442 replies to this topic

[Liang Jieming]

At 20 million Chinese, that would make the Chinese in Indonesia the largest group outside China!

Malaysia - 8 million
Singapore - 3.5 million
Thailand - 6 million (I think)
Philippine - not clear because many chinese have become so integrated as mestizos that they themselves no longer consider themselves chinese.

Most overseas chinese, despite the hype about how rich they are, are actually quite poor. The gap between rich and poor amongst the chinese themselves is very large. The richest person in SEA is a Chinese, but we also have some of the poorest families in SEA.

It will be difficult to change things. As minorities (even sizeable minorities) in the various countries, they will always be subject to the whims and fancies of the majority.

Using the European descendants in the US & Australia as examples, they only achieved favourable conditions for their own people when they out-numbered the local population. They were lucky because they had only small local populations to deal with (and when this wasn't the case, the gun helped make it so, like in Tasmania). This is unlike SEA where the Chinese entered already well populated lands and not wide empty spaces. SEA was already seats of small local kingdoms and the chinese settled as traders. So for the last 1000 years, we are still trying to find an accomodation with the local populace, some more successfully than others. This millenium year old question will not be easy to solve.

Jieming

[Liang Jieming]

"The Qing did give serious thought to taking punitive measures in 1740. This should caution us against too sweeping a claim that China was a 'world empire' that could see nothing to be gained from involvements with economies beyond its own borders. Indeed, one of the major arguments in favour of a trade embargo to punish the Dutch for the massacre was that if not properly chastened, the Dutch might mistreat the next group of Chinese who came to trade, just as they had mistreated their long-term Chinese residents. The major argument against a ban was the deleterious effect it would have on the lives of hundreds of thousands of people on the south China coast. The crucial distinction was that those who remained based in China were entitled to imperial protection when they traded with and traveled to southeast Asia; but those who settled elsewhere were not." (Kenneth Pomeranz, "The Great Divergence" p. 203 - bold face added by me)

Which is why we're the way we are. The Qing government gave serious thought but no action. Same thing with the Ming government. They also gave serious thought about retaking Melaka from the Portuguese but again, no action. If they had acted, even with a minor show of strength we would be in a much better position today and many of the later day massacres probably not occur. It was partly this apathy from the Chinese government that left the overseas chinese in the cold. We were "criminals" & "pirates" in their eyes anyway. ;-)

The funny thing is, right after the 2nd WW, the CCP government did position itself as the protector of the huaqiao for the first time in chinese history (but for political reasons, to spread communist revolution). This had the exact opposite effect and further alienated the overseas chinese from the local populace because suddenly every chinese was suspected of being communist. So I guess, when the overseas chinese would have best benefited from a show of strength from China, they didn't get it, but when it would not help the overseas chinese, they got it. hehehehe

Anyway, thankfully they dropped that idea fairly quickly or many of us would be languishing in jails, labelled as left-wing revolutionary elements.

Now that China is finally "respectable" in the world's eyes, would another round of "championing" huaqiao rights work for, or against their interests? I really don't know. The overseas chinese have learnt to stand on their own in many places in the world today. Maybe what is needed is not a strong champion China, but rather a strong chinese network similar to the Anglo-network of UK, US, Aus, NZ, Cad & SA.

Jieming

[cniht]

The traders in china has economical benefits to the qings i.e tax. Whereas the settlers that went abroad are generally (most if not almost all) poor southern commoners who tried their luck overseas to escape the overcrowding, lack of employment, famine, poor conditions in mainland. E.g qings do not bother much about the "sold" chinese labour "cheated" to "jin san" (san fransico). For the southeast asian (overseas) chinese, they do not pay tax and has no benefits (in addition which the nothern qing mandarins very often look down on southern china chinese). Therefore (and also pratically) qing has no "economic" reasons to bother about them even though these chinese are "son, grandsons of yan huang"(yan huang zi sun).

The ignorance of the government played a more decisive role. The government forsook its subjects in the first place. It did not encourage migration overseas as other nations that afterwards became world powers, like Britain, Spain, etc. If the government offered protection to the overseas Chinese and demanded tax payment, the latter would hardly refuse, I believe.
The North Superiority Complex is evident even today. Being a Fujianese, I find this distasteful.

[snowybeagle]

When it comes to the crunch, poor chinese eat tree barks and leaves too unless their more well-off relatives help.

I thought I mentioned it before but if not, I will do so again.
As impoverished as the poor Chinese Indonesians are, most if not all do have a network of friends and relatives to fall back on to avoid starvation. These friends and relatives are not necessarily well off, but they will not see their kin or kith literally go hungry. Chinese Indonesians are usually equipped for some manual labour and the Tiong Huas will find some jobs or other.

A comparison would be what I observe in America.
Excluding the illegal workers who paid "snakeheads" to smuggle them into the US without any local contacts, one can observe that the poor Chinese Americans in Chinatown have a network of friends or relatives to tide them through.

While masterminds made use of poor people, it still depends on the individual poor people "willingness" to harm/burn/loot.

This is just my personal observation, but I do believe the lower-social-strata "native Indonesians", especially the Javanese and the Madurans, tend towards hot headedness and aggressions, and demonstrated an eagerness to violence with little agitation. These two groups have a reputation even among other native Indonesian groups.

I am not saying all of them are like that. Among the Javanese and Madurans are wonderful artists, musicians etc who directed their passions in non destructive manners.

I could relate incidents I heard or witnessed, but it would just be the observations of one person.

Maybe this incident from the past will show how "unreasonable" they could be.

During the Konfrantasi incited by Sukarno, apart from border incursions in Borneo, coastal landings in Peninsular Malaysia, Indonesia also despatched a marine unit secretly into Singapore. They bombed a well known and busy commercial building, causing losses of lives.

