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Johannes Nugroho

Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto’s push to reorganise Southeast Asia’s largest economy around a stronger, more interventionist state has put him increasingly at odds, analysts say, with the country’s so-called Nine Dragons.
Known locally as Sembilan Naga, the label is a loose shorthand for some of Indonesia’s richest tycoon families – many of them Chinese Indonesian – with interests spanning banking, tobacco, property, palm oil, mining and consumer goods.
It has never referred to a formally confirmed group but is widely used in public discussion of powerful conglomerates associated with business empires such as Djarum, Salim Group, Lippo Group, Golden Agri-Resources, Barito Pacific and Agung Sedayu.
Prabowo has not explicitly named the Nine Dragons as targets, but analysts say his warnings about wealth leaking overseas, his drive to centralise key exports and his effort to marshal tycoon money for state projects all suggest a broader bid to bring Indonesia’s old business elite under firmer state control.
“Prabowo may not mention names, but there’s no mistake he’s taking potshots at the dragons,” said Made Supriatma, a visiting fellow in the Indonesia Studies Programme at the ISEAS – Yusof Ishak Institute, whose research focuses on Indonesian state bureaucracy.

Yet the limits of Prabowo’s leverage run both ways: the tycoons remain deeply embedded in the Indonesian economy, while the president still needs private capital to help fund his flagship programmes.
“They [the tycoons] find themselves between a rock and a hard place: to submit to the president or to take their business somewhere else,” Made said.
But Vedi Hadiz, a political sociologist at the University of Melbourne and author of Reorganising Power in Indonesia: The Politics of Oligarchy in an Age of Markets, told This Week in Asia the second option was unlikely.
“At the core of it, most of their revenues come from their operations within the Indonesian economy.”
Prabowo’s push has also shed light on the rise of newer loyalists such as coal magnate Haji Isam, whose ascent analysts see as part of Prabowo’s effort to cultivate business figures more eager to align themselves with his state-led agenda.
“Prabowo’s end goal is to establish a more command-like and centralised political economy, in which he is at the apex of power,” Vedi said.
A more centralised political economy, analysts say, gives the administration greater leverage over business groups such as the Nine Dragons. However, they differ over whether Prabowo aims to break their influence or simply remake the terms of their relationship with the state.

State grip
At a plenary cabinet meeting at the State Palace in Jakarta on July 20, Prabowo framed the problem as one of national economic leakage, saying in remarks published by the State Secretariat that Indonesia was losing “hundreds of billions of dollars every year” through under-invoicing, falsified trade reports, transfer pricing and smuggling.
Under-invoicing involves under-reporting the value of exports to reduce duties or taxes, while transfer pricing can be used by related companies to shift profits to lower-tax jurisdictions.
“These are legitimate concerns by the president, as both practices are certainly done by our big exporters,” said Ricky Ho, chief investment officer and portfolio manager at Jakarta-based Four Capital, a family office investment firm.
Prabowo’s response has been to give the state a greater role in export flows. This includes a one-door system for key commodities, overseen by Danantara Sumberdaya Indonesia (DSI), a new arm of the state investment agency Danantara, and a Foreign Exchange Earnings mechanism (DHE) that requires non-oil-and-gas natural-resource exporters to retain export proceeds in Indonesia for at least 12 months.
The DSI system is being introduced in stages, with full implementation planned for 2027.
Ricky said the measures risked giving the state too much control over private cash flows, commercial contracts and export pricing – a shift that would fall most heavily on large commodity exporters.
For critics, the concern is not only the policy design but also the political message to conglomerates that rely heavily on Indonesia’s commodity exports and natural-resource concessions.
Bhima Yudhistira Adhinegara, executive director of the Jakarta-based think tank Centre of Economic and Law Studies, said both DSI and DHE could be read partly as a presidential warning.
“This was intended to put pressure on the tycoons to toe the line or have their business threatened,” he said.

