Indonesia and China: The Politics of a Troubled Relationship (Politics in Asia Series)

Indonesia and China

Indonesia broke off relations with China in 1967 and resumed them only in 1990. Rizal Sukma asks why? His answers shed light on Indonesia’s foreign policy, the nature of the New Order’s domestic politics, the mixed functions of diplomatic ties, the legitimacy of the new regime, and the role of president Suharto. Rizal Sukma argues that the matter of Indonesia restoring diplomatic ties with China is best understood in terms of the efforts made by the military-based ‘New Order’ government to sustain its political legitimacy. To counter domestic challenges, it posed as the guardian of the state against communist threats. Normalisation of relations would have reduced its credibility. The military’s resistance to pleas for this, especially from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, served to justify its position as the only force capable of protecting the Republic from China. In 1989, the restoration of diplomatic relations came about because of major changes in the political power of the military and President Suharto’s new goals. The analysis in this book proves that an absence as well as a presence of diplomatic relations may advance not only the external but the domestic interests of an incumbent government. This is the first major study on Indonesia and China’s diplomatic relations under the New Order government. It will be illuminating for research students and lecturers in international politics, international relations, policy making and diplomacy. Rizal Sukma is Deputy Director of Studies at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies, Jakarta. International Relations/Politics/Asian Studies

Politics in Asia series Edited by Michael Leifer London School of Economics ASEAN and the Security of South-East Asia Michael Leifer China’s Policy Towards Territorial DisputesThe Case of the South China Sea IslandsChi-kin Lo India and Southeast AsiaIndian Perceptions and Policies A Mohammed Ayoob Gorbachev and Southeast Asia Leszek Buszynski Indonesian Politics under SuhartoOrder, Development and Pressure for Change Michael R.J.Vatikiotis The State and Ethnic Politics in Southeast Asia David Brown The Politics of Nation Building and Citizenship in Singapore Michael Hill and Lian Kwen Fee Politics in IndonesiaDemocracy, Islam and the Ideology of Tolerance Douglas E.Ramage Communitarian Ideology and Democracy in Singapore Beng-Huat Chua The Challenge of Democracy in Nepal Louise Brown Japan’s Asia Policy Wolf Mendl The International Politics of Asia-Pacific 1945–1995 Michael Yahuda Political Change in Sontheast AsiaTrimming the Banyan Tree Michael R.J.Vatikiotis Hong KongChina’s Challenge Michael Yahuda Korea versus KoreaA Case of Contested Legitimacy B.K.Gills Religious Identity in Foreign PolicyIslam, Malaysian Foreign Policy and the Mahathir Administration Shanti Nair Taiwan and Chinese NationalismNational Identity and Status in International Society Christopher Hughes Managing Political Change in SingaporeThe Elected Presidency Kevin Y.L.Tan and Lam Peng Er Islam in Malaysian Foreign Policy Shanti Nair Political Change in ThailandDemocracy and Participation Kevin Hawison The Politics of NGOs in South-East AsiaParticipation and Protest in the Philippines Gerard Clarke Malaysian Politics under Mahathir R.S.Milne and Diane K.Mauzy

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Indonesia and ChinaThe Politics of a Troubled Relationship Rizal Sukma Arming the two KoreasState, Capital and Military Power Taik-Young Hamm

Indonesia and China The Politics of a Troubled Relationship

Rizal Sukma

London and New York

First published 1999 by Routledge 11 New Fetter Lane, London EC4P 4EE Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada by Routledge 29 West 35th Street, New York, NY 10001 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2005.

“To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge’s collection of thousands of eBooks please go to www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk.” © 1999 Rizal Sukma All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Sukma, Rizal, 1964– Indonesia and China: the politics of a troubled relationship/ Rizal Sukma. p. cm.—(Politics in Asia series) Includes bibliographical references and index. 1. Indonesia—Foreign relations—China. 2. China—Foreign relations—Indonesia. 3. Indonesia—Politics and government —1966– 4. Soeharto, 1921– . I. Title. II. Series. DS640.C6S85 1999 327. 598051–dc21 98–42018 CIP AC ISBN 0-203-16535-7 Master e-book ISBN

ISBN 0-203-25981-5 (Adobe eReader Format) ISBN 0-415-20552-2 (Print Edition)

Contents

Foreword

vii

Preface

ix

Acknowledgements

xi

Abbreviations

xiii

1

Introduction

1

2

Indonesia’s foreign policy and Indonesia-China diplomatic relations (1950–1967)

17

3

The suspension of diplomatic ties: its functions and the roots of resistance

43

4

Foreign policy debate: the primacy of national security

71

5

The functions of resistance: domestic politics and regime legitimacy

101

6

Towards the restoration of relations: the dimensions of change in the New Order’s China Policy

131

7

Indonesia’s normalisation decision and the role of President Suharto

161

8

Conclusion

193

Bibliography

205

Index

215

Foreword

In October 1967; the government of Indonesia took the unilateral decision to suspend diplomatic relations with the government of the People’s Republic of China which had been entered into in 1950. That suspension took place in the context of a fundamental regime change within Indonesia which had been set in train by an abortive coup in 1965 which was officially attributed to the country’s communist party with support from its Chinese counterpart. For Indonesia’s military based government, headed by Lt. General and subsequently President Suharto, the act of suspension of diplomatic relations was justified with reference to national security, with China represented as the prime source of external threat. That suspension of relations was sustained over more than two decades despite positive changes in Indonesia’s external environment indicated by a willingness among most of its regional partners within the Association of South-East Asian Nations (ASEAN) to establish diplomatic relations with the government in Beijing. Moreover, Indonesia’s government was not influenced to change its mind even when both the United States and Japan transferred their diplomatic links from Taipei which had not been an impediment in Jakarta’s case. In the event, the suspension of diplomatic ties endured for nearly 23 years until August 1990. The reasons for the sustained absence of diplomatic ties between two of the most important countries in Asia is the subject of this scholarly study by Dr Rizal Sukma which is based on meticulous field research. The volume has two evident merits. First, the author demonstrates thorough skilful analysis that in determining Indonesia’s case the primacy of domestic context was the determining factor in initiating and sustaining the rupture in diplomatic ties. At issue for the militarybased administration of General and then President Suharto was the need to protect a claim to legitimacy located in the conventional wisdom that it had saved the Republic from a foreign-inspired plot. In the event, although the decision to restore the ruptured relationship was influenced by changes in Indonesia’s external environment, the primacy of domestic context remained the overriding consideration in circumstances in which economic performance had come to replace order as the basis for regime legitimacy. Second, the author looks into the particular case of the domestic dimension of Indonesia’s foreign policy to examine the functions of diplomatic ties, both in terms of their presence and their absence, which are related also to the issue of regime legitimacy. He demonstrates just how the absence as well as the presence of diplomatic ties can serve domestic political interests in a way that may provide a line of enquiry for examining other states’ experiences.

viii

In addressing these inter-connected issues, Dr Sukma has not only made an important contribution to the study of Indonesia’s foreign policy but also to the study of foreign policy analysis. For these reasons, this volume has an intellectual significance beyond advancing knowledge about a particular episode in one state’s foreign policy. It provides a novel insight into the utility of diplomatic ties drawn from Indonesia’s experience. As such, this volume will enrich the literature of both Comparative Politics and International Relations. Michael Leifer

Preface

This book has its origins in a Ph.D. thesis submitted to the Department of International Relations at the London School of Economics and Political Science. It seeks to throw light on Indonesia’s policy towards China from the breakdown of diplomatic relations between the two countries in 1967 until they were restored in 1990. It explains that diplomatic break, why it took so long to repair and why and how the eventual restoration took place when it did. The analysis of the protracted episode illuminates the primacy of Indonesia’s domestic politics in foreign policy making and in that context suggests conclusions about the mixed functions of diplomatic ties. This book argues that the matter of Indonesia restoring diplomatic ties with China is best understood in terms of the efforts made by the militarybased ‘New Order’ government, which came to power in 1966, to sustain its political legitimacy. To counter domestic challenge, great play was made of a claim to be the guardian of the state against communist threats. Normalisation would have reduced the credibility of that claim. The military’s resistance to pleas for normalisation, especially from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, served to justify a prerogative position as the only entity capable of protecting the Republic from China, including its alleged influence over the local ethnic-Chinese minority. The decision in 1989 to seek a restoration of diplomatic ties was facilitated by changes in the international environment. It was made possible also, however, by three significant changes in Indonesia’s domestic politics: the decline in the political role of the military, President Suharto’s personal political ascendancy, and his growing interest and involvement in matters of foreign policy. For President Suharto, whose own separate claim to legitimacy had shifted from the maintenance of order to economic performance, resisting the restoration of diplomatic relations no longer served its earlier domestic function. On the contrary, restoration helped Indonesia to assume a more active international role which bolstered the legitimacy of the President’s rule. This analysis demonstrates also that an absence as well as the presence of diplomatic relations may advance not only the external but also the domestic interests of an incumbent government. Methodology and research notes Data for this study has been gathered from a variety of sources. First, primary data has been collected through interviews with members of the foreign policy elite from various Indonesian state institutions, particularly the military and Foreign Ministry, members of

x

Parliament, retired officials, and scholars from various research institutes interested in or involved in Indonesia’s foreign policy making. Secondary material has been drawn from various sources such as major newspapers, magazines, and official publications and documents, both in Indonesian and English. Indonesian sources consulted were those of leading newspapers such as Kompas, Sinar Harapan (later, after it was banned in 1987, Suara Pembaruan), Merdeka, Pelita, Angkatan Bersenjata, and Berita Yudha; some other dailies were also consulted. Some other national and regional publications, in Indonesian or in English, such as TEMPO (Jakarta), Editor (Jakarta), the Far Eastern Economic Review (Hongkong), Asiaweek (Hongkong), The Straits Times (Singapore), and New Straits Times (Malaysia) also serve as useful sources. Previous studies on this subject and autobiographies have also served as important sources for material. The interviews with selected members of the foreign policy elite in Indonesia were conducted during field research in Indonesia from July 1994 to March 1995. The duration of interviews was approximately one hour for each meeting. Before every interview, five to ten minutes was devoted to familiarise the interviewee with the research topic and objectives, and to ‘cultivate’ the condition for a frank and comprehensive discussion. Most interviews were not tape-recorded, because this would have jeopardised the possibility of a frank and open discussion. However, since the nature of this study was considered ‘sensitive’ in Indonesia, many interviewees were reluctant and cautious in expressing their views. In addition to direct interviews, some respondents agreed to continue communication through written correspondence. It follows that no purpose can be served by mentioning their names. Despite such difficulties, the information gathered from interviews did form a substantial part of the research for this study. This book has adopted the 1972 standardisation and simplification of spelling system in the Indonesian language with the exception of quotations from documents and publications titles. The most important of the changes were that dj became j; j became y; and tj became c, thus Djakarta has become Jakarta. Personal names have been spelled according to the commonly accepted form used in Indonesian mass media, except in cases where a person’s name employs the old spelling. Chinese names are given in Pinyin but I have also followed the principle of spelling personal names and document titles as they were spelled at the time of publication (for example, Peking Review). Wade-Gales system of spelling has been used only for the most familiar personal names, such as Chiang Kai-shek, and also as they appeared in quotations and publication titles.

Acknowledgements

The research for this book was carried out when I was a doctoral student in the Department of International Relations at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), United Kingdom. My study at the LSE was made possible by invaluable encouragement and assistance from many people and institutions. The greatest encouragement and financial support came from the Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Jakarta, Indonesia. For this reason, I would like to express my deepest gratitude to the Centre, especially to the Executive Director Dr M.Hadi Soesastro and Director for External Affairs Ms Clara Joewono. I would also like to thank several members of CSIS’s Board of Directors: Mr Jusuf Wanandi, Dr Mari E.Pangestu, Dr Soedjati Djiwandono, Dr Daoed Joesoef, Mr Harry Tjan Silalahi and Mr Sofjan Wanandi. The completion of the thesis, which serves as the basis of this book, was also made possible by generous financial assistance by the Overseas Research Student Awards Scheme (ORS), London, and LSE’s Scholarship Office. The Institute of Southeast Asian Studies (ISEAS) in Singapore was kind enough to allow me to make use of its excellent facilities. My greatest intellectual debt, however, is to my supervisor, Professor Michael Leifer, who never lost interest in supervising and guiding me not only in writing the thesis, but also in encouraging me to transform it into the present book. I would like to express my deepest gratitude to Professor Leifer for his invaluable suggestions, guidance, criticisms and encouragement at every stage of my study and beyond. For me, he continues to be a source of intellectual inspiration and, more importantly, a teacher to whom I can always turn for advice and guidance. The book also owes much to several prominent Indonesians who helped formulate, influence and execute Indonesia’s foreign policy in general and its policy towards China in particular. I would like to express my thanks to all of them, especially former Commander of Indonesia’s Armed Forces General (ret) L.B. Moerdani, former Foreign Minister Mochtar Kusumaatmadja, and the late General (ret) Soemitro. There are also many individuals and friends who I would like to thank for all their support, especially Asnani Usman, Dr Kusnanto Anggoro, Bantarto Bandoro and Dr Luhulima, all of them are my seniors at the CSIS. Finally, I would like to acknowledge my love and thanks to my parents and my parentsin-law for their love and support. Above all, I would like to express my gratitude to my wife, Hana Afiya Satriyo, who was so very supportive, caring and patient while pursuing her own studies at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), London. My daughter,

xii

Meutia Riana Sukma, also deserves my expression of love and thanks for her cheering impact on my life when I was working to transform the thesis into its present form as a book. For these reasons, this book is dedicated both to my wife and to my daughter. Rizal Sukma Jakarta 2 June 1998

Abbreviations

ABRI APEX ASEAN Aspri BAKIN BAKORSTANAS CCP CCPIT CONEFO DEPLU DPR FDR GAM GOLKAR HANKAM INPRES JIM KADIN KEPPRES KNIL KNIP KOP-KAMTIB

Angkatan Bersenjata Republik Indonesia (the Armed Forces of the Republic of Indonesia) Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Association of South-East Asian Nations Asisten Pribadi (Personal Assistant) Badan Koordinasi Intelijen (Intelligence Coordinating Body) Badan Koordinasi Permatapan Stabilitas Nasional (Body for Coordinating the Enforcement of National Stability) Chinese Communist Party China’s Council for the Promotion of International Trade Conference of New Emerging Forces Departemen Luar Negeri (Indonesia’s Foreign Ministry) Dewan Perwakilan Rakyat (People’s Representative Council) Front Demokrasi Rakyat Gerakan Aceh Merdeka (Free Aceh Movement) Gologan Karya (Functional Group) Departemen Pertahanan dan Keamanan (Ministry of Defence and Security) Instruksi Presiden (Presidential Instruction) Jakarta Informal Meeting Kamar Dagang dan Industri (Indonesia’s Chamber of Commerce and Trade) Keputusan Presiden (Presidential Decree) Royal Netherlands Indies Army Central Indonesian National Committee Komando Operasi Penertiban Keamanan dan Ketertiban (Operations Command for the Restoration of Order and Security)

xiv

KOSTRAD LEMHANAS MALARI MPR NAM NEFOS NU OIC OLDEFOS OPM OPSUS ORMAS PARAKU PDI PKI PNI PPP PRC PSI SEKNEG WANHANKAM NAS

Komando Cadangan Strategis Angkatan Darat (Army’s Strategic Reserve) Lembaga Pertahanan Nasional (Institute of National Defence) Malapetaka 15 Januari (15 January Disaster) Majelis Permusyawaratan Rakyat (People’s Consultative Assembly) Non-Aligned Movement New Emerging Forces Nahdlatul Ulama (The Awakening of Muslim Scholars) Organisation of the Islamic Conference Old-Established Forces Organisasi Papua Merdeka (Free Papua Organisation) Operasi Khusus (Special Operations) Organisasi Masa (Mass Organisation) Pergerakan Rakyat Kalimantan Utara (People of North Kalimantan Movement) Partai Demokrasi Indonesia (Indonesian Democratic Party) Partai Komunis Indonesia (Indonesian Communist Party) Indonesian National Party Partai Persatuan Pembangunan (United Development Party) People’s Republic of China Partai Sosialis Indonesia (Indonesian Socialist Party) Sekretariat Negara (State Secretariat) Dewan Pertahanan Keamanan Nasional (National Defence and Security Council)

1 Introduction

The establishment of diplomatic relations constitutes one of the most basic acts in interstate relations. Diplomatic ties are significant not only for individual states in particular but also for international relations in general. For a state, diplomatic relations constitute the prime means through which legal personality and legitimacy are registered in international society. States can only play a full role as a member of international society when they receive recognition from other states as a basis for communication with them. Indeed, it has been strongly argued that diplomatic relations serve as evidence of the very existence of an international society.1 Conceived in such a way, diplomatic relations indicate the willingness of members of a society of states to recognise one another’s sovereignty, independence, legal personality and legitimacy together with their judicial equality and other internationally agreed mutual rights and obligations. Qualification as a legitimate actor in international society was an imperative for those post-colonial states which came into existence after the Second World War. With independence, those new states were faced with the need to join international society and to become a party to the existing set of rules, norms and values which had been long established in the practice of international relations.2 For new states, joining the international diplomatic community would grant them, at least in theory, the same rights as their former colonial powers. Indeed, it has been argued that: the most striking feature of the global international society of today is the extent to which the states of Asia and Africa have embraced such basic elements of European international society as the sovereign state, the rules of international law, the procedures and conventions of diplomacy and international organization.3 They also required membership and international recognition in order to register and consolidate their distinct national identities among other states. In other words, the willingness of new states to enter the diplomatic world may be seen as an expression of the need to be accepted as full members of international society and, at the same time, to confirm their post-colonial existence.4 Like other states which came into being after the Second World War, the Republic of Indonesia also needed international recognition as a sovereign and independent entity. It needed to register its separate legal personality and legitimacy within international society

2 INTRODUCTION

through diplomatic ties. Indonesia’s decision to establish diplomatic relations with the People’s Republic of China (PRC) is best understood within such a set of priorities. After the transfer of sovereignty from the Netherlands in December 1949, Indonesia’s government led by Prime Minister Mohammad Hatta began actively to seek wider international recognition. Indonesia’s decision to establish diplomatic relations with China in July 1950 was part of the Republic’s attempt to register itself as a newly-established free and independent state with a distinct national identity reflected in the adoption of a bebasaktif (independent and active) foreign policy. Through establishing diplomatic ties with China, Indonesia sought to register its rightful place in international affairs and to strengthen its legitimacy as a member of international society. During their course, however, those relations have been replete with problems which have resulted in fierce disputes on more than one occasion. It was only during 1963–1965 that Indonesia and China enjoyed a relatively close relationship when the two governments forged a diplomatic liaison which in some capitals appeared to pose a threat not only to stability within South-East Asia but also to world peace. During this period, Indonesia withdrew unilaterally from the United Nations (UN) which affected its international standing; a decision to which the government in Beijing—still outside the body— enthusiastically lent its support.5 President Sukarno was then in sole effective charge of Indonesia’s foreign policy. He won China’s support for an ambitious plan to set up a rival body called the Conference of New Emerging Forces (CONEFO) as opposed to the UN which was represented as serving the interests of the Old Established Forces (OLDEFOS) of imperialism, colonialism and neo-colonialism. For President Sukarno and his communist supporters, the diplomatic liaison with China was seen as a way of reinforcing Indonesia’s identity as an anti-imperialist and anti-colonialist state, as well as of strengthening Sukarno’s legitimacy at home as the Pemimpin Besar Revolusi Indonesia (the Great Leader of Indonesia’s Revolution). That liaison did not last long, however. An abortive coup on the night of 30 September 1965, in which the Indonesian communist Party (PKI) was implicated, opened up a new chapter in Indonesia-China relations. Dramatic changes in Indonesia’s domestic politics from October 1965, during which the Sukarno government was replaced by General Suharto’s ‘New Order’ government, culminated in a breakdown of diplomatic relations between the two countries. That break occurred as a result of Indonesia’s unilateral action in October 1967 in suspending those ties on the grounds that China had interfered in Indonesia’s internal affairs by supporting the PKI in the abortive coup. This episode suggests that a break in diplomatic relations may occur when a state believes that such relations no longer serve its interests or may even be detrimental to them. An act of suspending diplomatic ties by one state may also be intended to display disapproval of another state’s policies and behaviour in conducting its relations.6 Indeed, it has been observed that since the end of the Second World War, along with the increase in the number of new states, there has been an increase in the suspension of diplomatic relations between states. In the period between 1976 and 1989 alone, almost 200 complete breaks in diplomatic relations took place.7 A termination of diplomatic relations may occur for a variety of reasons.8 It may be caused, among other things, by a lack of political and economic interests,9 the extinction either of the sending or of the receiving state,10 the withdrawal

