Migration, identity and revolution: how the Chinese shaped Indonesia
- Historian Zhou Taomo in her new book looks at the complex ties between China and Indonesia in the cold war
- Zhou argues that migration and activism by ethnic Chinese were major forces moulding relations between Beijing and Jakarta. Here are some excerpts:
Revolutionary diplomacy and diasporic politics
On a day in June, 1955, at the Tanjung Priok harbour in Jakarta, 24-year-old Liang Yingming, a second-generation ethnic Chinese from a Cantonese family in Solo, Central Java, was about to leave Indonesia for the People’s Republic of China (PRC). Before his departure, by signing the back of his Indonesian birth certificate, he agreed never to return to Indonesia. This pledge was required by the Indonesian government, which imposed strict restrictions on the re-entry of the ethnic Chinese who had been to the PRC due to fears that they would disseminate Communist ideology.
Liang then boarded the ship, where there were over 1,000 Indonesian-born Chinese high school graduates ready to travel to the PRC for higher education. The scene was merry, cheerful, and even celebratory. Waving to his father, who came to send him off, Liang happily exclaimed: “See you in Beijing!” The passengers threw colourful paper streamers towards the shore, which were caught by friends and family. These colourful paper strips, with one end held by those on board and the other by those on the land, tightened and finally broke as the ship started to move.
Fifty-seven years later, on a midsummer afternoon in Beijing, Liang, a professor emeritus of international studies at Peking University, recounted this scene to me with sparkling eyes. That life-defining moment was as fresh in his memory as if it had happened just yesterday.
Although born and raised in Indonesia, from his early years Liang had been an avid participant in politics oriented towards the PRC among the overseas Chinese. A star student at the Bacheng High School of Jakarta, a Chinese-language educational institution sympathetic to the PRC, he joined the underground movement of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).
