New generation: Today, more Chinese Indonesians have ventured into politics such as Hary Tanoesoedibjo (left) and Grace Natalie. — Bloomberg/Reuters
“WHAT will become of us after October?” asked a Chinese Indonesian woman in her 50s at a recent social gathering in Surabaya. The source of her worries: the inauguration of Prabowo Subianto as Indonesia’s next president on Oct 20.
Yet, 100m away at another table, a group of Chinese Indonesian businessmen in their early 30s were discussing how best to start new ventures under likely initiatives to be launched by Prabowo’s incoming administration.
Just as it was during the 2023 presidential race, the ethnic Chinese community – the 15th largest among Indonesia’s grouping of 145 major ethnic groups – is divided over what awaits them under a Prabowo administration.
Broadly, views are split along generational lines. For older members of the Tionghoa community, a Prabowo presidency is viewed with apprehension. They point to his alleged involvement in the May 1998 riots which saw Chinese Indonesian homes and businesses attacked and Chinese women sexually assaulted.
Prabowo has repeatedly denied his role in masterminding the violence, stoked by accusations that Chinese Indonesian businessmen were to blame for the financial crisis sweeping across the country then. But his denials have not dispelled the anxiety and suspicions among older generations of Chinese Indonesians. The sentiments are particularly strong among the over-60s and 50s and, to a lesser degree, among those in their 40s.
Both groups lived through anti-Chinese discrimination policies under President Suharto’s rule from the late 1960s till 1998. Prabowo’s former status as Suharto’s son-in-law and his successful military career during the New Order era have resurrected the old spectre of repression of Chinese Indonesian identity and culture. Older Indonesians remember policies such as the 1966 injunction for Indonesians of Chinese descent to “indigenise” their names. Other forced assimilation policies included a ban on public celebrations of Chinese New Year and the display of Chinese characters.
But the suspicions about Prabowo carry less weight with younger Chinese Indonesians; millennials born between 1981 and 1996 and Gen Z, born between 1997 and 2012, mostly grew up in the post-Suharto era, marked by the undoing of restrictions against Chinese Indonesians by successive presidents.
Cina, Tionghoa, Chindo
Suharto’s immediate successor, BJ Habibie, lifted the ban on the learning of Mandarin in 1999. In 2000, President Abdurrahman Wahid ended restrictions on Chinese customary practices and public celebrations. In 2002, President Megawati Sukarnoputri went further by declaring Chinese New Year a public holiday.
In 2014, President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono revoked a 1967 rule on using the word “Cina” – now deemed to be derogatory – to refer to both China and the Chinese, reverting to the earlier Hokkien-derived terms of Tiongkok and Tionghoa.
If how Indonesian Chinese are defined is a marker of evolving attitudes, then we are now in the midst of a new phase – when young Chinese Indonesians are openly and proudly discussing aspects of their lives as “Chindos” (short for Chinese Indonesians). The term, which once was used mostly among Chinese Indonesians themselves, has now become part of the wider Indonesian lexicon.
The changes are not only the result of the fading memories of the past but also driven by technology. The increasing use among Indonesians of social media on smart phones from the 2010s onwards – Databoks, an Indonesian statistics site, put Indonesian social media users in 2024 at 91 million or 73.7% of the total population – has also seen the emergence of young Chinese Indonesian influencers and internet celebrities.
The new generation
Among them: rapper Rich Brian, who has attained international fame through his YouTube channel, and podcaster Deddy Corbuzier, whose Instagram account has over 12 million followers. Chinese Indonesian celebrity chefs like Edwin Lau and the Poernomo brothers regularly appear on national television.
Gen Z Instagram celebrities Evelyn Hutani, Steven Wongso and Andi Sugiarto Budiman (better known as AndySugarrr) openly discuss Chinese Indonesian customs and facets of life previously unknown to non-Chinese Indonesians.
Podcaster Indah Gunawan (IndahG), known for delving into socially sensitive issues, highlights urban pop culture and intellectual trends among the privileged classes of the JakSel (South Jakarta), where many affluent Chinese Indonesians live. The high profiles of these young Chindos and the freewheeling banter about being Chinese Indonesian would have been been unthinkable during Suharto’s time.
Growing up under markedly different circumstances and interracial dynamics from their parents and grandparents, millennial and Gen Z Chinese Indonesians understandably have a more upbeat worldview and do not instinctively classify their fellow Indonesians as being “pro-Chinese” or “anti-Chinese”.
Sociology professor Bagong Suyanto of Surabaya’s University of Airlangga, who is also chairman of the university’s faculty of social sciences, sees a change in attitude for the better towards Chinese Indonesians with the passing of the Suharto era in 1998. “This new open-mindedness is especially prevalent among Gen Z Indonesians, who have a more global awareness of issues and are more accepting of differences.”