INTRODUCTION

3

of recognition by one state of the government of another state,11 as well as by war.12 These examples suggest that even though diplomatic relations are regarded as a normal condition in modern international society, there have been occasions on which states have felt it necessary not to have or to terminate such relations. It has been asserted, however, that the absence of formal diplomatic relations is far more the exception than the rule. For example, da Silva has observed that in most cases, except with the dissolution of a state, what occurs in practice is a temporary withdrawal of a diplomatic mission which can be reinstated when the causes that led to that withdrawal have ceased to exist.13 More specifically, Barston has observed that’ [the breaks in diplomatic relations] which have been caused by sensitivity to intrusion in domestic affairs tend to be the shortest in duration’.14 This observation suggests that the restoration of diplomatic relations after they have ceased to function normally or, in extreme cases, have been broken off, is also a common practice in inter-state relations. In the case of the restoration of diplomatic relations between Indonesia and China, however, Barston’s assertion over duration of suspension cited above is misplaced. It was precisely the New Order’s sensitivity to what it saw as China’s intrusion in Indonesia’s domestic affairs that led to the suspension of diplomatic relations between the two countries in 1967. Moreover, it took 23 years before those relations were finally restored in 1990. During those 23 years of ‘frozen’ relations, Indonesia stubbornly refused to normalise them despite recurrent requests from China and periodic internal debate among Jakarta’s foreign policy elite. Instead of subscribing to the conventional view that ‘it is a function of the diplomatic dialogue to mitigate and civilize the differences between states’,15 the New Order government maintained that the absence of formal diplomatic ties with China was well suited to Indonesia’s national interest of maintaining stability and security. More interestingly, developments in the external environment had only little effect on Indonesia’s stand on the matter. For example, during the 1970s while other countries such as Malaysia, Thailand, the Philippines, Japan and the United States calculated that the benefits from direct diplomatic ties with China outweighed the disadvantages, Suharto’s New Order government in Jakarta still felt that the absence of diplomatic relations was, on balance, of benefit to Indonesia. The geostrategic reality which had prompted most of its partners within the Association of South-East Asian Nations (ASEAN) to establish ties with China did not have the same profound effect on Indonesia’s leadership. For many of Indonesia’s leaders, China has been a threat, actual or potential. Even after diplomatic relations had been restored in August 1990, the New Order government continued to harbour the view that China was a power towards which Indonesia should maintain its vigilance (kekuatan yang harus tetap diwaspadai). The unprecedented security agreement between Indonesia and Australia which was concluded in December 1995 is believed to have been entered into by former President Suharto with that concern much in mind. For Indonesia’s New Order government—in power between March 1966 and May 1998 —the question of restoring diplomatic relations with China was always framed in terms of ‘national security’. Moreover, for more than two decades, normalisation with China was a highly divisive domestic issue. Policy debates on the subject occurred recurrently within Indonesian political circles throughout that period. Those debates failed to bring about a significant change to the state of relations between Indonesia and China, however. It was

4 INTRODUCTION

Jakarta’s resistance that was responsible for Indonesia-China relations not being restored. For almost 23 years, any impetus for and attempt at restoring diplomatic ties was frustrated by the Indonesian government’s insistence that normal relations between Jakarta and Beijing were either terlalu pagi (too early), or belum mendesak (not yet urgent), or belum perlu (not yet necessary). For almost 23 years, the Indonesian government consistently justified its position by arguing that a restoration of diplomatic ties with China would pose unbearable risks to internal stability and, therefore, threaten Indonesia’s national security. However, during his visit to Tokyo to attend the funeral of Japan’s Emperor Hirohito on 23 February 1989, President Suharto unexpectedly announced that Indonesia would soon take necessary measures to restore diplomatic relations with China. This announcement came as a great surprise not only to the international community but also to Indonesia’s domestic audiences. Eighteen months later on 8 August 1990, Indonesia and China officially resumed diplomatic relations despite the fact that objections remained among various domestic constituencies, including segments within Indonesia’s Armed Forces (Angkatan Bersenjata Republik Indonesia—ABRI). Indonesia’s restoration of diplomatic relations with China presents a curious and interesting case-study of both the process of foreign policy making and the functions of diplomatic ties in Indonesia. It raises a number of pertinent questions. Why did Indonesia refuse to restore diplomatic relations with China for more than two decades? What had prevented Indonesia’s government from restoring those ties? What were the functions of diplomatic relations with China for the New Order’s Indonesia? Why did Indonesia finally decide to restore those relations in 1989? What were the domestic and international factors that might have influenced Indonesia’s policy towards China from the suspension until the restoration of diplomatic relations? How was the decision to normalise diplomatic ties with China made and by whom and through which structures and process? These questions are central to the present study. In sharp contrast to studies of the breakdown of Indonesia-China diplomatic relations,16 relatively little has been written on the restoration of diplomatic relations between the two countries. Correspondingly, Indonesia’s long-standing resistance to normalising diplomatic relations with China constitutes one aspect of the Republic’s foreign policy that has not been studied satisfactorily. Indeed, there exist only a few scholarly articles on this subject. 17 There is no major study of Indonesia’s policy towards China since the breakdown of diplomatic ties, and therefore, it is necessary to enquire more deeply into this issue. The primacy of domestic context To understand fully Indonesia’s policy on the question of restoring diplomatic relations with China, there is a need to analyse the New Order government’s resistance to a normalisation of relations and its decision to restore them in terms of a wider perspective of domestic politics and foreign policy making. It is necessary to focus on the underlying domestic political context within which the utility and significance of diplomatic ties with China for the New Order government were assessed, and Indonesia’s policy towards restoring those ties was formulated.

INTRODUCTION

5

What, then, has been the underlying domestic political context? The basis on which further research can be conducted has been indicated by some scholars of Indonesia’s foreign policy. The most significant domestic factor relevant to Indonesia’s policy towards China from 1967 has been the question of regime legitimacy and survival. For example, in discussing why Indonesia refused to normalise diplomatic ties with China, Professor Leifer has argued: because a prime justification for the dominant position of the armed forces in the political life of the Republic had been their role in quashing an externally-inspired plot, an early restoration of diplomatic relations with China would have undermined their credibility.18 In a similar vein, Harold Crouch suggests that ‘more basically, but unstated, the [New Order] regime felt that its legitimacy might be put at stake if it restored friendly relations with the power [China] it had portrayed as the embodiment of evil’.19 Professor van der Kroef maintains also that ‘the Suharto regime was counting on a “a Red scare” tactic to maintain itself in power’.20 Again, another scholar has maintained that the New Order government ‘utilized the threat supposedly posed by the PRC to legitimate their rule’.21 It has also been recognised in Indonesia that ABRI needed ‘to keep China-as-a-devil image to maintain its legitimizing myth in connection with the Gestapu affair’.22 Such analyses clearly suggest that for the New Order government, the relationship with China involved the question of regime legitimacy; resistance to restoring diplomatic ties with China registered the New Order government’s image as an anti-Communist regime, so sustaining the basis of its claim to such legitimacy. The suspension of diplomatic ties, and the subsequent resistance towards restoring them, provided a sense of legitimacy for the New Order government in its overall attempt to create a political system which justified the dominant role of ABRI. Indeed, as Weatherbee has argued, ‘although the “New Order’s” anti-communism is criticised as a cynical justification for continued military dominance in national life, its reality as a background for policy making cannot be ignored’.23 It is rather surprising to note, therefore, that this significant aspect of Indonesia’s China policy—the degree to which the problem of legitimacy was reflected in foreign policy— has not received adequate analysis in previous studies of Indonesia’s decision to restore diplomatic ties with China. The presence of this factor has been noted occasionally, but the extent to which it had been manifest in the New Order’s policy towards China has not been adequately studied. An emphasis on the question of legitimacy serves to permit a greater appreciation of the significance of the political context within which the attitude and policy of the New Order government towards China was formulated. Such a line of enquiry requires not only an examination of the domestic and international factors that might have influenced Indonesia’s decision to restore diplomatic ties with China, but also an analysis of the functions of the presence and absence of those ties for domestic politics and the process of foreign policy making. Since specific studies of the state of Indonesia-China relations since 1967 provide only limited insights into the policy context and decision-making process, this study will take previous general studies of the foreign policy of Indonesia’s New Order as a starting point.

6 INTRODUCTION

However, this area is not without its own problems. Unlike Indonesia’s foreign policy during the Sukarno era, the study of Indonesia’s foreign policy during the Suharto era has not received adequate scholarly attention. Very few books have been written on the subject. Where such studies exist, their analyses have usually been limited to two aspects of foreign policy: the practice or implementation of foreign policy and those factors or sources that may have shaped it. Fortunately, existing studies on this subject, though still limited in number, do provide useful insights which may be used to enhance our understanding of Indonesia’s policy towards a single country such as China. The most significant contributions in this field are Franklin Weinstein’s Indonesian Foreign Policy and the Dilemma of Dependence24 and Professor Michael Leifer’s Indonesia’s Foreign Policy.25 These two major studies are concerned with Indonesia’s foreign policy in general terms, and policy towards China in particular receives relatively limited scrutiny. While works on foreign policy making are still limited, there is a study by Gordon Hein which provides an illuminating account of the structure and process of Indonesia’s New Order foreign policy making, especially on the role of President Suharto.26 These three studies provide three important points of departure for the present study. First, they all recognise the importance of the domestic political process in understanding Indonesia’s foreign policy. In this regard, the use of foreign policy in Indonesia is primarily directed to fulfil domestic—economic and political—requirements. Second, Indonesia’s foreign policy, both under the Sukarno and Suharto governments, has always been characterised by a difficulty in reconciling aspirations, on the one hand, with achievements, on the other. Finally, President Suharto’s interest and role in foreign policy grew gradually, but that role has been significant not only in determining decisions, but also in setting the tone for the whole debate on important foreign policy issues. In short, these three features reflect the primacy of domestic politics in Indonesia’s foreign policy. Indeed, a leading architect of the New Order has acknowledged that ‘Indonesia’s foreign policy is a function of domestic politics’.27 And, during the period of the absence of diplomatic ties with China, those domestic politics were characterised, first, by the regime’s attempt to curb challenges to its legitimacy in order to maintain internal stability defined primarily in terms of regime survival, and second, by the changing power structure which saw the gradual rise in the power and influence of the former President. It is with close reference to these two issues that the functions of diplomatic relations with China will be addressed. This book attempts to provide a ‘fresh’ interpretation or analysis of Indonesia’s decision to normalise diplomatic ties with China by investigating what political functions the absence and restoration of diplomatic ties with China served for the New Order government in terms of domestic politics. It seeks to demonstrate that the stages in the evolution of Indonesia’s attitude towards China corresponded, in general, to distinct phases in its domestic politics whereby the legitimacy and survival of the ruling regime had been addressed partly through the suspension of diplomatic ties and continuous resistance to any attempt at normalisation. When the domestic power relations and requirements that had sustained Indonesia’s opposition to normalisation changed then that policy also underwent a corresponding change because it had lost the capacity to perform its initial political function. Thus, an analysis of the functions of diplomatic ties with China provides a basis for

INTRODUCTION

7

interpreting the significance of domestic politics for Indonesia’s policy towards China, in which the question of regime legitimacy and survival constitute two central aspects. Legitimacy, foreign policy and the functions of diplomatic ties How, then, are we to understand the functions of diplomatic ties in terms of domestic legitimacy and foreign policy? If the main concern of this study is to understand regime legitimacy as an important factor in Indonesia’s policy towards restoring diplomatic ties with China, then the available literature on the relationship between legitimacy and diplomatic ties is of little help in providing a relevant conceptual framework. As Samuel S. Kim has observed, ‘whereas legitimacy has spawned a rather prolific literature in comparative politics, the concept has generally remained barren in foreign policy and international relations studies.’28 The main reason for this gap would seem to be found in the false distinction between domestic and international politics, in which the former is regarded as the concern of students of Comparative Politics, while the latter as the concern of those of International Relations. Most Political Science literature tends to neglect the international dimensions of legitimacy, while International Relations literature tends to overlook the internal dimensions of legitimacy.29 Scholars of International Relations and political scientists tend to work in a degree of isolation from one another. To put it differently, studies which examine the ‘externalisation of domestic legitimacy’ and the ‘domestication of international legitimacy’ remain uncharted territory in the study of foreign policy. As this study attempts to show, an investigation of the aspect of legitimacy in foreign policy making demonstrates how the question of diplomatic ties may be used as a means to enhance the domestic legitimacy of the regime, on the one hand, and the legitimacy of the state to play an international role, on the other. In this sense, diplomatic relations are directed to serve both domestic and international interests and objectives of the regime. In understanding the foreign policies of post-colonial states, there is an agreement among scholars on the need to focus analysis on fundamental problems—domestic and international —confronting the countries in question. Dessouki and Korany, for example, maintain that ‘a proper analysis of the foreign policies of Third World countries should accept that foreign policy is part and parcel of the general situation of the Third World and reflects the evolution of this situation’.30 The problems of underdevelopment and dependency, for example, have been often seen as fundamental problems which shape foreign policies in the Third World. 31 In his major study of Indonesia’s foreign policy, Weinstein has demonstrated how the problem of underdevelopment and a competing domestic elite, which manifest a condition of ‘weakness’, have determined the outcome of foreign policy during both the Sukarno and Suharto eras.32 Others, such as David Wurfel and Bruce Burton, in their introduction to a collaborative volume on comparative foreign policy in South-East Asia, provide an allinclusive list of issues to be looked at in comparing the foreign policies of South-East Asian countries through a political economy framework: (1) domestic resources such as diplomatic skills, military and economic strength, degree of regime legitimacy; (2) domestic

8 INTRODUCTION

constraints such as ethnic or religious conflicts and lack of natural resources; (3) constraints and opportunities in the external environment; and (4) main objectives of foreign policy.33 Despite its relative absence from the existing studies on foreign policy in general and foreign policies of the post-colonial states in particular, the problem of legitimacy is clearly fundamental to ruling regimes in post-colonial states. Wurfel and Burton’s edited volume is one of the few works which implicitly acknowledges the problem of regime legitimacy and regime maintenance as two significant factors in the foreign policy of South-East Asian countries.34 Wurfel concludes that ‘careful observation of Southeast Asian practice suggests that regime maintenance most often comes first’,35 and ‘the primacy of regime maintenance would depend on the stability and legitimacy of the regime in question’.36 Moreover, the changing foundation of legitimacy in some of these countries, as one consequence of rapid economic development, has made this problem even more significant for the ruling regimes. As contributors to Wurfel and Burton’s book have demonstrated, this is precisely the case for regimes in South-East Asian countries. The importance of legitimacy for South-East Asian governments is also noted by Professor Michael Leifer. Writing about the dilemmas of statehood in South-East Asia in 1972, he asserted that ‘legitimacy is a property much sought after by governments in states new and old. With its attainment is acquired an assurance of political consolidation which gives meaning to the idea of integration’. That assurance, he maintained, could be promoted through attention to emotional and material appetites; cultural symbolism and economic developments. However, it is important to recognise that ‘economic success is a necessary but not sufficient condition for the attainment of legitimacy’. He also pointed out that ‘in their search for common cementing factors…many governments have sought to make great play of threats to national existence, whether real or imaginary’. Given such a recognition of a complex interrelationship between internal and external requirements for attaining legitimacy, Professor Leifer concluded that: the prospect for attaining some degree of legitimacy for [South-East Asian] regimes depends on the extent to which internal challenge is ineffective as well as on the capacity of government. Such a prospect of domestic peace and stability does not depend only on domestic circumstances. There are international factors to be considered.37 Such an acknowledgement clearly reveals the importance of legitimacy for South-East Asian states, including Indonesia. More importantly, Professor Leifer does not conceive of legitimacy as purely a ‘domestic business’, but also links it to the possibility of regimes managing issues external to the state for their domestic political purposes and interests. Regimes in South-East Asia, including Indonesia, have been confronted with two fundamental legitimacy problems. First, they have experienced what has been identified by Sukhumbhand Paribatra and Chai-Anan Samudavanija as the lack of unconditional legitimacy arising from the presence of challenges, both armed and unarmed, to the prevailing state boundaries as just and definitive lines of political, social, and economic division; to the ruling regimes as

INTRODUCTION

9

appropriate orders of distributive justice; and to governments as fair and effective instruments of security and progress.38 Unlike Western societies, ‘wherein the question of governance and durability of leadership are settled through well-defined constitutional procedures and mediated by stable institutions’,39 South-East Asian states tend to lack such mechanisms for dealing with challenges to their legitimacy. As a result, the ruling elite tends to rally around contested themes such as their role as the guarantor of ‘stability’, ‘order’ or ‘security’ as the basis for legitimacy. The second problem, more typical for regimes in non-Communist South-East Asian countries, is a legitimacy dilemma resulting from their own relative success in promoting economic modernisation as a basis for legitimacy. On the one hand, economic development is of significance for the process of legitimisation. However, since economic development in these countries has also been accompanied by a growing gap of wealth within society, there is evidence to indicate a corresponding sense of discontent and frustration. Consequently, the ruling elite is charged by alienated segments in society with not having done enough to create wealth for the whole nation. In addition, continued economic growth and development will eventually create new power centres, which may in turn challenge the claim made by the ruling elite that it is the only force capable of managing the state.40 Therefore, even though economic development in South-East Asian countries has borne fruitful results, their regimes still ‘do not escape serious challenges to their hold on power because of the lack of indigenous institutions to cope with the political consequences of modernisation and development’.41 Indeed, it has been argued that ‘the process of development may also produce new challenges to legitimacy, and that successful development may spawn expectations difficult to fulfil’.42 The two problems of legitimacy—the lack of unconditional legitimacy and the legitimacy dilemma—may become exacerbated by what is described by Amitav Acharya as the problem of regime security, namely, ‘a question of the ability of the government of the day, the ruling group or elite, to successfully manage and overcome the problems of governance while maintaining the continuity of its authority and hold on power’.43 The ruling elite tends to live in constant fear that other forces in the society might overthrow it whenever the opportunity arises. Since the ruling elite views its role in much broader terms to include that of guardian of the state, ‘they tend to interpret any threat to their own survival as a challenge to national security’.44 In other words, it becomes difficult to distinguish between threats to the nation and threats to the ruling elite. In this situation, the survival of the regime is perceived as a necessary condition for the survival of the state, and ‘political stability’ means ‘the preservation of the government or power’.45 Correspondingly, foreign policy may be utilised to serve the function of maintaining the domestic interest of the regime, namely, its survival in the political system. Under such circumstances, the use of diplomatic relations, as an instrument by which foreign policy is conducted, may be also framed in terms of domestic political interests. However, this is not to say that diplomatic ties entered into by such countries cease to perform their conventional function of advancing the external interests of the state. As mentioned earlier, diplomatic relations are essential for states as a vehicle through which

10 INTRODUCTION

they can pursue national interests through dialogue. In today’s interdependent world, where contacts between states are hardly avoidable, diplomatic ties have become even more crucial. States can hardly survive without relations with each other. It is in part through diplomatic relations that states seek to achieve basic interests such as safeguarding national security, including territorial, political and economic integrity.46 As a means of dialogue between states, the establishment of diplomatic relations enables states to perform diplomatic functions such as representation, maintaining a listening post, preparing the groundwork or the basis for a policy or new initiatives, reducing friction in the event of conflict, contributing to order and orderly change, and establishing rules regarding the management of international society.47 Moreover, in the literature on the subject, diplomacy and diplomatic relations are conventionally understood in terms of ‘the management of international relations by negotiation’.48 Many studies of this subject tend to focus their discussion on the legal or technical aspects of inter-state relations. The question of diplomacy and diplomatic ties tends to be understood in terms of the execution of foreign policy by ‘ambassadors and envoys’49 or ‘the conduct of business between states by peaceful means’.50 Even though some scholars acknowledge the changing and widening content and nature of modern diplo macy, they still tend to treat it as ‘the means by which states, through their formal and other representatives as well as other actors, articulate, coordinate and secure particular or wider interests, using correspondence, private talks, exchange of view, lobbying, visits, threats and other related activities’.51 Such functions of diplomatic relations are, of course, important to postcolonial states. However, there are two problems with such an understanding of the functions of diplomatic relations. First, the conventional understanding of diplomatic relations and diplomacy as ‘the conduct of external relations’, or as merely an instrument of foreign policy, tends to overlook the fact that diplomatic ties are inextricably linked to the overall foreign policy of a state. Given such a disposition, it is not surprising that there have not been many attempts to investigate the functions of diplomatic ties in terms of foreign policy making and the domestic political process. The existing literature offers little to improve our understanding of the functions of diplomatic ties seen from the perspective of domestic politics.52 Not surprisingly, the existing studies of the subject tend to overlook and offer limited accounts of the differences with regard to the utility and significance of diplomatic ties for individual states. More importantly, the conventional understanding of diplomatic ties as an instrument of foreign policy does not help us to define what functions those ties may perform under particular political circumstances. Second, it has often been recognised that the establishment of diplomatic ties and the willingness of the states to enter the world of diplomacy is ‘the expression and…proof of their statehood and nationhood’,53 or ‘part of the process of either achieving statehood and identity in international relations, or, for established states, essential to being considered a power in the international system’.54 As mentioned earlier, it is through entering diplomatic relations that a state can acquire and strengthen its legitimacy as a member of international society. The need to enter the diplomatic world may also be related to the domestic purposes of the ruling regimes, however. As Beetham has pointed out, ‘recognition by the international system of states may be particularly important to a new

