Indonesia’s Breach With China

Press, Volume CVII, Issue 31499, 13 October 1967, Page 14

Indonesia’s Breach With China

The civilian element in General Suharto’s Government has consistently opposed demands for the severance of diplomatic relations with China. Now, when it appeared that a breach was inevitable, the moderating influence of the Foreign Minister, Mr Malik, has prevailed. Relations will not be broken off; they will merely be frozen—a novel but undoubtedly a sensible expedient Indonesia simply cannot shrug off responsibility for the safety, if not the well-being, of its Chinese community, estimated to number between two and three million. Some Chinese have had family and business roots in the islands, notably Sumatra, for three centuries. Most of them have had no association at all with China. Nor does Peking want them, stripped as they would be of their substantial accumulated wealth. The half-hearted arrangements for repatriation from the refugee camps in the Medan region of north Sumatra showed that very clearly last year. Peking offered to provide one refugee ship; Djakarta refused co-operation in any form. The difficulty is increased bv the fact that there is no Indonesian minority in China. Expulsion from Sumatra—which has the world’s largest overseas Chinese community—would mean that the Chinese there would have nowhere to go

Provided Mr Malik’s moderate group can control the present crisis—which means keeping a check on military as well as student extremism—the “ freeze ” could lead to a readjustment of ChineseIndonesian relations. Already the hate campaign against the Chinese has been moderated. It is probable, indeed, that the savage rioting in Djakarta last April shocked members of the Government into realising that something would have to be done about the Chinese problem. General Suharto set up a commission to examine “ all aspects ” of the racial situation. Apparently no report has yet appeared; but certain ameliorating legislation has been passed. In April of last year all Chinese schools were closed, depriving some 200.000 children of their schooling. The Government has since decided that Chinese and other aliens may attend Indonesian schools provided they do not form a majority of pupils in any one school. The rolls of Indonesian citizenship have also been reopened to Chinese in an effort to assist the long-delayed processes of assimilation.

The Chinese, economically, are a powerful minority. The Government is well aware not only that It cannot wholly dispossess them, but also that the economy cannot do without their exceptional skills tn trade and commerce. They have been banned by Health Department regulations from practising as doctors, dentists, or pharmacists, and no doubt will continue to be harassed by restrictive regulations in other fields. But the trend is towards tolerance, even if progress is slow. There have been no outbreaks of racial violence since April; the students have confined themselves to attacks on the Chinese embassy in retaliation for violence against embassy staff in Peking. Clearly General Suharto’s Government will not permit the repatriation of Chinese diplomats while Peking refuses to release Indonesian staff held there.

The pause, however, wall give time for reflection on both sides. If there is to be a reconciliation, Peking will have to abate its own provocations—its open support for the banned Communist Party in Indonesia, for example, and its call, in a “ Red Flag ” editorial in July, to the Indonesian people “ to over- " throw the Suharto-Nasution fascist regime It will take restraint in both capitals to turn the current “freeze” into a thaw.