights over natural resources and markets.. They generated economic growth and in return received preferential treatment from the regime.

An anecdote is told about one of the richest Chinese, Mr Liem Sioe Long, who last year moved his Indofood company to Singapore. Asked does he still own Indofood, he replies: "Yes, but it's gone to Singapore." What about Indocement? "Yes." And Indonesia? "Oh no, that's a joint venture with Suharto." The Chinese, many of whom are Christians, today make up about three per cent of the population but control about 70 per cent of the wealth. Eighty per cent of companies listed on the Jakarta stock exchange are controlled by Chinese.

This does not mean that there are not many poor Chinese in Indonesia. They can be seen in the streets near Jakarta railway station, thin and poorly dressed, some peddling cigarettes and trinkets. It is they and the small shopkeepers in East Java who are most likely to suffer at the hands of the mobs when things get worse, not the executives rumoured to have private jets tuned up for emergency getaway.

With the ending of subsidies on essential foods and fuels following Indonesia's bailout by the International Monetary Fund, prices are expected to rise sharply in the coming weeks. Chinese shops in East Java have already been attacked by mobs after rumours that they were hoarding rice and sugar.

Political commentator Prof Arief Budiman said recently the Chinese have always been used as a buffer. "The government uses the Chinese like a money machine. The Chinese have a SouthEast Asian business network, they are easy to bribe, and then they turn around and blame them - so the Chinese are very useful." Much has changed in Indonesia but memories of the last time chaos engulfed the country of 202 million people overshadow the Chinese. Then half a million people died followed a 1965 communist coup attempt and President Suharto's seizure of power. Many ethnic Chinese were killed by mobs under the pretext of fighting communism.