INTRODUCTION

11

regime, especially one which is facing internal opposition’, because ‘the international “system” confirms the legitimacy of each state’s sovereignty over its own territory’.55 International recognition through the establishment of diplomatic ties is important because it could be construed as the existence of support by the international community for an incumbent government; hence strengthening its standing vis-à-vis domestic rivals. In this situation, the use of diplomatic ties for maintaining legitimacy may become an important issue in the domestic political process and in a regime’s struggle to maintain its hold on power. It is necessary, therefore, to analyse the functions of diplomatic ties in terms of the wider question of the domestic political process and the political interests of the ruling elite. From the above discussion, it may be suggested that the concept of ‘legitimacy’, as it relates to foreign policy and is used here, has two significant dimensions: domestic and external. Internal legitimacy is best understood as the claim of a moral right to rule. And, since ‘the property of legitimacy is not necessarily a once and for all acquisition’,56 the task of maintaining legitimacy requires a continuous effort from the ruling regime. External legitimacy refers to the right to be a state, and as a consequence, the right to play a certain international role. As in the domestic milieu, governments are also obliged to make their international role legitimate in order to receive recognition from the international community.57 Such international recognition is therefore important, because it may confer prestige which helps a ruling regime to reinforce its internal legitimacy. And diplomatic ties may serve as an important vehicle through which such international recognition can be obtained. Conceived in this way, diplomatic ties are not only significant for preserving a state's legitimacy and national identity within the international society, but also for regime legitimacy and maintenance in its domestic milieu. In practice, however, diplomatic relations may not always serve these two functions simultaneously. There may be a situation where diplomatic ties may serve either as a means to strengthen internal legitimacy or to reinforce the pursuit of external legitimacy. And the choice over which function should be favoured by the government at a given time will depend on a variety of domestic and international factors of which the basis of a claim to internal legitimacy and the degree of challenges to that claim in domestic politics are two very important ones. This study attempts to demonstrate how those two factors have influenced the Indonesian government's view of the functions of diplomatic ties with China. It seeks to demonstrate that the government's concern over the problem of legitimacy and regime security has served as a significant political context within which national security has been defined, regime security has been maintained, and threats have been perceived and assessed. As this book attempts to show, the government's preoccupation with domestic political problems identified above occupied a central place in the formulation of Indonesia's policy towards China; from the establishment of diplomatic relations in 1950, during the brief close diplomatic liaison in 1963-1965, in the suspension of those relations in 1967, during the resistance to normalisation in 1967-1988, and in the decision to restore diplomatic ties in 1989. By analysing the functions of diplomatic ties and foreign policy making within the perspective of domestic politics, the book attempts to provide a broader understanding of the functions of diplomatic ties with China for Indonesia in terms of the problems of legitimacy and how they are reflected in the process of foreign policy making. The study

12 INTRODUCTION

of the functions of diplomatic ties as a means of managing legitimisation is expected to shed some light on how the making of foreign policy in New Order Indonesia has been influenced by domestic political problems and how domestic politics have played a central role in what is conventionally considered an international issue. Notes 1 See Hedley Bull, The Anarchical Society: A Study of Order in World Politics (London: Macmillan, 1977), p. 167. 2 For a study of the expansion of the European-dominated international society into a global one, see Hedley Bull and Adam Watson, eds, The Expansion of International Society (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1984), pp. 217–228. 3 Hedley Bull and Adam Watson, ‘Conclusion’, in Bull and Watson, eds, The Expansion of International Society, p. 433. 4 For a discussion on the diplomatic needs of new states, see Adam Watson, Diplomacy: The Dialogue between States (London: Routledge, 1982), especially Chapter 11, pp. 158–175. 5 Indonesia remains the only country to have left the United Nations. It did so in January 1965 but returned in September 1966. 6 Michael Palliser, ‘Diplomacy Today’, in Bull and Watson, eds, The Expansion of International Society, p. 373. 7 G.R.Berridge, Talking to the Enemy: How States Without ‘Diplomatic Relations’ Communicate (London: St Martin’s Press, 1994), p. 5. 8 For a brief discussion on the termination of diplomatic relations, see, for example,G. E. do Nascimento da Silva, Diplomacy in International Law (Leiden: A.W.Sijthoff, 1972), pp. 171– 175. 9 Such as between Brazil and Ceylon in 1968. 10 Such as in the case of the dissolution of the Soviet Union. 11 For example, France and the United States switched their diplomatic recognition from the Republic of China to the People’s Republic of China, and terminated their diplomatic relations with Taiwan, while establishing formal diplomatic ties with Beijing. 12 Such as between Britain and Argentina. 13 da Silva, Diplomacy, p. 171. 14 R.P.Barston, ‘The Diplomacy of Normalisation’, manuscript, n.d., p. 10. 15 Watson, Diplomacy: The Dialogue between States, p. 20. 16 See, among others, Woo Jung Ju, ‘The Rise and Fall of the Djakarta-Peking Axis 1949–1966’, Ph.D. diss., Mississippi State University, 1967; Ruth T.McVey, ‘Indonesian Communism and China’, in Tang Tsou, ed., China in Crisis (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1968); Justus Maria van der Kroef, ‘The Sino-Indonesian Rupture’, The China Quarterly, no. 33 (JanuaryMarch 1968) and ‘Indonesia, communist China, and the PKI’, Pacific Community, no. 5 (Winter 1970); Sheldon W.Simon, The Broken Triangle: Peking, Djakarta, and PKI (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1969); David Mozingo, Chinese Policy Toward Indonesia, 1949–1967 (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1976); Jay Taylor, China and Southeast Asia: Peking’s Relations with Revolutionary Movements (New York: Praeger, 1976), especially Chapter 2; Peter Christian Hauswedel, ‘The Anti-Imperialist International United Front in Chinese and Indonesian Foreign Policy, 1963–1965: A Study of Anti-Status Quo Politics’, Ph.D. diss., Cornell

INTRODUCTION

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18 19 20 21 22 23

24 25 26 27 28 29

30

31

13

University, 1976; and Alexander Nadesan, ‘Sino-Indonesian Relations (1950–1967)’, Indian Journal of Politics, April-August 1979. For studies which attempt to explain why Indonesia refused to normalise diplomatic ties with China, see three articles by Justus M. van der Kroef, ‘Before the Thaw: Recent Indonesian Attitudes Towards People’s China’, Asian Survey, vol. XIII, no. 5 (May 1973), and “‘Normalising” Relations with the People’s Republic of China: Indonesia’s Ritual of Ambiguity’, Contemporary Southeast Asia, vol. 3, no. 3 (December 1981), and “‘Normalising” Relations with China: Indonesia’s Policies and Perception’, Asian Survey, vol. XXVI, no. 8 (August 1986); and Leo Suryadinata, ‘The Chinese Minority and Sino-Indonesian Diplomatic Relations’, Journal of Southeast Asian Studies, vol. XII, no. 1 (March 1981). For studies which account for Indonesia’s decision to restore diplomatic ties in 1989, see Leo Suryadinata, ‘Indonesia-China Relations: A Recent Breakthrough’, Asian Survey, vol. XXX, no. 7 (July 1990); Michael Williams, ‘Indonesia and China Make Up: Reflections on a Troubled Relationship’, Proceedings of the Symposium held at Cornell University, in Indonesia, Special Edition, 1991; Earl Drake, ‘Indonesia and China: Old Habits and New Internationalism’, The Pacific Review, vol. 4, no. 3 (1991); and New Internationalism’, The Pacific Review, vol. 4, no. 3 (1991); and Sikko Visscher, ‘Sino-Indonesian Relations: An Overview of the Factors Leading to Normalisation’, China Information, vol. VIII, nos. 1/2 (1993). Michael Leifer, Indonesia’s Foreign Policy (London: Allen & Unwin, 1983), p. 127. Harold Crouch, The Army and Politics in Indonesia, revised edition (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1988), p. 334. Justus M. van der Kroef, ‘Indonesia’, in Yearbook on International Communist Affairs, 1975 (Stanford, Calif.: Hoover Institution Press, 1975), p. 340. Visscher, ‘Sino-Indonesian Relations’, p. 98. Dewi Fortuna Anwar, Indonesia in ASEAN: Regionalism and Foreign Policy (Singapore: ISEAS, 1994), p. 209. Donald E.Weatherbee, ‘Indonesia’s Security Perception and Policies: Implications for US Policy’, paper in fulfilment of contract N000124–78-RQ-01633, Centre for Advanced Research, US Naval War College, 1979, pp. I-28–I-29. Franklin B. Weinstein, Indonesian Foreign Policy and the Dilemma of Dependence: From Sukarno to Soeharto (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1976). Leifer, Indonesia’s Foreign Policy. Gordon Hein, ‘Suharto’s Foreign Policy: Second Generation Nationalism in Indonesia’, Ph.D. diss., University of California at Berkeley, 1986. Written Communication, 8 September 1995. Samuel S.Kim, ‘Peking’s Foreign Policy in the Shadows of Tiananmen: The Challenge of Legitimation’, Issues and Studies, vol. 27, no. 1 (January 1993), p. 43. In the most recent scholarly work on political legitimacy with special reference to South-East Asia, for example, Alagappa has maintained that the ‘international dimension plays only a contributory role in domestic legitimation’. See Muthiah Alagappa, ‘The Bases of Legitimacy’, in Algappa, ed., Political Legitimacy in Southeast Asia: The Quest for Moral Authority (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1995), p. 49. Ali E. Hillal Dessouki and Bahgat Korany, ‘A Literature Survey and a Framework for Analysis’, in Bahgat Korany and Ali E.Hillal Dessouki, eds, The Foreign Policies of Arab States: The Challenge of Change, second edition (Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1984), p. 10. See, for example, Robert Rothstein, The Weak in the World of the Strong: The Developing ‘Countries in the International System (New York: Columbia University Press, 1977), and Neil R.Richardson, Foreign Policy and Economic Dependence (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1978).

14 INTRODUCTION

32 See Weinstein, Indonesian Foreign Policy, p. 27. 33 David Wurfel and Bruce Burton, ‘Introduction: A Foreign Policy Framework for Southeast Asian States’, in David Wurfel and Bruce Burton, eds, The Political Economy of Foreign Policy in Southeast Asia (London: Macmillan, 1990), pp. 1–8. 34 See David Wurfel, ‘Conclusion’, in Wurfel and Burton, eds, The Political Economy, pp. 288– 314, especially pp. 303–308. The importance of legitimacy as a factor in analysing national security in the Third World has also been recognised by Azar and Moon. See Edward E.Azar and Chang-In Moon, ‘Legitimacy, Integration and Policy Capability: The “Software” Side of Third World National Security’, in Azar and Moon, eds, National Security in the Third World: The Management of Internal and External Threat (Hants, England: Edward Elgar Publishing Limited, 1988), pp. 77–101. 35 Wurfel, ‘Conclusion’, p. 303. 36 Ibid., p. 304. 37 Michael Leifer, Dilemmas of Statehood in Southeast Asia (Singapore: Asia-Pacific Press, 1972), pp. 105–114. 38 Sukhumbhand Paribatra and Chai-Anan Samudavanija, ‘Internal Dimensions of Regional Security in Southeast Asia’, in M.Ayoob, ed., Regional Security in the Third World: Case Studies from Southeast Asia and Middle East (London: Croom Helm, 1986), p. 60. 39 Amitav Acharya, ‘Regionalism and Regime Security in the Third World: Comparing the Origins of the ASEAN and the GCC’, in Brian L. Job, ed., The Insecurity Dilemma: National Security of Third World States (London: Lynne Rienner, 1992), p. 144. 40 For discussions on the ‘legitimacy dilemma’ confronting non-Communist South-East Asian regimes, see, among others, Paribatra and Samudavanija, ‘Internal Dimensions of Regional Security’, especially pp. 67–76, and Alagappa, ‘The Bases of Legitimacy’, in Alagappa, ed., Political Legitimacy in Southeast Asia, pp. 41–42. 41 Acharya, ‘Regionalism and Regime Security’, p. 144. 42 Larry Diamond, ‘Introduction: Persistence, Erosion, Breakdown, and Renewal’, in Larry Diamond, Juan J. Linz and Seymor Martin Lipset, eds, Democracy in Developing Countries: Asia (Boulder, Colo.: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 1989), p. 35. 43 Acharya, ‘Regionalism and Regime Security’, p. 144. 44 Weinstein, Indonesian Foreign Policy, p. 20. 45 Mochtar Pabotinggi, ‘Pemilihan Umum dan Konstitusionalitas’ [General Elections and Constitutionalism], Forum Keadilan, 25 March 1996. 46 See K.M.Panikkar, The Principles and Practice of Diplomacy (Bombay: Asia Publishing House, 1956), p. 1. 47 Ronald B.Barston, Modern Diplomacy (London: Longman, 1988), pp. 2–3. 48 See Harold Nicolson, Diplomacy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1950), p. 15. 49 Ibid. 50 Sir Ernest Satow, A Guide to Diplomatic Practice, fourth edition (London: Longman, Green & Co., 1975), p. 1. 51 Barston, Modern Diplomacy, p. 1. 52 A study by Franklin B.Weinstein on Indonesia-Malaysia ties, for example, addresses this issue albeit indirectly. See his Indonesia Abandons Confrontation, Interim Report Series, Modern Indonesia Project (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University, 1969). 53 Watson, Diplomacy: The Dialogue between States, p. 169. 54 Barston, Modern Diplomacy, pp. 18–19. 55 David Beetham, The Legitimation of Power (London: Macmillan, 1991), p. 122. 56 Leifer, Dilemmas of Statehood, p. 105.

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57 On the need of the states to make their foreign policies legitimate, see Lea Brilmayer, Justifying International Acts (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1989).

16

2 Indonesia’s foreign policy and IndonesiaChina diplomatic relations (1950–1967)

Relations with the People’s Republic of China (PRC) have occupied a unique place in Indonesia’s diplomatic history. China was the first communist country with which Indonesia sought diplomatic relations immediately after the transfer of sovereignty from the Dutch in December 1949. However, the fact that Indonesia established diplomatic relations with China as early as 1950 did not necessarily mean that the relations would proceed smoothly. They were fragile, replete with problems, and subject to various upheavals. More strikingly, those relations were vulnerable to pressure from anti-communist forces in Indonesia. During the course of relations over seventeen years, the two countries experienced ups and downs: from mutual suspicion, to a short period of diplomatic liaison and friendship, to bitter enmity which ended with the breakdown of diplomatic relations in 1967. The main objective of this chapter is to examine the nature of such relations as seen from the perspective of Indonesia’s foreign policy. The discussion will be divided into three sections. The first section begins with an examination of the origins and nature of Indonesia’s foreign policy as the general context within which Indonesia-China diplomatic relations were established. It then discusses how the decision to establish those ties was made within the context of Indonesia’s domestic political circumstance at the time. The second section examines the unstable character of Indonesia-China diplomatic relations during the Sukarno era until their breakdown in 1967 despite a short period of close diplomatic liaison during the later years of Sukarno’s government. The third section discusses the impact of domestic political change in Indonesia on the foreign policy of the New Order regime which had come to power in the wake of the abortive coup on 30 September 1965. The origin of Indonesia’s foreign policy and the establishment of Indonesia-China diplomatic relations Indonesia’s foreign policy began in the domestic domain. It reflects the experience of the country’s struggle to achieve independence and the nature of politics during the revolutionary period (1945–1949). The revolutionary struggle against the Dutch and the nature of domestic politics after self-proclaimed independence in August 1945 provided the context within which Indonesia’s ‘independent and active’ (bebas-aktif) foreign policy principle was promulgated. Indonesia’s decision to establish diplomatic relations with China

18 INDONESIA-CHINA RELATIONS (1950–1967)

in 1950 reflected the country’s early attempt to pursue an ‘independent and active’ foreign policy in order to serve domestic objectives. The foreign policy of a new republic: the origin of the bebas-aktif principle Indonesia’s foreign policy had its origins in the country’s experience of achieving independence. Indonesia’s independence was proclaimed on 17 August 1945 by its two most prominent nationalist leaders, Sukarno and Hatta, but that proclamation of independence did not receive international recognition. Indonesian nationalists were obliged to undergo a period of bloody struggle, combined with diplomatic efforts, in overcoming the Dutch attempt to re-colonise the country. As Professor Leifer has noted, the attempt to secure independence from the Dutch constituted the initial form of Indonesia’s foreign policy.1 During the period of national Revolution, the embryonic Republic had to face enormous external and internal challenges. The first challenge was in confronting a reality of post-war international politics marked by the absence of an immediate strong sympathy for the aspirations of colonised peoples for self-determination and independence. Indonesian nationalists had to face the fact that, at the outset, their struggle against the Dutch did not receive clear backing from the major powers. For example, it received only ambivalent support from the United States (US), which assisted the Dutch diplomatically and to a degree militarily. In a United Nations Security Council meeting in 1946 the US, prompted by Cold War considerations, joined with the colonial powers in block-ing a Ukrainian proposal to take up the issue of the role of British troops in Indonesia. At the time, there was strong suspicion among Indonesian nationalists that the presence of the British troops was being used by the Dutch as a vehicle for returning to Indonesia in order to re-colonise the country.2 During this period, the Indonesian nationalist movement had to be self-reliant in upholding its claim to independence through a combination of perjuangan (struggle) and diplomasi (diplomacy). From their experience of perjuangan, Indonesia’s revolutionary military leaders concluded that kemerdekaan (independence) could only be achieved through a revolusi fisik (physical revolution) which required personal sacrifice. Such a conviction grew stronger after the Republic had experienced two Dutch major military actions (in July 1947 and December 1948) in attempt to reimpose the colonial administration. In the experience of diplomasi, a difficult process of negotiations with the Dutch left the unpleasant impression of involvement in a game being played out by Western powers to delay the recognition of Indonesia’s independence. For example, the refusal of the Western powers to order the Dutch to withdraw from territory they had occupied by force undermined the initial expectations of Indonesian leaders that the West, especially the US, would favour national self-determination for colonial peoples. Later American pressure on the Dutch to this end did not erase this first impression.3 It was widely believed that ultimate recognition from Holland was far more the result of Indonesian resistance than of international pressure.