As to the phenomenon of young Chinese Indonesian social media influencers opening up on their Peranakan culture, he said: “Creating a public discourse about previously taboo subjects such as relations between Chinese and non-Chinese and even poking fun at stereotypes break barriers and are a step in the right direction.”
To be sure, breaking social barriers is not an easy or one-off affair. Over the years, obstacles have fallen. Special citizenship certificates called SBKRI are no longer required of Chinese Indonesians while Confucianism – known as Konghucu in Indonesia – is recognised as one of the country’s six religions.
Government and politics
Since 1998, Chinese Indonesians such as former Indonesian Cabinet minister Mari Elka Pangestu and ex-Jakarta governor Basuki Tjahaja Purnama, popularly known as Ahok, have become prominent in government and politics.
Today, more Chinese Indonesians have ventured into politics. They include media mogul Hary Tanoesoedibjo, the founder and chairman of the Perindo party launched in 2014. Garnering 1.28% of the national votes in the 2024 legislative election, Perindo is represented in President Joko Widodo’s Cabinet by another Chinese Indonesian, Angela Tanoesoedibjo, who is currently Vice-Minister of Tourism and Creative Economy. Then there is Grace Natalie, a former media presenter and one-time chairman of PSI, a party now led by Widodo’s youngest son Kaesang Pangarep. She now sits on the party’s advisory council as vice-chair and is tipped to feature in Prabowo’s Cabinet as well.
But it is also the case that Ahok offers a cautionary note on how anti-Chinese sentiments can be mobilised for political purposes, given the right circumstances. Ahok was sentenced to two years’ jail in 2017 after he was accused of blasphemy by Islamist groups for comments made while running for a second term as Jakarta governor.
So what is one to make of Prabowo’s attitudes towards Chinese Indonesians and China?
Throughout his 2023 campaign, both the incoming president and his running mate Gibran Rakabuming Raka went out of their way to reassure Chinese Indonesian voters.
Prabowo appointed 32-year-old Chinese Indonesian businessman Anthony Leong, an NUS Business School alumnus, as national coordinator of his digital campaign team. At a campaign event held at a church in Jakarta, Gibran told the congregation: “Rest assured that all will be safe. I personally vouch this to you.”
Before being confirmed as president-elect by the Constitutional Court, Prabowo in March paid his first foreign visit after the election to Beijing, at President Xi Jinping’s invitation.
Dr Leo Suryadinata, Indonesian-born Sinologist and visiting fellow at the ISEAS – Yusof Ishak Institute, has argued that there are sufficient indicators Prabowo “may have shed his anti-Chinese military persona and become a pro-Chinese diplomat”.
In part, this has likely to do with Prabowo’s interests in reinforcing Indonesia’s cornerstone principle of being “free and active” in diplomacy while telling the world he would carry on President Widodo’s policy of fostering close ties with China. It helps that China was the second-largest foreign investor in Indonesia’s economy in 2023, just behind Singapore, with the US lagging in fifth position.
Changing perceptions
To be sure, the old stereotype of Chindos having extraordinary economic advantages for a minority group of their size has not gone away. For instance, it resurfaced in December 2023 when Indonesian netizens on X voiced their suspicion that the popular culinary show Master Chef’s judges were biased in favour of Chinese Indonesian contestants when Belinda Christina Sianto was declared the winner of Season 11, beating a non-ethnic Chinese rival.
Yet, what was also notable in the ensuing debate was the lack of rancorous questioning of Chindos’ right to being a member of the Indonesian “family”; a privileged minority perhaps but still Indonesian. This was in contrast to the far more negative perception of them during the Suharto era. Then, Chinese Indonesians were considered aliens and likely dangerous Chinese communist sympathisers to boot. Now, Prabowo happily shares a wefie with his cat Bobby and the visiting Chinese ambassador.
No longer viewed as “foreigners in their own country of birth”, Chinese Indonesians, numbering an estimated 2.8 million out of a total population of 270 million, are today more integrated if not fully assimilated into the wider family of Indonesians.
While older generations remain wary of a Prabowo presidency, younger Chinese Indonesians seem largely unperturbed by the prospect. If anything can be said of Chinese Indonesians, they have proved themselves as survivors. Adapting to dramatically changing circumstances over the years, they have come a long way from being sojourners of the Dutch colonial days with their race-based hierarchies, through the tumult of the Suharto years to the present age of Chindo internet celebrities. — The Straits Times/Asia News Network
Johannes Nugroho is a journalist and political analyst based in Surabaya, Indonesia.