Patriot money
Many of Indonesia’s biggest conglomerates expanded under Suharto’s New Order, when state contracts, licensing and regulatory protection helped bind politically connected business groups to the president’s patronage system.
For analysts such as Made, Prabowo’s approach carries echoes of that period.
“Prabowo appears to hanker for a return to the Suharto era and he doesn’t shy away from deploying state instruments to achieve his ends,” Made said.
One test of that relationship came through Patriot Bonds, a low-yield financing instrument unveiled in August 2025 and offered through a private placement to selected large business groups rather than to the public.
The bonds reportedly carried a 2 per cent annual yield, well below comparable government securities.
“Most of the tycoons were initially unenthusiastic, due to the low yield of the bonds,” Bhima said.
A circulated list of 46 alleged subscribers fuelled speculation that many of Indonesia’s best-known tycoons had joined the programme, though Danantara did not verify the names.
Mohamad Al-Arief, managing director of global relations and governance at Danantara, said the list was not official and the fund had not named any buyers, adding that participation in the private placement was voluntary.
The programme became more sensitive after legal protections were extended to buyers of Patriot Bonds and similar “Red and White” bonds – named after the colours of Indonesia’s flag – though officials later said those protections applied only to funds placed in the instruments, not to investors’ wider businesses or assets.
For analysts, the low yield, selective placement and limited disclosure around subscribers makes Patriot Bonds a potential test of political alignment and financial investment.

One episode that has fuelled those questions involves Djarum, the Hartono family conglomerate. In September 2025, Danantara said Djarum was among the groups interested in Patriot Bonds and the leaked list claimed that Budi Hartono had committed 3 trillion rupiah.
Two months later, the Attorney General’s Office placed Djarum president director Victor Rachmat Hartono under a travel ban during an investigation into alleged tax corruption between 2016 and 2020. The ban was lifted weeks later after prosecutors said he had cooperated.
Local investigative news outlet Tempo’s reporting asked whether the case was connected to the drive to mobilise elite capital through Patriot Bonds. In an editorial, the outlet said the episode had political and business overtones, warning that prosecutors must not become a tool for pressuring major companies.
The Attorney General’s Office denied a link and no direct evidence has emerged publicly. This Week in Asia has contacted Djarum for comment.
Rising loyalists
Bhima said the pressure on Indonesia’s older business elite formed part of a broader two-pronged strategy of state capitalism.
“He aims to bring the older generation of oligarchs to heel while at the same time pushing for the advancement of new loyalist tycoons like Haji Isam,” he said.
Born in 1977, Andi Syamsuddin Arsyad, better known as Haji Isam, rose from a modest background to become one of Indonesia’s most politically connected businessmen.
His fortunes changed after he entered the coal industry in South Kalimantan in the early 2000s, before expanding into palm oil, shipping, logistics and aviation through Jhonlin Group.
Haji Isam has built ties across successive administrations, including by backing Joko Widodo’s 2019 re-election campaign and emerging as a visible business figure around Prabowo’s food-security agenda.
He has been prominently associated with Prabowo’s food-estate push in Merauke, South Papua, where the president has targeted 1 million hectares of new farmland as part of his self-sufficiency drive.
This Week in Asia has reached out to Jhonlin Group for comment.


Bhima said Prabowo’s effort to bring older tycoons under firmer control could carry economic costs, including weaker market trust and the risk of capital outflow.
Any outflow of private tycoon funds is difficult to quantify because such wealth is often held through layered corporate structures, offshore vehicles or family offices and may not show up clearly in public capital-flow data.
What is visible is broader market unease: Indonesian equities saw heavy foreign selling in 2026, with foreign investors net selling about US$3.89 billion by late June.
Vedi, however, said the recalibration of ties between Prabowo and Indonesia’s older tycoon networks was unlikely to end in an irreparable rupture.
No major Indonesian conglomerate, he argued, can survive without alliances with the political elite.
“The tycoons will sulk and get annoyed, kicking and screaming, but by and large they’ll cooperate.”
He characterised their relationship as a “symbiosis”, since Prabowo also needs the tycoons to help fund his flagship programmes.
“But in return for their loyalty, the president has to reciprocate by making sure some of their interests are accommodated.”


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Analysts say the pressure on Indonesia’s older business elite forms part of a broader two-pronged strategy of state capitalism


Analysts say the pressure on Indonesia’s older business elite forms part of a broader two-pronged strategy of state capitalism.


Are Indonesia’s Prabowo and ultra rich ‘9 Dragons’ on a collision course?

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}Analysts say the pressure on Indonesia’s older business elite forms part of a broader two-pronged strategy of state capitalism

Analysts say the pressure on Indonesia’s older business elite forms part of a broader two-pronged strategy of state capitalism