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The experience derived during this period, especially from the conduct of diplomasi, was also important in that it had a significant bearing on the formation of Indonesia’s early image of the nature of the contemporary world after the Second World War. For most nationalist leaders and others involved in the revolutionary struggle, the major Western powers’ ambivalent attitude towards Indonesia’s Revolution reinforced the already widely-held belief that their interests coincided closely with those of the colonial Dutch. The reluctance on the part of Western powers to acknowledge Indonesia’s independence reinforced a strong feeling of anti-colonialism.4 The second challenge came from the nature of domestic politics. During the revolutionary period, Indonesia’s domestic politics were characterised by complex political cleavages within its elite. Those divisions within the elite grew from pre-independence tensions and became more apparent during the revolutionary period,5 to such an extent that they had a great impact on the course of foreign policy. As Feith has pointed out, the central leaders of the Republic were divided in important aspects of political outlook and perception along ethnic, ideological and religious lines.6 In foreign policy, the rivalry within the Republic’s leadership revolved around two significant questions. The first and main line of contention was over how to deal with the Dutch. Successive national revolutionary governments were subject to enormous political pressures while conducting negotiations with the Dutch over the issue of sovereignty. During these negotiations, the government was often obliged to make concessions, but any compromise always aroused strong domestic opposition, which, in turn, led to the fall of cabinets. The third Sjahrir Cabinet formed on 2 October 1946, for example, was forced to resign in June 1947 after being charged with compromising Indonesia’s initial negotiating position after concluding the Linggajati Agreement in the previous March.7 Sjahrir’s successor, Amir Sjarifuddin, was also forced to resign in late January 1948 because of his acceptance of the Renville Agreements concluded two weeks earlier. Successive governments were continually subject to attempts by political rivals to undermine their authority. The second issue that attracted the attention from among the competing elite was the question of defining Indonesia’s international identity and position in world politics given the growing antagonism between two opposing blocs. Various political groups which were divided along ideological and political lines differed also with regard to the international position which Indonesia should take. In this respect, since early 1948, the leftist Popular Democratic Front (Front Demokrasi Rakyat-FDR) had demanded that the government side with the Soviet Union.8 However, the incumbent government was not in favour of such a demand in part from a concern not to alienate the United States. Vice-President Mohammad Hatta, who exercised executive power as prime minister, sought to formulate a clear working framework within which the foreign policy of the new Republic should be carried out. Such a framework was outlined in his famous speech entitled Mendajung Antara Dua Karang (Rowing between Two Coral Reefs). One of the prime purposes was to prevent an explosive entanglement of foreign policy and domestic politics. In this speech, made before the Central Indonesian National Committee (KNIP) on 2 September 1948,9 Hatta laid down the basic elements of Indonesia’s foreign policy:

20 INDONESIA-CHINA RELATIONS (1950–1967)

Have the Indonesian people fighting for their freedom no other course of action open to them than to choose between being pro Russian or pro American? Is there no other position that can be taken in the pursuit of our national ideas? The government is of the opinion that the position to be taken is that Indonesia should not be a passive party in the arena of international politics but that it should be an active agent entitled to determine its own standpoint with the right to fight for its own goal—the goal of a fully independent Indonesia.10 The above statement by Hatta served as the foundation of the principle of bebas-aktif in Indonesia’s foreign policy. The politics of bebas-aktif as defined by Hatta consisted of four significant premisses. First, the conduct of Indonesia’s foreign policy should be based on an ideological foundation; the state’s philosophy of Pancasila.11 Second, foreign policy should be aimed at safeguarding the national interest as defined by the state’s Constitution. Third, the pursuit of national interest would be best served through an independent policy. Fourth, Indonesia’s foreign policy should be conducted pragmatically, namely, it ‘should be resolved in the light of its own interests and should be executed in consonance with the situations and facts it has to face’.12 Such a formulation carried with it two important messages for both external and internal audiences.13 To the outside world, the politik bebas-aktif constituted an identification of Indonesia’s place and position in the international system. It registered the rejection by Indonesia’s government of a commitment to either bloc in the rivalry that had developed between the United States and the Soviet Union after the Second World War.14 It also guaranteed that Indonesia was ‘not prepared to participate in any third bloc designed to act as a counterpoise to the two giant blocs’.15 To the domestic audience, the ‘independent and active’ policy was meant to mitigate domestic rivalries among competing elites. In this regard, the declared independence of Indonesia in world politics was highly significant; it was intended to prevent the ideological rivalry between the Superpowers from aggravating acute political differences among the country’s political elite. As Hatta himself argued, a foreign policy that aligned Indonesia with either bloc of Great Powers would render the primary task of national consolidation more difficult. And Hatta stated clearly that if Indonesia wanted to contain the influence of agitation by radical circles, such an aligned policy should be avoided.16 In other words, Hatta expected to be able to cultivate national unity by adopting a balanced independent position towards the outside world.17 Indonesia’s decision to seek diplomatic relations with China was in line with that expectation. The establishment of diplomatic relations and Indonesia’s domestic politics After the transfer of sovereignty from the Dutch, winning as much international recognition as possible was at the top of the new Republic’s foreign policy agenda. In this regard, the first federal RUSI (Republic of United States of Indonesia) cabinet under Prime Minister Mohammad Hatta actively began to seek diplomatic relations with other states. In January 1950, the Hatta administration indicated its willingness to establish diplomatic relations

INDONESIA-CHINA RELATIONS (1950–1967) 21

with the communist People’s Republic of China (PRC) which had just won its struggle against the nationalist republic led by Chiang Kai-shek. To this end, Hatta sought the Chinese government’s initial recognition of Indonesia.18 Given the political identity of the Indonesian government at the time, Hatta’s initiative to seek diplomatic relations with Communist China presents an interesting example. The government led by Sukarno and Hatta was in practice anticommunist. After a rebellion involving the Indonesian Communist Party (PKI) in 1948, it had become highly suspicious of internal communist intent. Furthermore, the first post-independence cabinet under Prime Minister Mohammad Hatta made no secret of its interest in bringing the country into close cooperation with Western countries, and was keen to seek foreign aid from them. Against this background, the logic of political thinking at the time would suggest that Indonesia should have been more sympathetic to the Nationalist government ensconced in Taiwan. Moreover, domestic political circumstances were not favourable to Hatta’s initiative in seeking diplomatic ties with Communist China. There were strong reactions from some political groups against the plan. Some Indonesian leaders, especially within the Muslim community, were suspicious of China as a source of trouble for the country. They argued that all relations with communist power should be abandoned. Moreover, they were worried that the presence of a Chinese embassy in Indonesia could intensify local ethnicChinese sympathy for mainland Chinese nationalism, no matter what form it might take.19 Externally, Indonesia had also to consider what the American reaction would be if diplomatic relations were sought with a communist country such as China. An early recognition of China would be at odds with US policy. In July 1949, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leadership had announced that China would ‘lean to one side’; to that of the Soviet Union, which convinced the US that the newly established communist regime was entering the Cold War on the Soviet side. Therefore, the US took the lead in efforts to contain the perceived threat.20 The Indonesian government was aware of the risk of losing American support given the Hatta administration’s interest in seeking foreign aid from the United States. In the event, Indonesia’s initiative did not receive a positive response from Beijing. The PRC was initially reluctant to recognise Indonesia as an independent and sovereign state. Indeed, China’s attitude towards Indonesia was not at all friendly. In the view of Chinese leaders, the Sukarno—Hatta government in Indonesia represented a ‘fascist regime’. In November 1949, for example, Liu Shaoqi had criticised President Sukarno as a puppet of Western imperialism.21 He also called for a ‘national liberation movement’ in South-East Asia, including Indonesia, under a’people’s liberation army’ led by the Communist Party. 22 In Beijing’s view, the Indonesian government was a ‘lackey of imperialism’.23 In the context of Indonesia’s domestic politics, Beijing’s unfriendly attitude would make it difficult for Indonesia’s government to justify its decision to establish diplomatic ties. The fact that there were internal and external constraints to the initiative did not deter the Indonesian government from seeking to establish diplomatic relations with Communist China. Hatta made it clear that in order to pave the way for diplomatic relations, he was prepared to abandon relations with the Kuomintang government. Hatta proved this point when he asked the Kuomintang government to terminate its activities in the country. Correspondingly, the presence of a large ethnic-Chinese community in Indonesia and its

22 INDONESIA-CHINA RELATIONS (1950–1967)

intention to displace Taiwan in South-East Asia prompted Beijing to reassess its position. Beijing may have judged that diplomatic relations with Jakarta would open up an opportunity for establishing its influence over the local Overseas Chinese and to win their support. Beijing was very well aware that the Kuomintang government, before it had fled to Taiwan, had successfully established a strong influence over the large number of Overseas Chinese in South-East Asia, including those in Indonesia. Moreover, the Overseas Chinese had been an important financial source for the Nationalist government.24 As a result, official diplomatic relations between Indonesia and China were soon established, and the first Chinese ambassador to Indonesia presented his credentials to President Sukarno in Jakarta on 14 August 1950. If Indonesia’s elite were suspicious of China and Beijing itself was none too friendly towards Jakarta, why did Indonesia’s government insist on recognising and even establishing diplomatic relations with the PRC? The rationale of Indonesia’s decision can be best understood by looking at the Republic’s domestic circumstances at the time. As prime minister, Mohammad Hatta was aware of the problems his cabinet was facing. The first and the most urgent task was to establish a strong foundation for the country in the post-revolutionary period. Hatta saw administrative regulation and economic reconstruction as two areas that needed immediate attention. With regard to administrative regulation, the main challenge was to form an effective modern government to run the country during the period of transition.25 A particular difficulty was in accommodating the strong popular movement in favour of replacing the federal RUSI by a unitary state. In addition, the cabinet was preoccupied with complicated administrative problems such as the unification of the armed forces, the reorganisation of the civil service, the rehabilitation of soldiers (especially of those from the colonial Royal Netherlands Indies Army -KNIL) and the maintenance of law and order. In the economic field, the problems were enormous. The cabinet needed a great deal of money for reconstruction work, military and security purposes, and the maintenance of the large bureaucracy. The main problem was that it had to start economic reconstruction with a budget deficit of 1,304.8 million Dutch guilders and a high rate of inflation. This problem was exacerbated by a large volume of smuggling of natural resources, a rapid increase in prices due to hoarding and speculation, and a growing demand for imports. Even worse, there was no easy way of increasing government revenues.26 The most feasible method of coping with these problems and to start economic development was through foreign aid. Hatta was very well aware of this, and indeed, he was eager to seek foreign aid from the US and the Netherlands. However, the political atmosphere was not favourable for such a policy. The people were still imbued with a strong feeling of nationalism. There was a great demand for independence from any elements associated with the colonialism they just fought. Moreover, the Hatta Cabinet had to face the fact that Indonesia’s political landscape was characterised by severe political rivalries among the national leadership which had deepened during the revolution (1945–1949). In foreign policy issues, three political parties were critical. The Indonesian Socialist Party (PSI), led by Sutan Sjahrir, accused the Hatta Cabinet of being too much under American influence. The Leninist-Marxist, Murba Party, stood in opposition by refusing to participate in any government which pursued a policy of accommodation with colonial

INDONESIA-CHINA RELATIONS (1950–1967) 23

powers (in this regard, the Netherlands). The rehabilitated Indonesian Communist Party (PKI), flatly labelled the Hatta Cabinet as lackeys of American and Dutch imperialism. It also levelled the accusation that Hatta’s policy of negotiating with the Dutch had left Indonesia in a semi-colonial state. In such a political situation, the implementation of foreign policy became one of the criteria by which the merits of a government would be judged and measured.27 The accusation that the Hatta Cabinet was too close to the US in particular and to Western countries in general was an important basis for such measurement. Such an impression was not groundless because at the time that Hatta had assumed the premiership, Indonesia had established diplomatic relations with all the major Western and non-committed countries, but had not established any diplomatic representation in any communist state. Indeed, as Feith described it, the Hatta Cabinet’s foreign policy was that of a pro-Western neutralist.28 It was in this political situation that the decision to seek formal diplomatic relations with the PRC was taken by the Hatta Cabinet. Hatta’s decision to establish diplomatic relations with Communist China was aimed at managing domestic criticism through the exercise of the ‘bebas-aktif’ foreign policy. In fact, Hatta was still cautious in seeking a close relationship with communist countries. Such an attitude was evident from Hatta’s decision not to send an ambassador to China. Instead, he decided to send only a chargé-d’affaires. As former Foreign Minister Ide Anak Agung Gde Agung recalled, the decision was to show ‘that [Indonesia] intended to play its diplomatic relations with Peking in a low key’.29 Domestically, Hatta’s policy towards China was very much intended to serve at least two political objectives. First, by establishing diplomatic relations with Communist China, Hatta could reduce criticisms from opposition parties accusing his foreign policy of not being ‘independent’. Second, by keeping those relations at a low level, he could contain opposition from Muslim political groups, especially from the Masjumi Party, and avoid the impression that his administration had given in to demand from socialist-communist forces. Externally, Hatta’s policy towards China was intended to strengthen Indonesia’s independent position in the growing ideological rivalry between the capitalist and communist countries. To build an international image of the independent and active position of Indonesia in world politics, Hatta clearly believed that his government should seek to establish diplomatic relations with both capitalist and communist countries. Indonesia would consider cooperation with all countries, regardless of ideological identity. The main reason, Hatta argued, was that Indonesia, as a newly independent country, was strongly influenced by national sentiment and felt the need to maintain its self-respect.30 In summary, it can be said that Hatta’s decision to seek diplomatic relations with China was an attempt to assert Indonesia’s ‘independent and active’ foreign policy. However, given that the relationship was kept deliberately at a low level, upholding the foreign policy of ‘bebas-aktif’ seemed to be primarily a means of serving internal objectives. From such a position, Hatta expected to steal the thunder from the opposition. What was more significant in this regard was that his position as a prime minister with an unstable political structure needed sufficient domestic support to make it possible for him to run the country. Accordingly, domestic considerations prevailed over international ones. The establishment of diplomatic relations with China carried with it from the outset three important characteristics. First, Indonesia’s policy towards China was marked by a

24 INDONESIA-CHINA RELATIONS (1950–1967)

suspicion on the part of the majority of the political elite over China’s intention toward the local ethnic-Chinese community. Second, for Indonesia, the question of relations with China had its roots in the nature of domestic politics. It was initially meant to accommodate the Indonesian Communists’ demand in order to foster national unity. In this regard, Hatta saw diplomatic ties with China as a necessary consequence of Indonesia’s free and active foreign policy. Third, China’s acceptance of Indonesia’s proposal to establish diplomatic relations was motivated primarily by the need to win Overseas Chinese support in the context of its own rivalry with the Nationalist regime in Taiwan. These three factors in the relationship proved to be the main source of problems in the following years leading to the suspension of ties. The management of unstable relations (1950–1967) The early years of Indonesia—China relations were replete with problems and tensions. During the period of Parliamentary government (1950–1958), relations grew at a very slow pace. They were disturbed by China’s aggressive attempt to win support among the local ethnic-Chinese minority and the state of inter-party politics in Indonesia. Relations between Indonesia and China became close only when Indonesia’s foreign policy took on a radical cast during the period of Guided Democracy (1959–1965). However, even during that period, when the two countries were attempting to foster a close cooperation, the relationship was problematic. The following discussion examines the nature of IndonesiaChina relations during the period 1950–1967 during which the two states tried to manage a difficult relationship which was suspended dramatically in October 1967. The early years (1950–1956): a time of suspicion The establishment of diplomatic relations did not produce an immediate thaw in relations. As mentioned above, Indonesia’s government and the majority of the political elite had been suspicious of China’s intentions in Indonesia. Such suspicions were confirmed when the first Chinese ambassador Wang Renshu, who had been born in Indonesia, sought as his first priority to reorient the loyalty of the ethnic-Chinese minority towards the Beijing government. He actively began to undermine Kuomintang influence over the ethnicChinese minority, and tried to attract their support for the Chinese Communist Party and the Beijing regime. Ambassador Wang’s initiative and propaganda proved to be quite successful. The PRC succeeded in establishing contacts and increasing its influence among the ethnic Chinese in Indonesia. It succeeded in drawing the Bank of China, which had been run previously by the Overseas Chinese loyal to the Kuomintang, to its side. This strengthened the embassy’s economic and political power throughout the country. For example, China’s Embassy and its four consulates became more effective in securing finance for various embassy-sponsored activities and in providing pro-Beijing instructors and teaching materials in Chinese schools. 31 As a consequence, the loyalty of the ethnic-Chinese minority towards Beijing grew steadily.

INDONESIA-CHINA RELATIONS (1950–1967) 25

This policy provoked a growing concern by the Indonesian government over the question of the nationality and loyalty of the ethnic-Chinese minority. Initially, it did not believe that the presence of Chinese consulates would affect the choice of citizenship of Indonesianborn Chinese. However, with a growing sympathy among the Chinese minority towards the Beijing government, the Indonesian government became doubtful and concerned about the loyalty of those ethnic-Chinese of Indonesian nationality. Those concerns were heightened by the lack of hard information about the real situation among the ethnicChinese community.32 The aggressive policy of the Chinese embassy towards the ethnic-Chinese minority was not the only source of the Indonesian government’s suspicions. Wang Renshu was known as a fanatical communist who believed that he had a mission to revive the demoralised PKI after its attempted rebellion against the government in 1948 had been crushed. Wang had himself been a member of the PKI and had been expelled from Indonesia by the Dutch government. For this purpose, Wang provided financial help and advice to PKI leaders. It was reported that Alimin, a pro-Beijing PKI leader, often visited the Embassy and discussed matters concerning the revival of the PKI. It was widely believed that financial help was obtained through Chinese nationals who were living in Indonesia.33 The unstable foundation of Indonesia—China relations became more apparent after the Sukiman Cabinet replaced the Natsir Cabinet in May 1951. Rumours charging the Chinese embassy with being a nest of opium and gold smugglers were commonly heard in Jakarta. The already strained relations became worse when in July that year the Indonesian authorities refused entry to sixteen out of nineteen newly appointed Chinese diplomatic staff. The Indonesian authorities explained that the action was due to the failure on the Chinese side to follow ‘diplomatic courtesy’, but it seemed that the Sukiman Cabinet, which was a Muslim Masjumi-dominated cabinet and strongly anti-communist, intended to send a signal that the Indonesian government would no longer hesitate to take stiff action in response to what it perceived as unacceptable activities by the Chinese embassy. More serious diplomatic tension arose in August 1951 when the Sukiman Cabinet purged Indonesian communists who were suspected of preparing to overthrow the government with support from the PRC. Sukiman ordered the arrest of thousands of suspects, both indigenous Indonesian and ethnic Chinese, including Tan Ling Djie, a leading PKI theoretician. This action, which was known as the ‘August Raid’, prompted China to express its sympathy and even offer some sort of protection to the communists. For example, the PKI leader, Alimin, took refuge in the Chinese embassy, and the Chinese ambassador gave him diplomatic protection.34 China’s intervention in Indonesia’s domestic affairs created a public uproar and provoked strong reactions from Indonesia. For example, Dr Mohammad Yamin, a prominent member of the Foreign Relations Section of Indonesia’s Parliament, declared on 15 October 1951 that it might be necessary to take measures to restrict the freedom of movement of members of foreign diplomatic missions. Without pointing directly to the Chinese ambassador, he warned that a foreign representative should not interfere in the internal affairs of the country where he was accredited. Yamin also flatly urged that ‘foreign representatives violating Indonesia’s sovereignty should be expelled’.35 On 10 November, President Sukarno himself

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warned the Chinese community that those who ‘propagate communism’ should be aware that they would become the ‘first victims’ of an Indonesian social revolution.36 It can be said that, to a certain extent, the Sukiman Cabinet policy reflected the previous objections of the Muslim community to the establishment of diplomatic relations with China. As Professor Mozingo has argued, the Sukiman ‘August Raid’ demonstrated that the Indonesian government had not hesitated to risk a diplomatic rupture with China. China’s readiness to identify itself with Indonesia’s communists was confirmed by the grant of political asylum to PKI leader, Alimin. This event gave anti-communist elements a basis ‘for suggesting that Peking and the Chinese in Indonesia were implicated in an alleged plot to overthrow the government’.37 It also indicated that the Muslim groups were most sensitive to any unacceptable Chinese activity in the country and were prepared to act accordingly. As a result of diplomatic tensions during the Sukiman period, relations between Indonesia and China remained strained. The withdrawal of Wang Renshu in late 1951 did not lead to an immediate improvement in diplomatic relations. The next cabinet headed by Wilopo, 38 which was a coalition between the Masjumi and the PNI (Indonesian National Party), did not make any attempt to repair relations even though the Chinese government had reportedly begun to indicate its willingness to do so.39 For example, in October 1952 China proposed the establishment of trade relations between the two countries. However, Prime Minister Wilopo failed to show any interest.40 Favourable opportunities for better relations between the two countries emerged after the replacement of the Wilopo Cabinet by that headed by Ali Sastroamidjojo in June 1953. The Ali Cabinet was led by the left wing of the PNI and, in order to achieve a majority in the Parliament which would exclude the Muslim parties, it had to rely on support from the PKI. The PKI, under the new leadership of D.N. Aidit, was changing its strategy. It supported the Ali Cabinet hoping that it would provide a new opportunity for rebuilding the party.41 Prime Minister Ali took the initiative to improve Indonesia-China relations by sending Arnold Mononutu as Indonesia’s first ambassador to Beijing in October 1953. In December, the first Sino-Indonesian trade agreement was signed, and both countries began to launch cultural exchanges. At this time, Ali judged that conditions were favourable for settling the nationality problem which no previous cabinet had wanted to touch. Soon after his arrival, Mononutu raised this question with the Chinese government and received a positive response.42 After a series of negotiations, the two governments concluded a Dual Nationality Treaty during the Asian—African Conference in Bandung in April 1955.43 There were three important policy provisions in the Treaty. First, it provided that those Overseas Chinese holding both PRC and Indonesian nationality should choose the nationality of one country within two years after the Treaty had been ratified. Second, it implied Beijing’s readiness to renounce its formal claims to national affinity and loyalty on all ethnic Chinese abroad. China also pledged that those Chinese who were PRC nationals would abide by the laws and customs of Indonesia and not participate in political activities. Third, for its part, Indonesia pledged to protect ‘the proper rights and interests’ of those Chinese who remained PRC nationals.44

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The conclusion of the Treaty, however, marked the first opportunity for both countries to improve their relations. After the Bandung Conference, during which most of the delegates attending the meeting were convinced by Zhou Enlai’s presentation of China’s intent to foster good relations with its neighbours, Indonesia and China found new grounds for a better relationship.45 The leaders of the two countries began to talk warmly to each other. By 1957, trade between the two countries had increased dramatically by 2,500 per cent. Jakarta and Beijing also began to indicate mutual support internationally, especially over efforts to redefine the law of the sea. They also registered mutual support over efforts by Indonesia to regain West Irian and by China to regain Taiwan.46 Relations between the two countries began to move to a new plane with the introduction of Guided Democracy in Indonesia. However, the relationship proved still to be vulnerable and subject to pressures from Indonesia’s domestic politics. The radicalisation of Indonesia’s foreign policy and IndonesiaChina relations (1957–1965) The changing atmosphere of Indonesia-China relations after 1957 was made possible by changes in Indonesia’s domestic and foreign policy. The introduction of Guided Democracy in domestic politics led to a radicalisation in foreign policy. Revolution and struggle against international imperialism became central themes in foreign policy. The following discussion shows how a closer relationship between Indonesia and China developed during Guided Democracy, and also how that growing relationship was fraught with problems. By 1955–1956, Indonesia was beset by political discontent. This was a result partly of the failure of the general elections of 1955 to provide a government with a working majority. President Sukarno himself expressed this discontent in late 1956, after his first visit to China, when he called for the abolition of political parties and proposed ‘a new style democracy’. The armed forces, especially the army, also shared that discontent for their own reasons. The marginalisation of the army’s role in politics, the weaknesses of the parliamentary system, and the growing influence of the PKI, as shown by the result of general elections of 1955, strengthened the army officers’ conviction that they bore a responsibility to intervene in order to save the nation.47 In March 1957, Indonesian politics entered a new era when President Sukarno renounced the parliamentary system. The resignation of Mohammad Hatta as vice-president of the Republic in 1956 had made it easier for Sukarno to dominate the domestic political process. He appointed himself ‘citizen Sukarno’ and formed an extraparliamentary, working cabinet headed by Prime Minister Djuanda Kartawidjaja. This cabinet functioned as a transitional body during which Sukarno began to set up a new political structure as an alternative to parliamentary democracy. With support from the PKI and also from the army, Sukarno began to undermine the role of political parties and to strengthen his position as president. 48 On 5 July 1959, Sukarno declared the beginning of Guided Democracy when he revoked the UUDS 1950 (Provisional Constitution of 1950) and reinstated the UUD 1945 (1945 Constitution).49 The inauguration of Guided Democracy paved the way for Sukarno to assume the political ascendancy. Once he had assumed that dominant position, Sukarno fostered a radicalisation

