The Chinese of Indonesia and Their Search for Identity: The Relat ...

During the colonial era,¹ the Dutch built their East Indies empire on the principle of “divide and rule,” which gave rise to a tripartite racial classification system (Coppel, 2002). According to this system, Europeans were placed on the highest social rung whereas foreign Orientals (i.e., the Chinese) and natives (i.e., the indigenous Indonesians) were placed on subsequent rungs. The arrangement was designed to segregate the Chinese from the indigenous population, and it pitted the two groups against one another. The indigenous Indonesians resented the Chinese because the latter were accorded special privileges and served as “middle men” and tax collectors for the Dutch. Therefore, while some Chinese became wealthy in the process, they also formed a particularly vulnerable ethnic minority in a system based on racial domination (La Botz, 2001). In fact, because the Chinese managed to accumulate some capital through their role as tax collectors and middlemen,² the Dutch were determined to suppress the development of domestic bourgeoisie among the Chinese and the possibility of an alliance between the Chinese and the priyayi, the indigenous aristocratic class (Kemasang, 1985). Consequently, they proceeded to “cut the Chinese down to any size they wished” (Kemasang, p. 72). During these massacres,