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This chapter explains the objectives, theoretical framework, literature review, scope of research, methods of research, and chapterisation of this study. This study adopts a combination of Anthony Giddens’s structure-agency theory as well as Pierre Bourdieu’s notion of habitus and field as a framework for examining the strategies and tactics that Chinese Indonesians adopt to safeguard their business and personal interests as well as their ethnic and cultural identities in the post-Suharto era. Medan and Surabaya were selected as field sites for this study because both cities are economically and politically significant. Moreover, there are certain interesting contrasts in regard to their Chinese populations. The methods used in this research are library research, individual interviews, and participant observation.

This chapter examines the opening up of the Chinese socio-cultural sphere in post-Suharto Medan and Surabaya. Chinese Indonesians who strongly support Chinese ethnic and cultural identities have made use of the more liberal environment to establish Chinese-based organisations and Chinese-language newspapers. In general, these organisations and newspapers have made use of intra-ethnic linkages to safeguard Chinese ethnic and cultural identities, thus contributing to multiculturalism in post-Suharto Indonesia. The rise of China as an economic power has also prompted leaders of some Chinese organisations to utilise their intra-ethnic linkages and social networks in China to assist local governments in establishing cultural and business connections with China. Many indigenous Indonesians, however, perceive that the active role of Chinese organisations in promoting Chinese culture indicates an insistence upon separateness. At the same time, there are Chinese Indonesians who favour the integration of the Chinese into the wider Indonesian society and who have established non-ethnic-based socio-cultural organisations to promote cross-ethnic understanding and solidarity. On the whole, however, the socio-cultural activities and endeavours of Chinese organisations and Chinese-language newspapers have reproduced and perpetuated stereotypes of the Chinese as insular, opportunistic, and oriented towards China instead of Indonesia.

This chapter explores the illegal or semi-legal means Chinese Indonesian businesspeople tend to adopt to gain and protect their business and personal interests in the post-Suharto era. These business practices in turn perpetuate and reproduce the corrupt and muddy business environment, as well as the predatory political-business system. They also reproduce and reinforce stereotypes of the Chinese as wealthy, corrupt, and opportunistic, the perfect targets of extortion. Although there are also Chinese businesspeople who refuse to be victims of extortion and choose to fight against these illegal practices, such businesspeople are rare. If one wishes to see more Chinese Indonesian businesspeople who refuse to be extorted and do not get involved in illegal and semi-legal practices, a better-enforced rule of law must be in place.

This chapter focuses on the involvement of Chinese Indonesians in electoral politics in post-Suharto Medan and Surabaya and how this intersects with their stereotypical position as businesspeople. The opening up of a democratic environment in post-Suharto Indonesia has prompted many Chinese Indonesians to get involved in electoral politics. Some of them become electoral candidates in order to push for reform and positive changes in Indonesia and reject approaches of support for their campaigns in return for political and business favours. But there are also those who become actively involved in politics with the aim of gaining political protection for their business instead of fighting for the interests of the general public. Ironically, the latter often have a higher chance of getting elected, because of the increased cost of campaigning in direct elections introduced during the democratisation process. Their own wealth, or the willingness to accept support from corrupt businesspeople, often Chinese, ensures enough funds to obtain party support and to bribe voters. In this way, Chinese businesspeople continue to establish corrupt and patrimonial relationships with aspiring politicians in exchange for political favours for their business.

This chapter studies three neighborhoods in Medan to map out the contentious patterns of legalization of urbanizing land. The city's expansion has largely taken place on land that was once under plantation leases. People and developers have not always waited for the land to be legally released for other purposes, and when leases finally lapsed, new urban neighborhoods or industry, rather than plantation crops, would already stand on it. This produced a legal conundrum. When a plantation lease expired, land would revert to the state of Indonesia. The state would then have several options: renewal of the lease or a change in land use and the issuing of other new leases. Renewal of a plantation lease for a densely built neighborhood spelled trouble, but so did issuing new leases for other land uses. In reality, a third, messier, option was often preferred: inaction, referral, kicking the can down the road, post festum approval, and leaving it to land-hungry people, movements, gangs, companies, soldiers, and government agencies to rough it out.

This chapter examines what was described as the worst “ethnic rioting” in Malaysia in decades. In 2001, Malays and Indians clashed in an area known as Kampung Medan. Many analysts, academics, and politicians were quick to ascribe blame, drawing on the ethnic “myths” or stereotypes. Others invoked the purported and inevitable frustrations caused by anomie and squalor in squatter areas. The recounting of the violent events by witnesses and victims demonstrates that the respective figures of the Indian and Malay increasingly silence complex exchanges and intimacies between the two groups. These figures, in turn, are also produced out of a particular developmentalism driven by ethnonationalist impulses. The chapter also studies the symptoms of cultural and ethnic uncertainty generated by the bureaucratization of ethnic privilege.