28 INDONESIA-CHINA RELATIONS (1950–1967)

of internal politics. In his Independence Day address of 17 August 1959, he declared that the Indonesian Revolution was not yet finished and, therefore, he announced that Indonesia would return to jalan revolusi (the road of the revolution). He denounced the ‘excesses’ of liberal democracy and introduced various ‘revolutionary programmes’ of which the liberation of West Irian from the Dutch was given a paramount significance. From then on, every aspect of Indonesian politics was conceived in terms of the idiom of revolution. The dominance of Sukarno in Indonesian politics became possible due to the emergence of what Lev has termed as a ‘tri-partite dominant political configuration’, with Sukarno deftly balancing the PKI against the army.50 Rivalry between the army and the PKI provided the opportunity for Sukarno to enjoy what Professor Kahin has termed ‘double marriage’, namely, a situation where Sukarno needed the army’s and the PKI’s support but at the same time the two forces became dependent upon him.51 However, President Sukarno’s position in the triangle was more as a protector of the PKI than a ‘pure balancer’, because he himself was afraid of being engulfed by the army’s power and the threat of an army takeover. The result was the implant of a fragile balance of internal forces. The two main features of Guided Democracy—the ascendancy of Sukarno and the fragile balance of internal forces—were reflected in the way foreign policy was employed. If Sukarno was to maintain his supremacy, he had to sustain the status quo in the power structure by not adopting policies that might upset that balance. In such circumstances, as Professor Lev has argued, ‘only those programs that did not threaten the elite could be attempted seriously and these frequently were in the realm of foreign policy.’52 Indeed, as Professor Leifer has summed up, ‘given the fragile balance of internal forces which made for immobilism in domestic politics, the most fruitful field for pursuing “the romanticism of revolution” was in foreign policy.’53 Consequently, foreign policy assumed a prominent place in Sukarno’s Guided Democracy. President Sukarno believed that the radicalisation of internal policies could only be achieved by a parallel radicalisation of foreign policy. In Sukarno’s view, two previously stated objectives of the Indonesian Revolution—the creation of a unitary state and a just and prosperous society in Indonesia—could not be achieved before the enemies of these objectives had been eradicated. Indeed, as Simon has observed, Sukarno was able to intertwine domestic and foreign affairs so that success in one realm could occur only with comparable success in the other.54 In this regard, Sukarno perceived imperialism, colonialism and capitalism as the main enemies. Therefore, he identified the destruction of those enemies as the third objective of the revolution. Indonesia gradually emerged as a voice of the extreme left within the non-aligned Afro-Asian movement.55 The radicalisation in Indonesia’s foreign policy corresponded with changes which were underway in China’s foreign policy. These changes resulted from China’s growing disappointment with its main ally, the Soviet Union. In 1956 Beijing had been shocked by Khrushchev’s de-Stalinisation speech. That speech also advocated political compromise with the US. From Beijing’s viewpoint, the Soviet’s new stance would weaken its position in confrontation against Washington in East Asia which was stepping up the ‘containment’ of China.56 This raised serious doubts on the part of the Chinese over the merits of Soviet leadership in the struggle against American imperialism and also over its long-term intentions towards China.

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China began to embark on a more radical foreign policy by encouraging an intensification of struggle against the US. More emphasis was put on strengthening political ties with any states, communist or not, which would oppose US policies under an ‘international united front’.57 As Professor Mozingo has argued, ‘post-1957 Indonesia was [a] prime target for China’s new attempt to revise the socialist camp’s international aims and commitments.’58 That devel opment soon led to a closer identification of foreign policy interests between Beijing and Jakarta. For his part, the involvement of the US in the 1958 regional rebellions strengthened Sukarno’s suspicion of that country. Correspondingly, he perceived China as a potential ally for realising both his international and domestic policies.59 China was reported to have offered ‘volunteers’ to assist Indonesia in crushing the rebellions.60 Moreover, a strong endorsement of Indonesia’s position on West Irian had come from China. The Chinese press frequently equated the imperialist occupation of West Irian with that imposed on Formosa.61 At home, the growing convergence of perceptions between Sukarno and Chinese leaders provided a new opportunity for the PKI to move closer to the President, a move he believed to be favourable to his position within the army-Sukarno-PKI triangle. By early 1959, the conditions seemed ripe for the two countries to embark upon bilateral cooperation. In 1959, however, the evolving Indonesia-China relationship was put to a test. An episode erupted in Indonesia’s domestic political life which obstructed the improving IndonesiaChina relationship. On 14 May 1959, Indonesia’s Ministry of Trade issued a regulation banning alien businessmen from operating retail shops in the rural areas. They were advised to sell their shops to Indonesians and move their business to large cities. It was estimated that about 300,000 Chinese aliens were affected by this policy.62 The policy was backed firmly by the army. The central military headquarters issued its own decree empowering regional military commanders to remove aliens from their places of residence for ‘security reasons’. The policy was strongly endorsed in West Java when Colonel Kosasih, the region’s military commander, issued a separate decree in August ordering all aliens (Chinese) to move to cities and towns by December 1959.63 The military’s action might have been driven by reports that the local Chinese had been financing the PKI; the enforcement of the ban would undermine financial support for the Party. The Chinese minority issue also posed a delicate problem for the PKI. During the enforcement of the ban, the PKI found itself in an awkward position. As Professor Mackie has pointed out, opponents of the PKI were likely to interpret any defence of Chinese community interests by the Party as a sign either of its servitude to Beijing or of opportunism dictated by the need for funds from Chinese businessmen.64 In the event, the PKI’s defence of ethnic-Chinese interests seriously impaired its popularity in the villages. China was also faced with the same dilemma. Initially, China reacted cautiously to the policy by engaging in private protests. The use of ‘quiet diplomacy’ reflected Beijing’s interest in not upsetting the growing Indonesia-China relationship; it seemed that Beijing was also aware of the difficult position of the PKI over the issue. However, events got out of hand. Beijing’s rough treatment of Indonesia’s Foreign Minister Dr Subandrio when he was in Beijing to discuss the dispute strengthened Jakarta’s determination to deal firmly with China.65 It was reported that Subandrio was called out of bed in the early hours of the

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morning by Chinese leaders, and that China’s Foreign Minister Chen Yi threatened that if Indonesia did not terminate the anti-Chinese campaign, it would be punished by calling on Singapore Chinese to launch a trade boycott.66 The Indonesian government stood its ground. For example, in response to China’s Foreign Minister Chen Yi’s protest at the arrest in West Java of 165 Chinese charged with resisting expulsion, Foreign Minister Subandrio claimed that the Chinese embassy in Jakarta had sent agents into the countryside to sabotage the resettlement programme.67 Earlier, before the Parliament, he had stated that Indonesia should ‘maintain [its] friendship with the People’s Republic of China but without sacrificing our national interests’ [emphasis added]. 68 President Sukarno maintained that the trade ban should continue, even though he simultaneously made some important modifications through the Presidential Regulations (Peraturan Presiden), no. 10 of 1959.69 In its modified form, the decree exempted sixteen categories of Chinese traders, such as those firms engaged in service trade and those which included one or more Indonesian partners, or provided alternatives to outright confiscation, such as promise for compensation. None of these options had been provided for in the original regulation.70 The events following the retailing ban on alien Chinese prompted intervention by China’s government in Indonesia’s internal affairs. Two policies adopted by the Chinese government were notable in this regard. First, China’s Embassy in Jakarta encouraged the Overseas Chinese to resist the policy, especially the Army’s attempt to evacuate them from villages. This action was obviously regarded as one of intervention by Indonesian leaders, especially within the Army.71 Moreover, the Overseas Chinese Affairs Commission’s vice-chairman, Fang Fang, virtually accused the Indonesian army of using anti-Chinese measures ‘to undermine the patriotic forces in their own country [i.e. Sukarno and the PKI] to pave the way for achieving military dictatorship’.72 Second, China launched a campaign to call the Indonesian Overseas Chinese back to the mainland. It was reported that about 119,000 Chinese decided to take up the Chinese government’s offer to return to their homeland.73 China did bring back several thousands of returnees, but in April 1960 it dropped the policy and started to urge potential repatriates to stay in Indonesia. The reason for this, as Professor Mozingo has noted, was that the business of bringing the Chinese home seemed to have carried high economic and social costs.74 The influx of a large number of the returned Chinese brought about difficulties for China’s government in integrating them into Chinese society.75 Such difficulties forced China’s government to seek a rapprochement with Indonesia. It seems to have realised that it would not gain anything by confronting Jakarta over the issue. Beijing was therefore keen to back out of the dispute. By the end of 1960, both sides managed to put the problem aside and began to restore their relations. In December 1960, Jakarta and Beijing signed a protocol implementing the Dual Nationality Treaty.76 For both sides, 1961 was the year for speeding up their reconciliation. From March into early April, Chen Yi visited Indonesia and talked about ‘the perpetual Sino-Indonesian friendship’. He offered to supply economic aid for the new Indonesian development plan, and reiterated China’s support for Indonesia’s claim over West Irian.77 In June 1961, Sukarno visited China and was praised by PRC Chairman Liu Shaoqi for his role in promoting

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‘the great project of the bridge of friendship between China and Indonesia’.78 By the end of 1961, Indonesia-China relations were restored as if nothing had happened. The reasons for this extraordinarily quick restoration have been well documented in various studies on Indonesia—China relations during this period.79 A number of observers have agreed that similarities in foreign policy perceptions and objectives between Indonesia and China drove the two countries to work together closely in the international arena. For example, Sukarno’s confrontational view of world politics converged with China’s perception of the principal contradiction being between imperialism and the Third World. 80 As a result, they embarked on a policy of establishing an ‘international united front’ designed to drive the US and the UK from South-East Asia. For its part, China became the strongest supporter of Sukarno’s West Irian campaign, his conception of the struggle between NEFOS (New Emerging Forces) and OLDEFOS (Old Established Forces), and later on, Jakarta’s confrontation of Malaysia. Even though cooperation between the two countries grew rapidly, the foundations of the relationship were still unstable. Close relations with China did not receive strong support from many political forces within Indonesia. Indeed, as Hauswedell has noted, cooperation between Indonesia and China during this period was possible due to the dominance of Sukarno and his supporters in the political system.81 And as discussed in the previous section, that dominance was the distinctive feature of the Guided Democracy system introduced by Sukarno in 1959. In this regard, close relations with China in launching an anti-imperialist policy constituted a significant aspect of the radicalisation of Guided Democracy’s foreign policy as well as a factor in its domestic management. The majority of the elite, however, especially the military, Islamic and conservative nationalist groups were worried that close relations with China could be detrimental to Indonesia. They were still suspicious of China’s real intention behind its friendly behaviour to Indonesia. China’s conciliatory policy towards Indonesia had not overcome this suspicion but, on the contrary, had reinforced it. Indeed, the anti-communist forces in Indonesia eventually came to perceive a threatening linkage between close relations with China and developments in domestic politics. Since they saw Communist China, the PKI and the Overseas Chinese as constituting three forces that threatened Indonesia’s national security, economic independence and the social status quo,82 they concluded that Indonesia’s foreign policy was not serving Indonesia’s interests but those of the PRC, the PKI and the local Chinese. In 1963 another storm blew up in Indonesia-China relations. On 13 May 1963, a demonstration against local Chinese broke out in Bandung, West Java, and then spread to Central and East Java, and even to East Sumatra. However, unlike the previous outbreaks, the anti-Chinese violence in May 1963 did not bring about diplomatic tensions. China refrained from interfering as it had done before. Its interest in maintaining close cooperation with Indonesia in an ‘international anti-imperialist united front’ seemed to be more important. Moreover, China seemed to have learned from the 1959–1960 episode that intervention in such a delicate matter would not bring any benefit. China, therefore, joined forces with the Indonesian government to blame the incident on ‘imperialists’ and ‘counter revolutionary groups’ which tried to undermine ‘Sino-Indonesian friendly relations’.83

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Shared international interests also seemed to prevail over domestic considerations. By January 1963, a certain amount of Indonesia-China foreign policy coordination became more apparent. Both countries were seeking a more radical alignment in world affairs.84 Indonesia’s opposition to the creation of the Malaysian Federation, to which Beijing lent its strong support, served as an important factor that served to cement Indonesia-China relations further.85 From then on, cooperation between Indonesia and China grew closer and reached its peak in August 1965 when Sukarno announced the establishment of the ‘Jakarta -Beijing Axis’. Both countries became more radical in their attempts to transform international order especially after Indonesia had withdrawn from the United Nations. For example, with China’s support, Sukarno pursued his plan to convene a Conference of the New Emerging Forces (CONEFO) in Jakarta as an alternative to the United Nations. At the same time, the discontent towards the growing Jakarta-Beijing relations and their implications for Indonesia’s domestic politics grew strongly among the army and anticommunist forces in Indonesia. The new friendship between the two countries had isolated Indonesia from the West, and this in turn tipped the internal balance in favour of the PKI. Moreover, the apparent identity between the national interests of Indonesia and those of China gave the PKI special prestige in winning Sukarno’s support against its critics in Jakarta. In other words, as China became Indonesia’s main foreign ally, the PKI became established as Sukarno’s main domestic ally.86 This, in turn, enabled the Party to discredit its opponents, especially the army. In summary, it can be concluded that the period discussed above not only chronicles a convergence in Indonesia-China relations but also reveals their underlying nature. First, as demonstrated by the episode in 1959–1960, the question of the Chinese minority in Indonesia demonstrated its potential for disrupting Indonesia-China relations. Diplomatic tension occurred largely as a result of China’s intervention to protect Overseas Chinese interests. During the tense dispute, however, Indonesia was not cowed by China’s pressures. On the contrary, Indonesia made it clear that it would not sacrifice its national interests for the sake of amity with China. Second, Indonesia-China relations were built on unstable foundations. They proved to be vulnerable to the domestic pressures of anti-communist forces in Indonesia. These forces perceived that growing Indonesia-China relations had provided an opportunity for the PKI to drive Indonesian politics to the left. Indeed, close diplomatic ties with China had its domestic political function as well. It served to weaken the position of the army in domestic politics by alienating it from its Western supporters. In this regard, the army was determined to prevent the rise of the PKI to power by undermining growing relations between Indonesia and China. And an opportunity for doing so presented itself with the outbreak of an abortive coup in September 1965 in Indonesia, in which China was implicated. The breakdown of diplomatic relations (1965–1967) The unsuccessful coup by a group of army dissidents led ostensibly by a battalion commander in the Cakrabirawa palace guard Lieutenant Colonel Untung in September 1965, in which the PKI was implicated, marked a new page in Indonesia’s domestic politics. The story of the coup is familiar to students of Indonesian politics. The present study does not offer any

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interpretation of the episode87 but seeks to outline its impact on Indonesia-China relations. Suffice it to say that the abortive coup was quickly quelled by the army’s Strategic Reserve (KOSTRAD) led by Major-General Suharto. It was soon followed by a series of anti-PKI and anti-government demonstrations by students. After a meeting with three senior generals on 11 March 1966, President Sukarno agreed to transfer executive power to General Suharto. With the transfer of executive power, the army intensified the liquidation of its arch rival, the PKI, which had been declared an illegal organisation. Along with the destruction of the PKI in the domestic arena, the army also moved to eliminate the Party’s external ally, China, by charging it with supporting the abortive coup. Consequently, relations between Indonesia and China deteriorated sharply. In Jakarta, a wave of anti-communist and anti-China demonstrations by students erupted. With semiofficial support from the military, the demonstrators demanded that President Sukarno disband the PKI and break off diplomatic relations with China.88 During those mass actions, China’s embassy in Glodok (Chinatown) was attacked and vandalised. Houses, shops and properties of the local Chinese also became the targets of students’ actions. The abortive coup and attendant anti-communist outburst in Indonesia coincided with the onset of the Great Cultural Revolution in China which transformed the country’s domestic politics into radical ferment. The radicalisation of China’s domestic politics was expressed also in foreign policy. From the second half of 1966, radical elements in Beijing managed to direct China’s foreign policy along a more revolutionary path. The failure of China’s policy in Indonesia became one of the key foreign policy issues to be used by supporters of the Cultural Revolution to advance their radical cause. Under such circumstances, the government of Communist China mobilised popular support in a series of anti-Indonesian campaigns through various forms of mass action and public gatherings. In April 1967, several hundred Chinese youths led by Red Guards launched anti-Indonesia demonstrations and carried posters condemning Indonesia to the Republic’s embassy in Beijing. In a public gathering on 27 April 1967, for example, China’s Vice-Premier and Minister of Defence Xian Fuzhi delivered a speech that severely condemned Indonesia’s government.89 In August 1967, the demonstrators destroyed and burned Indonesia’s embassy, and intimidated Indonesia’s diplomatic staff.90 Moreover, China’s leaders openly reiterated their support for what they called ‘the determination of Indonesian people to make revolution’ against ‘fascist dictatorship’.91 The dispute was also marked by a reciprocal expulsion of diplomats. On 27 April 1967, Indonesia’s government ordered two Chinese diplomats, Yao Dengshan (interim chargéd’affaires) and Xu Ren (consul-general) to leave the country. The Chinese government retaliated by expelling Indonesia’s interim chargé-d’affaires Baron Sutadisastra, and the head of the Information Section, Sumarno. On 24 August, Indonesia’s government announced that it was recalling all of its diplomatic staff from Beijing. In September, China’s interim chargé-d’affaires Lu Zubo and second secretary and consul of the Chinese embassy in Jakarta Xu Shen, were ordered to leave the country before the 14th of the month. The next day, Foreign Minister Adam Malik stated that he had ordered all Indonesian diplomats to leave China, but that no reciprocal exit permits had been granted by the Chinese governments. On 25 September, Indonesia’s interim charge in Beijing Nahar Sjamsuddin, and second secretary Rumamby, were declared personae non grata.92

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Diplomatic tensions reached their peak on 9 October 1967 when Indonesia’s government, after a special cabinet meeting, declared officially that diplomatic relations between Indonesia and China would be ‘frozen’ from the 30th of the month, thus effecting a kind of de facto diplomatic break.93 On 28 October, Beijing formally announced a suspension of its own ties with Indonesia. Despite Indonesia’s insistence that the relations were not being broken off, the respective diplomatic missions in the two countries ceased to exist. Sukarno’s previous vision of a ‘Jakarta-Peking Axis’ had lost its strategic significance in Indonesia’s foreign policy. China was no longer seen as a close partner in promoting the New Emerging Forces (NEFOS). Indeed, this concept was quickly abandoned. China, which had once occupied a special place in Indonesia’s foreign policy, was now portrayed as the main threat to the country’s national security. The breakdown of diplomatic ties reflected changes in domestic politics and a corresponding transformation in foreign policy. Domestic political change and a new course in foreign policy The destruction of the PKI in the wake of the abortive coup paved the way for the army to consolidate its position as the only powerful organised force in the country. The army’s road to power became more visible when Sukarno gave up office in March 1967 and General Suharto became acting-President. With the confirmation of General Suharto as President by the Provisional People’s Consultative Assembly (MPRS) in March 1968, the army secured its position as the dominant force in Indonesia’s political structure. The so-called New Order government was established in office. After the fall of Sukarno, the New Order government began to establish its own political platform. In this regard, the New Order set for itself the task to ‘return to the original Pancasila and the Constitution of 1945 (UUD 1945)’ (Kembali ke Pancasila dan UUD 1945 Yang Sebenarnya): the ideological and constitutional basis of the state of Indonesia. The period of Guided Democracy was declared as a period of penyelewengan (deviance) from the Pancasila and UUD 1945. Sukarno’s obsession with revolution during the Guided Democracy era was replaced by Suharto’s developmental pragmatism. However, the New Order did not seek a return to the parliamentary democracy of the 1950s or to create a distinct, new political system. Rather, as put forward by the MPRS in 1966, it put the ‘purifying of the implementation’ (memurnikan pelaksanaan) of the old as its primary task. Like the Old Order, the New Order functioned on the same ideological foundation of the Pancasila (albeit with a different interpretation) and the same constitutional basis of the UUD 1945. In addition to affirming Pancasila and the UUD 45, the New Order government set up two priorities to serve as the bases of its legitimacy. First, pembangunan (development) was soon introduced as a dominant idiom of Suharto’s regime. Economic rehabilitation was construed as the core task of the new government. Second, for pembangunan to succeed, it required the creation of stabilitas nasional (national stability) through the maintenance of keamanan nasional (national security). The New Order maintained that the possible revival of the PKI posed the main threat to national stability and security, which in turn, would upset the policy of pembangunan nasional. Using these two national priorities as pretexts, the New Order government worked to create a political system in which the dominant position of the army in politics and policy making was justified, massbased political