Two of the Indonesian marines were caught, tried by the courts in Singapore and sentenced to death.

By that time, Suharto had taken over power in Indonesia and the Konfrantasi was ended. Diplomatic appeals to Singapore were rejected and the two marines were duly executed.

Years later, the then Prime Minister of Singapore had to offer flowers at the graves of the executed marines before relationship between Indonesia and Singapore could be normalised.

[Hendrik_2000]

I do agree with the posting of snowbeagle The only hope for Indonesian Chinese is the Indonesian Elite start working for their own people instead for their own personal interest
Because unless the living standard of urban Indonesian improve,Indonesian chinese will suffer if riot broke up

But here we are encountering the cultural damage that was done because of 30 years of kleptocracy
You see javanese like japanese are very hierarchical society they looked up to the their leader or elite and usually follow whaterver the leader does or say

Now after 30 years of kleptocracy they now see that is the normal thing of doing business instead of Doing service to the the people The Indonesian elite see position in the goverment as a way to enrich oneself and one family

Not only that Indonesian political system is so outdated since most of them are direct copy from Dutch colonial goverment where the goverment duty is to control a COLONY! not to provide service to fellow citizen

I give an example most of governor, regent or other offical are appointed and not selected by the people so they have no sense of duty to the people they are only responsible to their bosses who usually expect a tribute from him! in the form of money where this poor official get the money ?

Only this year they direct presidential election ususally they the president are elected by electoral college That's way they are noramly subject to bargaining and backroom dealing It's not necessarily the best politician who become the president but the most manipulative people!

[Spc4]

Hmm, noone has mentioned any lessons from this.
Jews were persecuted everywhere for being successful minorities. The solution is to find a home. (not getting into the israel-palestine conflicts)
If Japan with its resource-devoid islands can support its own people, China definitely can.
Please take this into account as each of us plans our lives.

[HaSY]

well........i will add more info on Indonesian Riot

**************Viewer discrestion advised*************

US$6 reward for raping a Chinese Indonesian; Ethnic Chinese men forced to rape daughters and sisters

http://www.colorq.or...esia/Reward.htm

Chinese apartment block attacked by gangs of rapists

http://www.colorq.or...esia/Vivian.htm

Ethnic Chinese teenager commits suicide after gang rape by Indonesian mob

http://www.colorq.or...sia/suicide.htm

Chinese churches and homes burned and looted; government officials pass anti-Chinese statements

http://www.colorq.or...nti_Chinese.htm

Gangs of grave robbers desecrate Chinese tombs in Indonesia

http://www.colorq.or...esia/graves.htm

Chinese woman forced to watch gang rape and burning death of her sisters

http://www.colorq.or...sia/Jakarta.htm

well.....there's many more......up to you to discover more.....

many(including me) do not know coz it's well covered up by the government

[Suhana LIM]

Let's face it, the Indonesian government is unbelievably corrupt and whenever the economy is doing badly in Indonesia (whether due to corruption or meddling by the IMF and/or World Bank), people look for scape goats. The Chinese community is a handy scapegoat because some of them are very rich, tend to keep to themselves and hire mostly Indonesians at low wages. There are also religious differences as well, namely between Indonesia's large Muslim population and the Chinese minority.

And so, whenever the government looks bad in the eyes of the ordinary Indonesians, they deflect all the blame onto the rich Chinese. And guess what, the average poor Indonesian believes them and then riots and violence happens. So even poor ethnic Chinese get attacked.

What is unusual about the Chinese is that they're not particularly politically active. This is going to hurt them in the future. When you think about it, many other richer ethnic minority groups tend to lobby local governments to protect their rights. Despite all this violence against the ethnic Chinese, they DON'T participate in politics. Weird. In this day and age, it's important they do.

Da jia ni men hao

Glad the fellow hua ren keep their eyes open and watch this tragedy.
As the Chinese born and grew up in indonesia, I can tell you how hard it was and is.
To date, there are some changes compare to few years back. But the discrimination is still there. There used to be www.huaren.com site, that provided quiete clear information about the "Rape of Jakarta 1998", but thanks to the hacker, that site is not so up to date.

Cheers.

[Liang Jieming]

Suhana Lim, welcome! Tell us some of the experiences you've encountered as a Chinese in Indonesia. Which part are you in? Jakarta?

[Suhana LIM]

Suhana Lim, welcome!  Tell us some of the experiences you've encountered as a Chinese in Indonesia.  Which part are you in?  Jakarta?

Liang Jieming ni hao

Thanks for the welcome. Yes, I was born and grew up in Jakarta.
Sigh! I am sure, we the hoakiau in Indo is the most racial discrimination savvy on this planet. Throughout history, so many racial incidents towards the hoa kiau, with the culmination in May 1998, The Rape of Jakarta.

The moment you are born, then you will start to face the ugly discrimination treatment. So many documentations required, which mean not only money but stress for obtaining them. Then, when you reach 17 years old, you have to arrange your ID. Again, must spend more money and stress. In your ID, because you are hoa kiau, they give "special code."
When you want to enter uni, especially state uni, no matter how good your result in the test, there is unwritten rules that the native must be prioritise for the place.
If you have an ambition to have a career in armed forces or police, civil servants better forget it!
Again, there is unwritten "understanding" that these sectors are not for hoakiau.
When it's time to leave the world, again your family must deal with the stress and of course money, to arrange the death certificate.

Cheers.

[bluebird]

when can i see a strong, powerful and united China again!!!

BTW:miss Han and Tang Dynasty!!

[Suhana LIM]

when can i see a strong, powerful and united China again!!!

BTW:miss Han and Tang Dynasty!!

Da jia ni men hao

I'm sure we will witnessing this in the near future.

Cheers.