Jakarta Post

Agus Widjaja

JAKARTA (JP): Ever since the May riots, the controversial debate on the income disparity between pribumi(indigenous Indonesians) and Chinese Indonesians has raged with renewed vigor.

Some have argued that the Chinese Indonesians' entrepreneurial skills are rooted in the preferential treatment accorded them by the country's Dutch colonial rulers. The advocates of this "blame the past theory" claim that if it were not for this special treatment, this minority would not have achieved their present status in the Indonesian commerce, and thus would not have fared better than the pribumi.

One of those who subscribes to this argument is President B. J. Habibie. In a meeting with a foreign journalist a few months ago said that the Dutch has given the ethnic Chinese Indonesians a 360-year head start in Indonesian commerce.

The issue of racially characterized economic inequality in Indonesia is a complex and prickly one. Solving it will require honesty, time, and a strong political will. But confusion - particularly on the part of the authorities - between ethnic Chinese dominance in commerce and income inequality will make it even more difficult to solve. The fact that most Chinese Indonesians run businesses does not mean that all of them are wealthy. By the same token, the simple assumption that the Chinese, on the average, have a higher income than their pribumi counterparts, does not mean that all of them are entrepreneurs.

Governor-General Jan Pieterszoon Coen is not here to defend himself, but blaming the Dutch will not only turn a blind eye to the real cause of the issue but is unfair on the ordinary Indonesians of Chinese heritage who have achieved their own success through generations of hard work, perseverance, and resourcefulness.

Worse still, it is discouraging to the aspiring pribumi. It is as if telling them that what was implemented by the Dutch cannot be undone. That they will not be able to catch up with their fellow Chinese businessmen because they have lagged behind for 360 years.

This article is not intended to shed light on the increasingly urgent problem of economic inequality between the two races. Rather it is meant to provoke reader's critical thinking on the validity of such a convenient argument to an intricate issue. And to decide whether such an argument is indeed sufficiently supported by historical and demographic facts.

There are a few factors that strongly work against the validity of this argument, namely: 1) The Dutch left Indonesia 56 years ago; 2) The Chinese started trading with Malay kingdoms before the Dutch came; 3) Not every Chinese-Indonesian today is a trader; and 4) Ethnic Chinese minorities perform similarly well elsewhere.

The last Dutch ruler left Indonesia 56 years ago whereas most ethnic Chinese entrepreneurs today are aged between 35 and 55 years. Obviously, it doesn't take a historian to appreciate that few of these entrepreneurs were born when the last Dutch masters relinquished Indonesia.

Some of the post-independence ethnic Chinese tycoons were born prior to the Dutch departure, but they were still young children sitting in their elementary classrooms in 1942. The following ethnic Chinese tycoons and their ages are just some of the examples: Mochtar Riady 13, The Ning King 11, Ciputra 11, Budi Brasali 11, Ang Kang Ho six, Mu'min Ali Gunawan three. Sofyan Wanandi, Prayogo Pangestu, Syamsul Nursalim and most others were not even born.

The oldest among this generation of ethnic Chinese businessmen namely Liem Sioe Liong and Eka Tjipta Widjaja, were only in their early twenties. Assuming Liem and Widjaja, even at their very young age, were indeed granted favorable treatment by the Dutch in trading, would that have had an impact on the remaining eight million ethnic Chinese spread across the thousands of islands of Indonesia? Could these two men have nurtured the rest of the Chinese-Indonesians to surpass their pribumi counterparts in commerce and therefore create the economic gap that now exists between them?

Most of the business concerns started by the previous generation of Chinese immigrants in the colonial era ceased decades ago following the deaths of their founders. Oei Tiong Ham's concern and the business of Tjong A Fie did not survive the sixties. Indeed, ironically enough, Oei Tiong Ham concerns were confiscated by the Indonesian government in 1961.

If there are actually Chinese businesses formed in the colonial era which have survived until today I wonder if our government has really been keeping records of who owns and how they have actually contributed to the sharp contrast between the ethnic Chinese and pribumi entrepreneurs? How many of their assets or management skills acquired during the colonial days are actually significant today? And what impacts did they have in creating the perceived contrast in prosperity between the newcomers and the natives?

The first wave of Chinese traders came to the Malay archipelago almost 900 years before the Dutch did. Unlike the Europeans who came here to conquer, the docile Chinese came to trade. They arrived in the seventh century as seasoned merchants to trade with the Sriwijaya Kingdom. And by 1433, the Chinese traders under their Moslem Admiral Zheng-Ho have set up numerous trading posts in various seaports including Gresik, Palembang, Kupang, Banjarmasin, Tuban, Banten, and Deli.

Historical records also show that, instead of fostering the Chinese to become merchants, the Dutch actually exploited the already experienced Chinese merchants and their established network to supply them with food and other basic items.