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participation was tightly circumscribed and economic development was made the key priority (the nature of the New Order’s domestic politics will be discussed further in Chapter 4). Along with changes in the domestic power structure and national priorities, foreign policy also underwent a corresponding transformation. If Sukarno thought that the radicalisation of internal policies could only be achieved by a parallel radicalisation of foreign policy, then the New Order maintained that the domestic priorities of economic development and internal stability could only be achieved by the parallel pursuit of a foreign policy devoted to both objectives. The element of pembangunan ekonomi found its expression through a foreign policy designed to secure foreign aid, while stabilitas had been attained, in part, by denying any possibility for external interference in internal affairs, especially from Communist China. This approach logically moved Indonesia closer to the more prosperous non-communist West from which the aid for pembangunan ekonomi could come, while relations with communist states grew cool. Communism, especially Chinese communism, was perceived as constituting a main threat to national security which, in turn, could upset the pembangunan nasional. The revision in domestic priorities was accompanied also by changes in foreign policy style and initiatives. General Suharto renounced the flamboyant and radical style of his predecessor’s foreign policy. Sukarno’s aspiration of establishing a NEFOS-based new international order as opposed to an OLDEFOS-based old one was quickly abandoned and replaced by vigorous attempts at improving Indonesia’s relations with the West and Japan. By September 1966, Indonesia had rejoined the international community by resuming its membership of the United Nations. A confrontational regional policy was replaced by one of cooperation. To this end, the New Order government put the termination of konfrontasi (confrontation) against Malaysia and the normalisation of relations between Jakarta and Kuala Lumpur high on the list of foreign policy priorities. After relationships with Malaysia and Singapore were normalised, the New Order government took an active role in improving relations with neighbouring countries through the establishment of the Association of South-East Asian Nations (ASEAN) in August 1967. For the New Order government, active involvement in ASEAN has been essential for regaining the confidence and trust of its neighbours. Correspondingly, it regarded friendly relationships with neighbouring countries as a prerequisite for the success of Indonesia’s national development efforts.94 However, such a reversal in the direction of the New Order’s foreign policy should not be seen as a complete break with the Old Order’s foreign policy. As Professor Leifer has pointed out, the New Order’s foreign policy ‘reinstated a former course rather than pursuing a novel one’, and in so far as the novelty was obtained, ‘it arose, in part, from a change in style’.95 The New Order government maintained that it had no intention to move beyond the framework of a bebas-aktif foreign policy. On the contrary, it set for itself the task of returning to the ‘original’ independent and active foreign policy (Politik Bebas-Aktif Yang Sebenarnya). Sukarno’s adventurism in foreign policy was seen as a penyelewengan (deviation) from the foreign policy of bebas-aktif. Accordingly, the New Order government saw itself as engaged in a koreksi total (total correction) to policies pursued by Sukarno’s Old Order, including foreign policy.96

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As in the domestic politics, the New Order government felt that there was a need to put foreign policy back on correct ideological and constitutional lines. As early as June 1966, the MPRS had decreed that ‘in order to safeguard and implement Pancasila and the 1945 Constitution in their purest forms, it is absolutely necessary [for Indonesia] to conduct an independent and active foreign policy which is antiimperialism and anti-colonialism’.97 This policy statement was in line with the preamble of the 1945 Constitution which obliges Indonesia to work for the elimination of colonialism and the establishment of a new world order based on independence, peace and social justice. It clearly proclaims that ‘independence is the right of all nations and therefore, colonialism, as a system that is incompatible with justice and humanity, must be abolished from the face of the earth’. The preamble also states that Indonesia should work towards ‘the establishment of an international system based on the ideals of independence, social justice and eternal peace’. 98 In this respect, the state’s ideology, Pancasila, and its Constitution of 1945 (UUD 1945) provide a conceptual framework within which foreign policy should be carried out. Indeed, Indonesia’s foreign policy under the New Order became more conceptualised and closely tied with these ideological and constitutional frameworks. Such an approach to foreign policy provided a clear line of continuity with the past. Even though Pancasila and UUD 1945 do not provide direct guidance on how the Republic’s foreign policy ought to be conducted, they are seen by Indonesia’s foreign policy elite as providing significant values from which the conduct of Indonesia’s foreign policy should be derived.99 Of course, which values should be invoked at different times and in different ways would depend on those who are in the position to decide. However, as former Foreign Minister Mochtar Kusumaatmadja has argued, ‘the basic principles of Indonesia's foreign policy remain consistent and unchanging, because they always relate back to the Constitution of 1945.‘100 Pancasila, while rarely mentioned in official discussions at operational level, is regarded as the ‘ideal’ (idiil) foundation of the Republic’s foreign policy. 101 In this regard, Suharto’s predecessor, Sukarno, had used the same ideological and constitutional bases to justify his foreign policy agenda, albeit with a different interpretation. Any understanding of post-coup Indonesia's foreign policy should also recognise that the place of foreign policy in domestic politics under the New Order is both similar to and different from that of Guided Democracy. It is similar in the sense that foreign policy continues to reflect various impulses in domestic politics. And as during Guided Democracy, foreign policy during the New Order has also served domestic requirements. But it is different in the sense that under the New Order, foreign policy has ceased to serve as a 'battle ground' where competing political forces sought to discredit opponents by using foreign policy issues. More importantly, foreign policy is no longer permitted to be used as a political weapon whereby, for example, opposition forces might attack the government's economic development programme. The continued primacy of domestic requirements has meant that foreign policy has also continued to perform its function of advancing domestic political interests of the ruling regime. While President Sukarno used foreign policy to register the revolutionary credentials of his government, the foreign policy of Suharto's New Order has been directed to achieving the twin objectives of internal stability and economic development which also serve as the bases of regime legitimacy. The element of anti-communism in domestic politics

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provides the rationale for unrelenting vigilance in the maintenance of national stability and security, so that national development can be carried out smoothly. The legitimacy of the objectives of stabilitas and pembangunan have rested, in part, on the New Order's claim to its role as 'the guardian' of the state against a potential threat which might come from communism and China. It was, and still is, these twin objectives and the New Order's threat perception that have guided its interpretation and implementation of the bebas-aktif foreign policy since March 1966. Indeed, as Professor van der Kroef has pointed out, the legitimacy of the New Order government's policy priorities rests on its threat perception, and that threat perception in turn governs Indonesia’s foreign policy.102 Indonesia’s decision to suspend diplomatic ties with China reflected such a legitimacy concern of the New Order regime. Conclusion The discussion in this chapter has demonstrated that Indonesia's initial policy towards China grew out of the need by Indonesia’s post-independence government to assert an independent and active foreign policy in order to manage domestic political rivalries and to maintain national unity. The independent and active policy was itself influenced by internal conditions marked by a divisive political rivalry among political forces. In this regard, Indonesia’s policy towards China constituted one of the Indonesian government’s attempts to uphold the principle of ‘bebas-aktif’. In fact, from the beginning relations with China had been resented by many groups in Indonesia, because they were worried that diplomatic relations with that country could damage Indonesia’s national interests. The bilateral relationship proved to be unstable, and even vulnerable to pressures stemming from Indonesia’s domestic political arena. The improvement in relations during the first part of the 1960s owed more to the nature of Indonesian domestic politics at the time and to the convergence of foreign policy perception between the two countries than to the eradication of constraints. First, even when relations were improving, the issue of the ethnic Chinese in Indonesia and their links to China, could easily have generated diplomatic tensions between Indonesia and China. Second, the growing relations between Indonesia and China provided the PKI with an opportunity to move Indonesia to the left. The army was greatly alarmed by that move, and therefore, tried to undermine China’s influence over the PKI. Third, corresponding anti-imperialist objectives had caused a convergence of interests between the two countries, which, in turn, made it possible for them to coordinate their foreign policies for transforming the international order, but those policies were vulnerable to domestic imperatives. The acute worsening of Indonesia-China relations was the inevitable consequence of the anti-communist momentum in Indonesia after the 1965 abortive coup. The collapse of the PKI in late 1965 and the rise of the army to power in Indonesia led on to the breakdown of diplomatic relations. China’s alleged involvement in the 1965 coup was regarded as the main reason for the government to sever diplomatic ties. And China’s subsequent hostile behaviour provided further justification for Indonesia’s government to suspend diplomatic relations in October 1967.

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The inauguration of the New Order government in March 1966 provides yet another striking example of how changes in domestic politics have influenced the course of Indonesia’s foreign policy. It once again suggests the extent to which Indonesia’s foreign policy is a ‘domestic foreign policy’. Following the transfer of power from President Sukarno in March 1966, General Suharto soon introduced two interrelated tasks of maintaining internal stability and promoting economic development as the main priorities of his New Order government. Strong emphasis was given to the need to maintain internal stability as the main condition for successful national development. These two objectives were of paramount importance for the New Order in that they served as the prime bases of regime legitimacy. Changes in domestic politics were followed by a corresponding transformation in foreign policy. The military-backed New Order government introduced some significant changes while at the same time maintaining continuity with the past by pledging to restore the bebasaktif principle. The revolutionary agenda of Sukarno’s era was revoked and relations with Western countries and Japan were restored. Confrontation with Malaysia was ended and the establishment of a cooperative regional organisation, ASEAN, was strongly supported. Unlike during Guided Democracy, foreign policy ceased to be a battle ground for domestic political rivalry. Not unlike the previous period, however, foreign policy of the New Order continued to serve as a means for advancing the domestic political interests of the ruling regime. And the decision to suspend diplomatic ties with China in October 1967 fitted well into its domestic political requirements. Notes 1 Michael Leifer, Indonesia’s Foreign Policy (London: Allen and Unwin, 1983), p. xiii. 2 For a comprehensive discussion of US early policy on this issue, see Robert J. McMahon, Colonialism and Cold War: The United States and the Struggle for Indonesian Independence, 1945– 1949 (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1981). 3 Jon M.Reinhardt, Foreign Policy and National Integration: The Case of Indonesia (New Haven: Yale University, 1971), p. 32. 4 For a comprehensive and detailed discussion on the importance of the revolutionary struggle for national independence in shaping the anti-colonialism in Indonesia, see Leifer, Indonesia’s Foreign Policy. 5 On the origins and evolution of the political cleavages in Indonesian politics, see Herbert Feith, The Decline of Constitutional Democracy in Indonesia (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1962). See also William H.Frederick, Visions and Heat: The Making of the Indonesian Revolution (Athens: Ohio University Press, 1989). 6 Feith, The Decline of Constitutional Democracy, p. 20. 7 The Agreement was initialled in November 1946. For a discussion of the Agreement and Sjahrir’s role in it, see Rudolf Mrazek, Sjahrir: Politics and Exile in Indonesia (Ithaca, NY: Cornell Southeast Asia Program, 1994), especially pp. 321–332. See also David Wehl, The Birth of Indonesia (London: Allen & Unwin, 1948), Chapter 12; and Charles Wolf, Jr, The Indonesian Story: The Birth, Growth and Structure of the Indonesian Republic (New York: John Day, 1948), especially Chapter 3.

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8 Lie Tek Tjeng, ‘Indonesia’s Free and Active Foreign Policy and America’s Asia-Pacific Policy in the Early Years of the Cold War in Asia’, manuscript, n.d., p. 5. 9 Drs A.W.Widjaja, Indonesia, Asia Afrika, Non-Blok: Politik Bebas Aktif [Indonesia, Asia Africa, Non-Alignment: The Politics of Independent and Active] (Jakarta: Bina Aksara, 1986), p. 15. 10 The speech is published under the title of Mendayung Di Antara Dua Karang (Jakarta: Ministry of Information, 1951). The English translation is from Leifer, Indonesia’s Foreign Policy, p. 20. 11 The Pancasila is the Indonesian state ideology, meaning ‘five principles’. Those principles are generally summarised as belief in one God, humanitarianism, national unity, democracy and social justice. It was meant to serve as common ideological ground for the establishment of a unified state upon which all Indonesia could agree regardless of their religions, ethnicity or regional origins. For a discussion of the significance of Pancasila in Indonesia’s politics, see Douglas E.Ramage, Politics in Indonesia: Democracy, Islam and the Ideology of Tolerance (London: Routledge, 1995). 12 Mohammad Hatta, ‘Indonesia’s Foreign Policy’, Foreign Affairs, vol. 31, no. 3 (April 1953), p. 446. 13 See Rizal Sukma, ‘The Evolution of Indonesia’s Foreign Policy: An Indonesian View’, Asian Survey, vol. XXXV no. 3 (March 1995). 14 See Leifer, Indonesia’s Foreign Policy, pp. 19–23. 15 Hatta, ‘Indonesia’s Foreign Policy’, p. 443. 16 Ibid, p. 449. 17 The sensitivity to the factor of national unity in foreign policy was later on reinforced also by the experience of constitutional democracy (1950–1957). This period of Indonesian politics was characterised by enormous political instability with ideological and political rivalries among conflicting political parties constituting major obstacles to effective government. Contentious foreign policy issues among these parties exacerbated their differences. For a comprehensive discussion of the relationship between Indonesia's domestic and foreign policy during this period, see Leifer, Indonesia's Foreign Policy, especially Chapter 2. 18 David Mozingo, Chinese Policy Toward Indonesia, 1949–1967 (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1976), p. 88. 19 Ibid., pp. 86-87. The sources of this suspicion on the Indonesian side against China will be discussed in more detail in Chapter 3. 20 Russel H.Fifield, Southeast Asia in United States Policy (New York: Praeger, 1963), p. 18. 21 Ibid., p. 21. 22 Cited in Lowell Dittmer, Liu Shao-Ch'I and the Chinese Cultural Revolution: The Politics of Mass Criticism (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1974), p. 25. 23 Arnold C.Brackman, ‘The Malay World and China: Partner or Barrier?’, in A. M. Halpern, ed., Policies Towards China: Views from Six Continents (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1965), pp. 259-267. 24 Mozingo, Chinese Policy, pp. 90–92. 25 This discussion of Hatta's administrative and economic policy is heavily drawn from Feith, The Decline of Constitutional Democracy, pp. 46–99. 26 Ibid., p. 84. 27 Leifer, Indonesia's Foreign Policy, p. 29. 28 Feith, The Decline of Constitutional Democracy, p. 87. 29 Ide Anak Agung Gde Agung, Twenty Years Indonesian Foreign Policy, 1945-1965 (The Hague: Mouton, 1973), p. 202. 30 Hatta, ‘Indonesia’s Foreign Policy’, p. 445. 31 Mozingo, Chinese Policy, p. 95.

40 INDONESIA-CHINA RELATIONS (1950–1967)

32 Ibid, pp. 90-98. 33 See Agung, Twenty Years Indonesian Foreign Policy, p. 410. See also Woo Jung Joo, 'The Rise and Fall of the Djakarta-Peking Axis, 1949-1966’, Ph.D. diss., Mississippi State University, 1967, pp. 124-125. 34 Brackman, The Malay World and China’, p. 270. 35 Indonesian Review, vol. I, no. 5 (October-December 1951). 36 Brackman, ‘The Malay World and China’, p. 270. 37 Mozingo, Chinese Policy, pp. 100–101. 38 The Sukiman Cabinet resigned in March 1952 after the growing criticism against his policy of accepting American aid under the 1951 Mutual Security Act. For the details of this crisis, see Feith, The Decline of Constitutional Democracy, pp. 198–207. 39 See Professor Mozingo's interview with Isak Mahdi, former Indonesian chargé-d'affaires in Beijing, in Mozingo, Chinese Policy, p. 107. 40 Ibid., p. 112. 41 For a comprehensive discussion of the character of the Ali Cabinet, see Feith, The Decline of Constitutional Democracy. For a discussion of the PKI, see Donald Hindley, The Communist Party of Indonesia (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1964). 42 Mozingo, Chinese Policy, pp. 114—116. 43 For the conclusion of the Treaty, see, among others, Stephen Fitzgerald, China and the Overseas Chinese: A Study of Peking’s Changing Policy 1949–1970 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1972), pp. 107–110; and Donald E.Willmott, The National Status of the Chinese in Indonesia, 1900–1958, revised edition (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University, Modern Indonesian Project, 1961), especially Chapter 4. 44 However, the Treaty was vague, especially with regard to the third provision. As later events during Indonesia’s ban on aliens trading in rural areas in 1959–1960 demonstrated, Indonesia and China differed when they came to the interpretation of what ‘the proper right and interests’ of the Chinese meant. As Professor Mozingo argued, the Treaty did not solve the problem of the Chinese minority in Indonesia, but only served to remove the PRC’s claim on the localborn Chinese. It is also important to note that the conclusion of the Treaty also aroused criticism in Indonesia. Many felt that the problem of the Chinese minority was purely Indonesia’s domestic affair. See ibid., pp. 114–120. 45 For a more detailed discussion of China’s position and Zhou’s views during the Conference, see ibid., pp. 122–124. 46 For detailed developments in Indonesia-China cooperation during this period, see Lea E.Williams, ‘Sino-Indonesian Diplomacy: A Study of Revolutionary International Politics’, The China Quarterly, no. 11 (July-September 1962), pp. 184–199. 47 For the role of Armed Forces during this period, see Daniel S.Lev, ‘The Political Role of the Army in Indonesia’, Pacific Affairs, vol. XXXVI, no. 4 (Winter 1963–64), pp. 349–364. 48 The Army’s support for the abolition of the constitutional democracy system grew out of its dissatisfaction with the system. See ibid., pp. 349–364. 49 The UUD 1945 is the first constitution of the Republic of Indonesia promulgated on 18 August 1945. 50 Lev, The Political Role of the Army’, p. 353. 51 George McT Kahin, ‘Indonesia’, in George McT Kahin, ed., Major Governments of Asia (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1963), p. 651. 52 Daniel S.Lev, The Transition to Guided Democracy: Indonesian Politics 1957–59 (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University, Modern Indonesian Project, 1966), p. 286. 53 Leifer, Indonesia’s Foreign Policy, p. 68.

INDONESIA-CHINA RELATIONS (1950–1967) 41

54 Simon, The Broken Triangle, p. 22. 55 Brackman, The Malay World and China’, p. 275. 56 A.Doak Barnett, China and the Major Powers in East Asia (Washington, DC: The Brooking Institution, 1977), p. 33. See also, Mozingo, Chinese Policy, p. 128. 57 J.D.Armstrong, Revolutionary Diplomacy: Chinese Foreign Policy and the United Front Doctrine (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1977), pp. 74–75. 58 Mozingo, Chinese Policy, p. 137. 59 Simon, The Broken Triangle, p. 13. For an excellent study of the US role in the 1985 regional rebellions in Indonesia, see Audrey R. Kahin and George McT. Kahin, Subversion as Foreign Policy: The Secret Eisenhower and Dulles Debacle in Indonesia (New York: The New Press, 1995). 60 Armstrong, Revolutionary Diplomacy, p. 115. 61 Williams, ‘Sino-Indonesian Diplomacy’, p. 190. 62 Brackman, The Malay World and China’, p. 278. 63 Mozingo, Chinese Policy, pp. 158–159. 64 J.A.C.Mackie, ed., The Chinese in Indonesia: Five Essays (Melbourne: Nelson, 1976), p. 79. 65 On this event, see George McT. Kahin, ‘Indonesia and Malaysia’, Pacific Affairs, vol. XXXVII, no. 3 (Fall 1964), pp. 264–265. See also Mozingo, Chinese Policy, pp. 164–166. 66 Kahin, ‘Indonesia and Malaysia’, p. 265. 67 Williams, ‘Sino-Indonesian Diplomacy’, p. 195. 68 Cited in Brackman, ‘The Malay World and China’, p. 279. 69 For a comprehensive discussion of the Indonesian government policy on this issue, see, J.A.C.Mackie, ‘Anti-Chinese Outbreaks in Indonesia 1959–1968', in Mackie, ed., The Chinese in Indonesia. 70 Mozingo, Chinese Policy, p. 166. 71 For a comprehensive account of this event and the Chinese intervention, see, ibid., pp. 158– 173. 72 Cited in ibid., p. 176. 73 TEMPO, 4 March 1989. 74 Mozingo, Chinese Policy, p. 175. 75 Leo Suryadinata, China and the ASEAN States: The Ethnic Chinese Dimension (Singapore: Singapore University Press, 1985), p. 64. See also Fitzgerald, China and the Overseas Chinese. 76 Williams, ‘Sino-Indonesian Diplomacy’, pp. 196–197. 77 Ibid., p. 197. See also Mozingo, Chinese Policy, p. 188. 78 Ibid. 79 See, among others, Simon, The Broken Triangle; Mozingo, Chinese Policy, Brackman, ‘The Malay World and China’; and Peter Christian Hauswedel, ‘The Anti-Imperialist International United Front in Chinese and Indonesian Foreign Policy 1963–1965: A Study of Anti-Status Quo Politics’, Ph.D. diss., Cornell University, 1976. 80 Ibid., p. 110. 81 Ibid., p. 161. 82 Ibid., p. 159. 83 Peking Review, 24 May 1963. 84 Simon, The Broken Triangle, p. 19. 85 For a more comprehensive discussion on how the Malaysian problem forged close relations between Indonesia and China, see Justus M. van der Kroef, ‘The SinoIndonesian Partnership’, Orbis, vol. VIII, no. 2 (Summer 1964). 86 Harold Crouch, The Army and Politics in Indonesia, revised edition (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1988), p. 68.

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87 For those who are not familiar with this episode in Indonesian politics, see Crouch, ibid., especially Chapter 4. For a brief discussion on various interpretations of the coup, see Justus M.van der Kroef, ‘Interpretations of the 1965 Indonesian Coup: A Review of the Literature’, Pacific Affairs, vol. XLIII, no. 4 (Winter 1970–71), pp. 557–577. 88 See statement by General Kemal Idris in TEMPO, 4 March 1989. 89 Darwoto, ‘Masa-masa Terakhir Hubungan Diplomatik RI-RRC' [The Last Days of IndonesiaChina Diplomatic Relations], Pelita, 17 December 1979. 90 Ibid. 91 van der Kroef, ‘The Sino-Indonesian Rupture’, p. 24. 92 Ibid., pp. 44–45. 93 Ibid, p. 17. The term ‘frozen’ was used deliberately by Foreign Minister Adam Malik as different from the more common terms such as ‘suspension’ or ‘termination’. The meaning and significance of the term for Indonesia’s policy towards China will be discussed further in Chapter 3. 94 For a comprehensive discussion of the significance and the functions of ASEAN for Indonesia, see Dewi Fortuna Anwar, Indonesian in ASEAN: Foreign Policy and Regionalism (Singapore: ISEAS, 1994). 95 Leifer, Indonesia’s Foreign Policy, p. 111. 96 J.Soedjati Djiwandono, ‘Indonesia’s Relations with Other S.E. Asian Countries’, Asian Perspective, vol. 1, no. 1 (Spring 1977), pp. 39–40. 97 Nota MPRS No. 1/MPRS/1966 (Jakarta), quoted in C.P.F.Luhulima, ‘Beberapa Dimensi Politik Luar Negeri Indonesia’, in Bantarto Bandoro et al., eds, Refleksi Seten-gah Abad Kemerdekaan Indonesia (Jakarta: CSIS, 1995), p. 1016. See also Kirdi Dipoyudo, ‘Changes and Trends in the Indonesian Foreign Policy’, in Leo Suryadinata and Sharon Siddique, eds, Trends in Indonesia II (Singapore: Singapore University Press, 1981), p. 120. 98 Undang-Undang Dasar Negara Republik Indonesia 1945. 99 For an excellent discussion on the significance of Pancasila and UUD 1945 for the New Order’s foreign policy, see Gordon Hein, ‘Suharto’s Foreign Policy: Second-Generation Nationalism in Indonesia’, Ph.D. diss., University of California at Berkeley, 1986, especially Chapter 2. 100 Mochtar Kusumaatmadja, Politik Luar Negeri Indonesia dan Pelaksanaannya Dewasa Ini (Bandung: Alumni, 1983), p. 5, as quoted by Hein, ibid., p. 14. 101 Departemen Luar Negeri Republik Indonesia [Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Indonesia], Intisari Masalah Luar Negeri, Publication No. 07/IS/1977, November 1977, p. 12. 102 Justus M.van der Kroef, ‘National Security, Defense Strategy and Foreign Policy Perceptions in Indonesia’, Orbis (Summer 1976), p. 462.

3 The suspension of diplomatic ties Its functions and the roots of resistance

It has been argued in the previous chapter that Indonesia’s decision to establish diplomatic relations with China in 1950 arose primarily out of the Republic’s desire to maintain internal unity as well as to register its legal personality and legitimacy as a new state in the international society. Those relations, however, proved soon to be problematic because they were built on unstable foundations. Jakarta-Beijing relations entered a more cordial phase only during the final years of Guided Democracy during which a close diplomatic liaison between the two governments was undertaken primarily to serve the domestic political interests of both Sukarno and his communist supporters at the expense of the military and other anti-communist forces. Consequently, Indonesia-China diplomatic relations failed to escape their underlying vulnerability to the domestic pressures of anticommunist forces in Indonesia, especially from the army and the Muslim community. The suspension of diplomatic relations in October 1967 after the 1965 abortive coup reflected that underlying feature of the relationship between the two countries. It occurred as a significant consequence of the destruction of Indonesia’s Communist Party (PKI), the collapse of Sukarno’s Guided Democracy in March 1966 and the rise of the army into power. China, once a close ally of Sukarno’s Indonesia in an attempt to build a ‘new’ international political system, was now portrayed by the New Order government as the main threat to the country’s security. This chapter seeks to examine the reasons for Indonesia’s suspension of diplomatic ties with China and what functions it served for domestic politics, how that policy was sustained by the notion of a ‘China threat’ held by Indonesia’s elite and society, and the origins and roots of the protracted debate among the political elite on the question of restoring ties with China which lasted over more than two decades. The discussion in this chapter is divided into five sections. The first section analyses Indonesia’s decision to suspend diplomatic ties with China in terms of domestic political imperatives. The second section elaborates the main aspects of the so-called ‘China threat’ to the country’s national security. The third section examines historical and political factors that made the New Order’s perception of China as a threat acceptable to the wider segment of Indonesia’s society. The fourth section examines the origins of protracted debate on the question of restoring diplomatic ties in Indonesia. Finally, the chapter addresses the differences of view among Indonesia’s political elite on the significance of diplomatic ties with China which had underlain the protracted debate among them over more than two decades.

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The suspension of Indonesia-China relations and the domestic imperatives Seen from the overall context of the changes in Indonesia’s domestic and foreign policy priorities as discussed in Chapter 2, it is not difficult to understand why Indonesia’s government decided to suspend diplomatic ties with China. From the perspective of the New Order government, there were evident reasons to do so. Given the close interrelationship between Indonesia’s foreign policy and domestic imperatives, the decision also proved to be necessary. In other words, the decision involved the question of the ‘reason’ or policy justification and the question of the ‘necessity’ or what functions such a decision would serve for the domestic political interests of the new regime. The first aspect of the decision to suspend diplomatic ties—the question of the reason— has been well researched by many scholars. In this regard, the most disturbing factor for Indonesian leaders was the inclination of China’s government to interfere in Indonesia’s internal affairs. Indonesia’s experience in 15 years of relations with China reinforced the strong conviction among Indonesia’s leaders that China was an interventionist state. There was a widespread belief in the country that when China is strong, it will meddle actively in the affairs of foreign states.1 The majority of Indonesia’s political elite are quick to point out this belief whenever the question of China is raised.2 A remark by a leading Indonesian scholar, Dr Dewi Fortuna Anwar, is illustrative. In her opinion, ‘China respects strength. If they see you as being weak, they will eat you alive.’3 That belief in China’s disposition has been influenced by three factors. The first is China’s intervention during the 1959–1960 episode over the question of the Overseas Chinese. How strong an impact those events had on Indonesian leaders may be seen from a statement by Indonesia’s former Foreign Minister Mochtar Kusumaatmadja during an interview in the Netherlands. Mochtar maintained: We still remember the fifties when the Indonesian Government forbade Chinese citizens in Indonesia to carry out economic activities in rural districts. As representatives of a friendly country the Chinese diplomatic mission should have complied with the rules of the game and advised its nationals to abide by that regulation. However, it did the opposite, and advised its citizens to put up as much resistance to that regulation as possible. That experience taught us a great deal.4 The second factor is China’s link with the PKI. For anti-communist forces, particularly the army, China was an external power which always sided with the PKI. Close relations between China and the PKI during Guided Democracy created domestic political conditions that were unfavourable for the army. China played a significant role as the PKI’s ally in its effort to challenge and weaken the army’s position. In the army’s view, it was also China that persuaded President Sukarno to agree to the PKI’s proposal to arm peasants and workers as a ‘Fifth Force’, in addition to the army, navy, air-force and police forces. The third factor is China’s alleged involvement in the 1965 attempted coup, and its attitude in the aftermath. The Indonesian government openly accused China of supporting the PKI’s attempt to overthrow the legitimate government and of trying to encourage a

THE SUSPENSION OF DIPLOMATIC TIES 45

communist revolution in Indonesia. Suspicions of China’s involvement in the coup were confirmed when its embassy in Jakarta refused to fly its flag at half mast as a mark of respect for the six army generals and a lieutenant murdered during its course.5 Moreover, it was claimed that China had smuggled weapons into Indonesia to arm the PKI’s ‘Fifth Force’. For Indonesia’s government, the question of China’s involvement in the 1965 attempted coup was considered the crucial problem. In September 1966, for example, Indonesia’s Foreign Minister Adam Malik officially accused China of interfering in the Republic’s domestic affairs by supporting the PKI’s attempted coup. And in March 1967, during an interview in Cairo, Adam Malik also accused Beijing of providing military training to hundreds of Indonesians living in China in preparation for launching military and economic sabotage in Indonesia.6 The actual nature of China’s involvement is not important for this study. What does matter is that the New Order leadership did believe that China was involved in the coup attempt. It was this belief that restructured and determined Indonesia’s policy towards China after the event. The second aspect of the decision, the question of its necessity, is of direct relevance to understanding the New Order’s attitude towards normalising diplomatic relations with China. In this regard, the suspension of diplomatic relations reinforced the bases of New Order legitimacy and also provided a justification for the New Order’s subsequent articulation of threat perception. As the following discussion seeks to demonstrate, the suspension of diplomatic relations with China served three significant functions for the domestic political interests of the New Order. First, the suspension of relations with China reflected the New Order’s image as an anticommunist force, which would in turn strengthen its legitimacy and power at home. The army was determined to eliminate the PKI. In this regard, the close relationship between the PKI and China was construed as ‘two sides of the same communist coin’. Therefore, the elimination of one side required the elimination of the other. During Guided Democracy, the army believed that the dominant position of the PKI in the political system was due mainly to strong support from China, politically and financially. In its struggle against the PKI during this period, the army had tried to weaken the Party’s position in domestic politics by undermining China’s influence in the country.7 With the emergence of an unprecedented opportunity after the coup to eliminate the PKI, it was also necessary to eliminate China’s influence in Indonesia. Second, by suspending diplomatic relations with China, the army was able to establish its image as a political force responsive to ‘people’s demands’; namely, the demand by anticommunist forces. Shortly after the abortive coup, there had been strong demands from broad segments of the Indonesian people that communists should be eliminated from Indonesia.8 Since China was considered a close ally of the PKI, then breaking off diplomatic relations with China could also be construed as part of the efforts to eliminate Indonesia’s communists. In this context, the suspension of diplomatic ties with China provided an important issue for the army on which to solidify the support from other political forces in its attempt to depose the old political system. Third, the suspension of relations with China gave the army credit as a truly nationalist force. Like the army, other anti-communist forces also perceived that the close relationships between the PKI and China had made Indonesia vulnerable to foreign interference and

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influence to such an extent that it had begun to serve the interests of China and not those of the Indonesian people. Moreover, the ideology of the PKI was seen as an ‘alien’ system not appropriate for Indonesia’s culture, values and tradition. In this regard, the elimination of the PKI and China’s influence in Indonesia could also mean the elimination of alien elements in Indonesian politics. When the PKI collapsed, the anti-China attitude and the subsequent suspension of Indonesia’s diplomatic ties with that country provided a standard against which nationalist credentials could be measured. By portraying the suspension of ties with China as an act of eliminating foreign influences in Indonesia, the army succeeded in establishing a self-image as a force that had brought the country back to its own values and systems; neither the Left nor the Right, but an independent Indonesia. From the above discussion, it can be argued that the suspension of diplomatic relations with China was not only a reflection of changes in domestic politics and a corresponding transformation in foreign policy, but also served domestic political functions. From the army’s point of view, it became a necessity both for immediate and strategic reasons. Linking the 1965 coup to China’s alleged involvement provided the military with an opportunity to liquidate the influence of PKI’s ally in Indonesia altogether. Similarly, the suspension of diplomatic ties with China was also necessary if the military wanted to eliminate communist influence in Indonesia. Thus, the decision to suspend diplomatic relations with China helped demonstrate the military’s determination to ‘safeguard’ Indonesia from both internal and external communist threat. Such a depiction of the military’s role provided one important source of legitimacy for the New Order regime. And, the army’s image as ‘the Guardian’ of Indonesian people against externally inspired threat, as demonstrated by its action to suspend diplomatic ties with China, was then sustained by the logic of the New Order’s threat perception. Communism, China and the Overseas Chinese: the logic of New Order’s threat perception China’s position in the New Order’s threat perception can be best understood from the character of the regime itself. The New Order government emerged as a result of an alliance among anti-communist forces which centred around Indonesia’s armed forces (ABRI) after the 1965 abortive coup. It presented and, at the same time, saw itself as a correction to Sukarno’s Old Order. As indicated earlier, it marked a fundamental shift in Indonesia’s national policies away from advancing revolutionary political ideals to introducing a pragmatic economic orientation. In this regard, as mentioned earlier, the New Order government maintained that the success of economic development would depend on internal political stability. Economic development and the maintenance of national stability constituted two significant policy priorities of the New Order government. The legitimacy of these two policy priorities was reinforced by its threat perception, and such a threat was found in the form of communist subversion. The threat perception in turn restructured its foreign policy. And, such a threat, the New Order believed, might come from the remnant of Indonesia’s communists, China and the ethnic-Chinese minority.

THE SUSPENSION OF DIPLOMATIC TIES 47

These three sources of threat, in the New Order’s view, were closely related. What was perceived as the communist threat was construed not only in the form of the possible revival of the PKI in Indonesia, but also in the form of communist attempts to subvert the country’s political stability and economic development. China was seen as an external threat, not in the sense of conventional direct military form, but indirectly through subversive activities, especially in helping the PKI to make a come back. Between the internal and external communist threats stood the ethnic-Chinese community which was suspected by the New Order government of providing a potential link between the two; one through which China could channel its subversive activities to Indonesia. The communist revival Shortly after the army under General Suharto succeeded in crushing the ‘30 September Movement’ (Gestapu), an outburst of anti-communist fury erupted in Indonesia. It was triggered by the suspicion that the PKI had been involved in the Gestapu. Shortly after the coup, the army quickly publicised its charge of the PKI’s involvement. On 4 October 1965, during the exhumation of the bodies of the generals murdered during the abortive coup, General Suharto made a speech in which he suggested that the PKI had been involved in the coup attempt. On 8 October, the military’s newspaper, Angkatan Bersenjata, stated that ‘Gestapu had been masterminded by PKI-Aidit’.9 The publication of open support for the Gestapu by the PKI’s official newspaper, Harian Rakjat (People’s Daily), in its 2 October edition provided a basis for the charge against the PKI. Moreover, it was also evident that the killing of the six generals had been carried out by Gestapu participants with the participation of some members of PKI-affiliated organisations such as the Indonesian Women’s Movement (Gerakan Wanita IndonesiaGerwani) and the People’s Youth (Pemuda Rakjat).10 With these facts in hand, the army began to arrest PKI leaders and cadres, and stirred public emotions against the communists. From the middle of October 1965 throughout the first half of 1966, a series of acts of ‘popular revenge’ against the communists were launched by local army commanders, Muslim and other youth groups, and by village ‘volunteer guards’. Tens of thousands of real or suspected PKI members and sympathisers were killed.11 After President Sukarno had issued the 11 March 1966 Order (known as Surat Perintah Sebelas Maret [Supersemar]) to General Suharto empowering him to restore order and stability, the PKI’s existence in Indonesia was proscribed. Once the largest and most powerful political party in Indonesia, the PKI was now declared illegal. However, the army’s suspicion of communists did not wane with the physical destruction of the PKI. In June and July 1966, army leaders warned that the PKI/ Gestapu had gone underground and would try to initiate gerilya politik (political guerrilla war). General Suharto himself stated that elements of Gestapu were trying to destabilise the country.12 From then on, the army continuously demanded ‘strong vigilance’ against a communist revival. In this regard, the army’s fear of a resurgent PKI stemmed not only from efforts of PKI remnants to rebuild the Party after its destruction but also from other possible forms of subversive activities carried out by them from within and without Indonesia.13

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In the months after the failed coup, the PKI did strike back at its persecutors, and some PKI leaders attempted to rebuild the Party from its ruins. In January 1967, the Jakarta Military Commander, Major-General Amir Mahmud, provided an extensive report indicating that the PKI had been able to reorganise a New Central Committee in West Java headed by Sudisman, a PKI politburo member before the abortive 1965 coup. In Central and East Java, a similar effort was also uncovered, where Rewang alias Karto (PKI Central Java Chairman) and Ruslan Widjajasastra (PKI East Java Chairman) set up an underground party ‘Central Committee’.14 Within Indonesia, the PKI remnant was said to have undertaken subversion, through various terrorist operations, as its main activity. It was reported that there had been various communist terrorist groups operating under code names such as PKI Malam (Night PKI), Kutjing Hitam (Black Cat) and Kojok Hitam (Black Dog). These organisations were said to have specialised in arson, kidnapping, murder, surprise attacks and poisoning.15 They were believed to have engaged in waging small-scale guerrilla warfare and terrorist acts. In 1968 such communist activities culminated in the proclamation of a Blitar-centred, underground ‘Indonesian People’s Republic’ led by former Politburo member Oloan Hutapea.16 Communist resistance and insurgency was also reported to have spread to islands beyond Java. There had been various clandestine communist activities in South Sulawesi, North Sumatra and Lampung. Perhaps the most spectacular aspect of communist operations in the Outer Islands was the full-scale guerrilla war along the Sarawak-Indonesian border. Here, the communists joined the ‘Sarawak People’s Guerrilla Movement’ (Pasukan Gerilya Rakyat Sarawak) formed by young dissident Sarawak Chinese. This group launched its operations from both sides of the border.17 From without Indonesia, there was also evidence that some PKI leaders and members had also tried to reorganise themselves. They consisted of those who had managed to leave Indonesia shortly after the Gestapu coup, as well as those living abroad such as former ambassadors or students and those who had been visiting abroad at the time of the abortive coup. The most active group in this regard was the Maoist-oriented group led by a former PKI Politburo member, Jusuf Adjitorop, who took up residence in Beijing. This group published Indonesian Tribune, as its principal organ through which its activities were publicised.18 The activities of this group were mainly directed against the New Order government. Their publications continuously condemned what they called the ‘fascist military government’ in Indonesia. For example, a so-called Politburo Declaration of 7 August 1966, appeared in the first edition of Indonesian Tribune, stating that the ‘urgent task’ of the Party was ‘the creation of a united front under PKI leadership and the development of armed struggle to overthrow the fascist regime of Suharto-Nasution’.19 In September 1966, the Adjitorop group also published a document containing the ‘New Programme’ of the PKI entitled ‘Build the PKI along the Marxist-Leninist Line to Lead the People’s Democratic Revolution in Indonesia’.20 The communist activities at home and abroad provided the rationale for the New Order government to continuously pursue its anti-communist campaign and arrest those suspected as PKI cadres, members or sympathisers. The fear of a resurgent PKI and the call for ‘increased vigilance’ became the main themes of New Order domestic politics. Recurrent warnings persisted for decades and were issued by almost all officials, from the President

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down. For example, on 28 February 1972, President Suharto stated that Indonesian communists ‘will try with every means to revive the Communist Party, through all ways and channels, from outside and inside’.21 And, the need for vigilance against a resurgent communism was directed not only to PKI remnant-initiated activities, but also to ‘foreign elements’ that were supporting them, of which China was believed to have been the most likely party. China’s subversion The New Order’s suspicion of a resurgent PKI in Indonesia was reinforced by the attitude and policies of China’s government after the 1965 abortive coup. The Indonesian government believed that China had not only been involved in the coup but also that it was trying to help its fellow communists to stage a revolution and make a political come back. One indication often referred to by the New Order government was Beijing’s willingness to give political asylum to PKI leaders such as Jusuf Adjitorop and Djawoto, Indonesia’s former Ambassador to China. Chinese leaders permitted, and indeed encouraged, the use of Beijing as a base for a self-styled ‘Indonesian Government-in-exile’. As van der Kroef has noted, Chinese communist media allocated special space for articles by a ‘delegation’ of the PKI Central Committee, as well as by Adjitorop. Beijing also sponsored publications like the Afro-Asian Journalist and the Bulletin to be used by the Adjitorop group in articulating the new Maoist— PKI programme, tactics and strategy, as well as in launching attacks on the New Order government.22 Besides supporting the PKI leaders in exile, after the suspension of diplomatic relations China continued its hostile attitude towards Indonesia’s government. China’s radio broadcast anti-Indonesian propaganda. Beijing radio, for example, continuously called for a general uprising throughout Indonesia to overthrow the New Order government and promised firm support from China’s Communist Party and people.23 Reports on what it called the ‘remarkable success’ of ‘people’s armed struggle’ in Indonesia were commonly heard from Beijing radio broadcasts and publications.24 Chinese News Agency, Xinhua, continuously accused the New Order government of being ‘a faithful running dog’ of US imperialism.25 During 1969, the Chinese media were preoccupied by themes such as attacks on the Suharto government and reference to the guerrilla insurgency in Indonesia. China was also believed to have supported the communist insurgencies along the SarawakKalimantan border. In September 1967, for example, China announced that ‘people’s armed forces’ in North Borneo ‘in recent months scored several remarkable victories in attacks against the enemy’.26 Even though the degree of China’s actual involvement in those insurgencies was difficult to determine, Beijing’s support for the insurgency as expressed in its media was regarded as sufficient evidence. If attempts by some PKI members to rebuild the Party provided reasons for the New Order to speak of a ‘communist threat’ at home, then China’s hostile attitude served as a valid justification for the New Order to reinforce its open suspicion of China’s involvement in the 1965 coup. Moreover, it provided the rationale for the New Order government to warn the Indonesian people of what it called the ‘China threat’. In other words, China’s role in supporting the PKI remnants’ activities in Beijing and communist insurgency in