The colonial masters moreover used these largely submissive oriental artisans and constructors to build their first town - Batavia. Contrary to what some would believe, the choice of using the Chinese is one of a necessity rather than preference. As Professor Bruce Glassburner wrote in his book The Economy of Indonesia the Dutch had no choice but to use Chinese commercial aptitude after failing to find others who had the skills or the interest in doing business. The profession as a merchant was considered lowly and risky and hence shunned by many pribumi at that time. The educated elite pribumi were more interested in being civil servants due to their perceived high status in the society, whereas the rural pribumi were more interested in cultivating land.

The relationship between the European masters and the Chinese was anything but cordial. The pribumi were not the only ones who had to submit to the domineering colonizers, the Chinese immigrants had to in just the same way. Instead of fostering the economic influence of the Chinese immigrants, the Dutch at times felt threatened by their growing dominance of local trade.

There were instances when the Dutch tried to limit the Chinese's scope of trading activities. Confining the Chinese in Chinatowns was evidence of such policy. Even though both groups were here to seek spices and other local products, the Chinese merchants bartered local products with porcelain and silk from China, while the Dutch transacted business under their guns and cannons.

Another consideration this argument has failed to take into account is the fact that like the pribumi, the Indonesians of Chinese ancestry today hold various different occupations. To think that every Chinese Indonesian is an entrepreneur and is therefore wealthier than his or her pribumi counterparts is completely absurd.

Out of the total number of Chinese heads of household, only a minority are entrepreneurs. Most of them are salaried employees. Other than those who are entrepreneurs and employees, there are also those who are neither entrepreneurs nor salary earners but instead earn a living as self-employed persons. Some of the examples are doctors, lawyers, language teachers, peasants, pedicab drivers, road side vendors, artists, priests, barbers, and beauticians.

It may be true that the percentage of ethnic Chinese entrepreneurs from its total population is higher than the percentage of pribumi entrepreneurs from the total pribumi population. But, again, this does not mean that most ethnic Chinese are entrepreneurs. For instance, assuming there are eight million ethnic Chinese in Indonesia and if the percentage of ethnic Chinese who are entrepreneurs is 30 percent of their total number or 2.4 million, whereas the percentage of pribumi who are entrepreneurs is only 10 percent of their total number of, say, 200 million, the number of ethnic Chinese who are not entrepreneurs is still higher at 70 percent or 5.6 millions.

Perhaps the biggest weakness of this argument is its failure to regard the achievements of ethnic Chinese minorities elsewhere. In order to better understand the racial/economic disparity in Indonesia, we should pause and take a look at similar issues in other countries where ethnic Chinese is involved.

There are ethnic Chinese minorities in other societies in the world where there was no native-Chinese-colonizer interaction, yet the Chinese are performing relatively well. Some of these societies are in the US, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Korea, and Japan.

On the other hand, there are also societies where native-Chinese-colonizer interaction exists similar to what we have here in Indonesia. The Chinese minorities in Tahiti, Fiji, South Africa, Guam, and Suriname have made remarkable contributions to their respective economies for decades. It is worth noting here that instead of getting support from the European immigrants or colonizers, quite often the Chinese immigrants had to face direct competition from them.

In the United States, the ethnic Chinese represent nearly 10 percent of the nation's 67,000 medical students while the Chinese minority only makes up one percent of the overall population. The Chinese youngsters also score remarkably highly in tests in primary and high schools. Chinese-Americans' median family income is approximately $43,000 and their college completion rate is 42 percent. This surpasses any other racial or ethnic group in the country including whites. In comparison, the US national gross per capita income is about $30,000.

Instead of being accused of getting preferential treatment, Chinese-Americans are often depicted by the US Government as America's model minority because of their self-reliance and high achievements in education and finance.

To argue that sino-Indonesians' renown in commercial acumen and perceived better prosperity stems from assistance of the colonial ruler is arbitrary and lacking in historical facts and demographic statistics. As a head of state Habibie should not echo this argument before doing his homework. The government is responsible for surveying and maintaining credible records on the population's income, race, occupation, age, etc. They should have the statistics and historical facts in place and study them thoroughly before making suggestions about the population.

Not every Chinese Indonesian is Liem Sioe Liong or Eka Tjipta Widjaja. There are seven to eight million Indonesians of full or partial Chinese parentage spread throughout the archipelago and holding many different occupations. Some are wealthy but many are poor. It is no secret that the ethnic Chinese in Kalimantan are living from hand to mouth.

Those who succumb themselves to this "blame the past theory" can be best described with the Indonesian saying: Ibarat katak dalam tempurung which literally translates as: "Like a frog in a coconut shell". They are somy myopic in their outlook that they have failed to see the facts beyond their immediate surroundings.