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Indonesia, particularly in Kalimantan, helped the New Order in exposing China’s subversive intentions to the Indonesian people. Indonesian leaders continuously picked up this issue and accused China of conducting various activities for subverting Indonesia. During 1968–1969 and through the early 1970s, ongoing accusations were made by Indonesia’s leaders of China’s efforts to subvert Indonesia. Beijing was accused of training dissident Indonesians in China for a new communist offensive in Indonesia. The New Order government also accused Beijing of sending its agents to and masterminding the guerrilla ‘people’s war’ along the IndonesianSarawak border and even of sending Chinese military officers into Indonesia to lead the antigovernment resistance.27 Reports on the arrests of Chinese nationals allegedly sent by China to Indonesia were displayed prominently in Indonesia’s media.28 The continuing calls for ‘vigilance’ suggests that for the New Order, the discourse of a resurgent PKI and China’s subversive activities was not the end of the story. In this regard, the presence of a large Chinese community in the country constituted another source of suspicion. It revealed another aspect, perhaps the most significant, of the New Order’s threat perception. The discourse of a China threat in Indonesia’s New Order can never be completely understood without an understanding of the perceived role and position of the domestic Chinese minority. The China-Overseas Chinese connection Along with the PKI and China, the ethnic-Chinese community living in Indonesia, regardless of their nationality, were also suspected as posing a potential threat to Indonesia’s national security. During Sukarno’s Old Order, there had been a widespread suspicion that the local Chinese served as an important link between the PKI and China. Since the 1965 coup, allegations of support by local Chinese for the PKI underground were made frequently by the New Order authorities. This community was seen as a link between internal and external threats to Indonesia. Such suspicion was closely related to, first, intimate ties between the Chinese community and the PKI. Many Chinese became members of the PKI, and the Party was well known for its policy of defending the Chinese (e.g. during antiChinese outbreaks in 1959–1960 and 1963). Second, it was reinforced by the tendency among the ethnic Chinese to identify themselves with China, an attitude which greatly exacerbated the army’s suspicion ever since the establishment of diplomatic relations with China in 1950. In the post-Gestapu coup, with the demise of the PKI, the perceived ‘China-Overseas Chinese connection’ became the core of Indonesia’s threat perception of China. The New Order government believed that the Chinese community was willing to serve as a ‘fifth column’ for China to carry out its subversive activities in Indonesia.29 The New Order government never lacked what it called ‘real evidence’ of the existence of such a ‘China-Overseas Chinese connection’. Military commanders repeatedly declared that they had found evidence that the local ethnic Chinese had financed the communist underground in their areas. In November 1968, for example, it was reported that the army had uncovered documents in a number of Central Javanese towns showing that ethnic Chinese in Semarang (the capital of Central Java) had been financing the PKI.30 In January

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1970, it was reported that in Jakarta, Bandung and Yogyakarta there had been discovered a new communist underground party, the Partai Nasional Merah Indonesia, the majority of whose members were said to be ‘foreign Chinese and Indonesian nationals of Chinese extraction’.31 Such reports seemed to be a legitimate basis for Indonesia’s leaders to remain suspicious of the local Chinese community. In short, it can be said that the external and internal dimensions of the New Order’s threat perception of China were closely intertwined. The China threat was not construed in the form of a conventional military threat, but as an indirect threat in the form of subversive activities and political infiltration. The New Order believed that China continued to interfere in Indonesia’s internal affairs through its connection with the Chinese minority in order to revive the PKI in the country. For the New Order government, this was perceived as the main threat to Indonesia’s national stability which, in turn, would threaten to disrupt economic development in the country. Meanwhile, the legitimacy of the New Order government rested in considerable measure on fulfilling these two national tasks. How was it possible for the New Order to portray China as posing some sort of threat to Indonesia’s national security? Why was the logic of the China threat discussed above acceptable to, and indeed shared by, broad segments of Indonesian society? To answer these questions we need to examine the very foundation of Indonesia’s policy towards China, that is, Indonesia’s traditional perception of China and the Chinese. Indonesia’s perception of China: the foundations of threat perception This section examines the formation of Indonesia’s traditional perceptions of China and the Chinese and their most important elements. It explores the external and internal dimensions of the perception and how the connection between China and the ethnic-Chinese minority living in Indonesia has been perceived in Indonesia. The analysis of this perception is essential for understanding the basic foundations of Indonesia’s attitude towards China during the period of ‘frozen’ diplomatic relations. In examining Indonesia’s perception of China, it is important to make the analytical distinction between its historical-traditional and the internal dimensions. This distinction, albeit in reality the two dimensions are closely interconnected, is significant in two ways. First, it helps to identify the basic or preexisting images of China held by most Indonesians. These pre-existing or traditional images of China are derived largely from their impressions of Imperial China and the ethnic-Chinese minority living in Indonesia. Second, it helps to determine the extent to which the current or modern Indonesians perceptions of China and the ethnic Chinese have also built upon the traditional ones. The historical dimension The traditional view prevailing among Indonesians may be seen as the product of long historical encounters between Indonesia (as a collective name for the various Indonesian Kingdoms) and China. The first contact between Indonesia and China can be traced to as early as the third century BC.32 Such early contacts resulted mainly from the Chinese

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traders. However, the formation of an historical image of a ‘negative’ China was influenced more by relations between the two countries during the thirteenth century, specifically, conflict between the Indonesian Kingdom of Singhasari (thirteenth century) with the Yuan Dynasty of China. By this time, China has already established a working international order in Asia based on its hegemony. Under its Second Emperor, Kubilai Khan, the Yuan Dynasty attempted to extend its territory and influence deep into the South-East Asian region. A strong navy inherited from the Song Dynasty made it possible for Kubilai Khan to initiate military conquest overseas. To this end, the kingdom in Java was identified as one of the countries to be incorporated into the Yuan’s sphere of influence, together with Champa.33 However, Kubilai Khan’s effort met with failure. Javanese forces succeeded in repelling the naval expedition sent by Kubilai Khan after the King of Singhasari had refused to bow to his demands and had mutilated his envoy’s ear. This historical episode occupies a special place in Indonesian history It is not an exaggeration to say that it is quite familiar to many, if not most, Indonesians who have attended at least junior high school.34 It constitutes a basic element of Indonesia’s perception of traditional China, namely the image of China as an expansionist power. Such a perception can be seen in Indonesian historical writings. Writing about the ancient history of Indonesia, Satyawati Suleiman maintains: The last king of Singhasari was Kertanagara. Kertanagara’s famous contemporary was Kubilai Khan, the Emperor of China, who was so ambitious as to attempt to conquer all the lands of the ‘Southern Sea’ either by diplomacy or by force. He managed to get a few countries in his power, but he had no success with Kertanagara [emphasis added].35

In this text the author emphasises the expansionist nature of the Yuan Dynasty and does not make any differentiation between the Mongols and the Chinese. Indeed, in the eyes of many Indonesians, the Mongols and the Chinese share the same cultural roots. The significance of this episode in Indonesian history can be seen also from how a standard text on Indonesian history interprets the Kingdom of Singhasari’s policy of broadening its influence outside Java (in the late thirteenth century). The policy is not presented as expansionist. Instead, the text, jointly written by three prominent historians for Indonesia’s Ministry of Education, presented the policy as a common defence against the Mongol expansionist design. It wrote: Some regions outside Java sought protection from and became subjugated to the King of Singhasari. Expeditions outside Java, especially to Malaya, were actually the implementation of Singhasari’s foreign policy in order to deal with the Mongol’s expansion which was actively being carried out by Kubilai Khan in Southeast Asia. As we know, the Malay Kingdom at the time had controlled the trade route of Malacca Strait. And the Malay Kingdom at the time had also been affected by the Mongol’s power. Therefore, the expedition to Malaya constitutes a treaty of friendship between the

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Kingdom of Singhasari and the Malay Kingdom to establish a common defence against the Mongol expansion.36 One important point that can be drawn from this historical episode is that it reveals the traditional Indonesian image that perceives China as an aggressive and expansionist power. The experience of other South-East Asian kingdoms, and especially Indonesia itself, is seen as evidence for this. In other words, it would be historically understandable why Indonesia should be concerned with the so-called ‘China threat’ in the region. In the eyes of many Indonesians, China has in the past always tried to establish a ‘sphere of influence’ in SouthEast Asia and it will continue to do so. And this suspicion has persisted until the modern era even at the present. The portrayal of China as an aggressive and expansionist power has been communicated to many Indonesians through history texts. These texts have been an important source of information for Indonesians. Their role in influencing the way the Indonesians perceive China is not insignificant. Carl Taylor has claimed that such texts represent ‘what casual and educated Indonesians may have read about China’.37 Value judgements which attach a particular attribute to China can be easily found in most Indonesian history books. In these sources, the texts tend to emphasise the expansionist, colonising characters of Chinese Empires as early as the Han Dynasty (202 BC-AD 9). The penetration of the Han armies into southern Manchuria and Korea to the north-east and into south and south-west China and northern Vietnam under Han Wudi (140–87 BC)38 is seen by Indonesian historians as evidence of Chinese expansionist and colonialist ambitions. In discussing the Han Dynasty under Han Wudi (Han Wu Ti), for example, one text comments: ‘The time of Han Wu Ti marked the beginning of colonisation [kolonisasi] by the Chinese race of the areas of South China: Kwangsi, Kwangtung, Fukien, etc.… Korea was also attacked and subdued.’39 From his survey of a number of history texts, Taylor notes that Indonesian authors have tended to describe Chinese domination by using the terms usually used by Indonesians to describe European colonisation, i.e. jajahan and kolonisasi. This point suggests that Indonesians view imperial China as pursuing a policy of foreign colonisation similar to the European powers.40 The early historical experience of Indonesia itself is also described in this fashion. In describing the end of the Kingdom of Sriwijaya, for example, one text explains that ‘Palembang fell under China in South-East Asia. Some thousands of Chinese from Fukien and Canton were brought in and established a colonial administration. In 1377, the head of the colony was Liang Tan Ming from Kwantung’.41 The same text also notes that during Cheng Ho’s expedition to South-East Asia in the early fourteenth century, he captured many South-East Asian kings, including the King of Palembang.42 These views suggest implicitly that Indonesia itself had been the victim of Chinese expansionist policy. It is interesting to note that the texts rarely emphasise any differences between what the authors perceive as ‘Chinese’ empires. In fact, they do not make a clear distinction between the Chinese rulers and the foreign dynasties who have ruled China such as the Yuan (Mongol) and the Qing (Manchu). The reason for this is the assertion that the foreign rulers were usually absorbed into the Chinese cultural system. Such assertions suggest another dimension of Indonesia’s traditional perception of China. Besides the depiction of China as

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an imperialist and aggressive power, the traditional view is also coupled with some admiration of the ‘bigness’ of China. It is common for Indonesians to acknowledge that China is in fact a great country especially in terms of culture, art, population and area. China is also admired for its industrious civilisations, especially with regard to irrigation systems. In short, as a prominent Indonesian historian put it, ‘China is certainly big in all fields.’43 The collapse of the Qing Dynasty and the rise of Republican nationalism in 1911 seems also to have influenced the Indonesian perception of China. The course of the 1911 Revolution and the anti-imperialist resistance against Japan were viewed with sympathy by Indonesia’s nationalist leaders. For some, developments in China at the time were followed by a feeling of revolutionary solidarity. Nevertheless, this original perception has never been a strong element in the general Indonesian perception of China. The defeat of the Kuomintang rule later on strengthened Indonesian suspicions because of the communist nature of Beijing’s new government.44 Moreover, the positive elements in Indonesian perceptions towards China have been outweighed by the negative ones. In this regard, the most notable impression of Imperial China that has persisted until the present day is that of China as an aggressive and arrogant power. Most Indonesian leaders believe that China still perceives itself as ‘the centre of the world’, or the Zhungguo. For Indonesian leaders and elite, this expression indicates nothing but the arrogance of the big power. In this regard, whenever the question of a ‘China threat’ is brought up in conversations, there is a tendency to recall the old days when China demanded tribute from the Nanyang (southern) countries in South-East Asia.45 The internal dimension More significantly, the historical view of China was closely linked to Indonesian perceptions of the ethnic-Chinese community in the country. In this regard, Indonesia’s policy towards China, before and after the breakdown of diplomatic relations, cannot be fully understood without an understanding of Indonesia’s perception of the domestic Chinese. One writer has asserted that Indonesian perceptions of China are the result of the projection of its image of domestic ethnic Chinese due to the lack of knowledge about China among the Indonesians. 46 In other words, it can be said that Indonesian perceptions of their domestic Chinese have been significant in determining the direction of Indonesia’s attitude and policy towards China. In this regard, there are at least five major stereotypes of the Chinese widely held by the majority of the Indonesian elite.47 First, Indonesians tend to perceive the ethnic Chinese as a separate bangsa (race, nation), the bangsa Cina. This perception has owed much to experience during the Dutch colonial administration. During the Dutch administration, ethnic-Chinese assumed a privileged position within Indonesian society. According to the Dutch law, the Chinese belonged to a different social strata from the indigenous Indonesians. The Chinese were classified as ‘Foreign Orientals’ (Vreemde Oosterlingen) while Indonesians were classified as ‘native’ (inlander).48 This position was deliberately chosen by the Dutch because they needed the skills of Chinese merchants to fill the gap in Indonesian society which, at the time, lacked an entrepreneurial class. The Chinese played a role as ‘middlemen’ between the Dutch and

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the pribumi (indigenous) Indonesians. Since the Chinese were given a privileged position, the categorisation implied that the Vreemde Oosterlingen were superior to the inlander. Indeed, the term inlander was regarded as an insult by pribumi Indonesians. Second, the privileged position of the Chinese, in turn, enabled this group to establish its position as a powerful economic force in the country. A prominent Indonesian has asserted that the Chinese completely dominated the Indonesian rural economy and exerted a strong influence on all areas of business in the cities.49 As a result, they were able to enjoy a standard of economic well-being which was inconceivable for the majority of Indonesian people living under Dutch rule. Such a position became a major source of resentment and hatred among pribumi Indonesians. Moreover, due to their role as ‘middlemen’, the pribumi Indonesians viewed the Chinese as kaki-tangan (henchmen) of the Dutch who exploited and oppressed them. Third, the discriminatory social structure during the colonial era also created a deep social gap between the Chinese community and the pribumi Indonesians. The majority of Overseas Chinese identified themselves with the Dutch, while those who were anticolonialist identified themselves with mainland China.50 Very few were prepared to identify themselves with the indigenous population. This social preference among the Chinese implied that they also perceived the pribumi Indonesians as inferior to them. Therefore, it was natural for the pribumi Indonesians to perceive that the Chinese, who tended to maintain their ‘kinship’ link with mainland China, were arrogant and exclusive. Fourth, many Indonesians, if not most, believe that the Chinese are changeless. Expressions such as ‘sekali Cina, tetap Cina’ (once a Chinese, always a Chinese) are familiar to Indonesians. The belief that the Chinese have tended to maintain their ‘kinship’ links with mainland China reinforced the Indonesian perception of the changeless nature of the Chinese minority. For example, it has been asserted that ‘this strongly uniform, cohesive race, separated by seas and frontiers, is essentially one people with a shared heritage, the Chinese civilisation’.51 In other words, there was a strong view that no matter where they live, the Chinese have remained committed to their ancestors’ cultural values. Finally, the Chinese minority were seen as an ethnic group whose concern rested only with their own safety and economic well-being. This perception grew out of the ethnicChinese position during the Indonesian Revolution. The Chinese were regarded as indifferent to the goals of the Indonesian Revolution and they played a relatively minor role in supporting the Indonesian nationalist movement.52 The following passage is illustrative of how Indonesians have viewed the Chinese role during the revolutionary era: the Chinese community was very ambivalent in its support of the national struggle for independence from the Dutch. Many overseas Chinese preferred to stay on the fence at least and seemed desirous of reaping the greatest possible profit during these disturbed times. During the four years of struggle, while the Indonesian people were fighting hard, with great loss in human life, against the Dutch colonial troops, the Chinese concentrated their attention on safeguarding their privileged economic position.53

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The various stereotypes indicated above led ultimately to the formation of strong suspicions of the political loyalty of the Chinese. Many pribumi Indonesians suspect that the Chinese are not loyal to Indonesia. In the context of Indonesia-China relations, it was believed that Chinese loyalty rested with the PRC, and various events during the period 1950–1965 tended to reinforce this perception. As discussed in Chapter 2, Indonesia-China relations since the establishment of diplomatic relations were occasionally disrupted by problems involving the question of the ethnic-Chinese minority and China’s intervention on their behalf. And with the army—PKI rivalry in the background, these two factors proved to be responsible for the fragility of Jakarta-Beijing relations. Since the 30 September coup of 1965 and the breakdown of diplomatic relations in 1967, the structure of threat perception underwent a slight change. The complete removal of the PKI from the Indonesian political scene left only two visible potential threats to deal with; the ethnic-Chinese community and China. As argued in the previous section, there was a strong suspicion of a communist’ revival, but that revival was believed to be possible through the Chinese minority and its link with China. This threat perception was widely held by Indonesia’s political elite and constituted the main official theme in Indonesia’s policy towards China from 1967. However, that shared threat perception did not necessarily mean that foreign policy elite were agreed on the same policy option. The origins of the foreign policy debate Even though the majority of members of the New Order regime agreed with the notion of China as a threat, they differed as to how to articulate it into actual policies. The differences were evident in the attitudes adopted by ABRI leaders and DEPLU officials during the process of suspending diplomatic relations in 1965–1967. Military leaders made it clear from the outset that they wanted diplomatic relations with China to be broken or terminated. On the other hand, DEPLU seemed to be more cautious, and indeed reluctant to proceed to such an extreme step. Many DEPLU leaders believed that despite all the problems with China, it would not be in Indonesia’s interest to sever diplomatic ties with that country. DEPLU’s hesitation was reflected in its initial attitude towards the suspension of diplomatic ties, and then on the question of the Beijing government’s admission to the United Nations.54 During the period of diplomatic tensions, DEPLU adopted a cautious approach in dealing with the issue. In 1967, as Jakarta— Beijing relations were deteriorating sharply, Indonesia’s Foreign Minister Adam Malik insisted that Indonesia would continue to maintain diplomatic relations with China ‘unless the Chinese desire the opposite’. In a response to protests by youth groups over the treatment of Indonesian diplomats in Beijing, Malik acknowledged that China had indeed broken ‘diplomatic practices’ but he refused to take any further action.55 It was possible that initially President Suharto also adopted a cautious approach to the issue. For example, in his National Independence Day message on 17 August 1967, Suharto, while accusing Beijing of having been involved in Gestapu and of continuing subversion in Indonesia, asked patience and ‘understanding’ of those demanding the severance of Indonesia’s diplomatic ties with China.56 However, the slow move by Suharto’s government

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to sever diplomatic relations with China created further domestic difficulties. The military and students stepped up their pressures. Some commanders of the Indonesian army in Jakarta seemed to be relying on the youthful mob in the capital to help in overcoming the more cautious governmental approach towards Beijing. Anti-Chinese riots were continuing and increasingly becoming more intense and violent. The situation could have worsened if the government had not complied with the apparent popular demands. For example, even though Malik stated that ‘the government was moving towards the severance of diplomatic relations but it needed time to do it properly’, the students continued their actions. Moreover, two local military commanders in Jakarta warned that they might have difficulty in avoiding worse bloodshed in the future.57 The military was not alone in pressing for a tougher line towards China. The Muslim groups also stood firmly in demanding that the government sever diplomatic relations with China for their own reasons. These and other domestic pressures on Suharto and Malik mounted during the summer of 1967. As van der Kroef has argued, the Suharto government may well have felt that it was hardly in a position to curb the anti-Chinese demands by its own principal sources of support, the militantly anti-Beijing students and its army patrons in the capital.58 At this point, it might be argued that Suharto’s government was faced with two obvious choices. On the one hand, to reject the calls for severing diplomatic relations with China meant inviting the risk of provoking students to initiate more violent demonstrations. The students could also lose faith in the still fragile Suharto government. On the other hand, compliance with their demand would serve to strengthen the legitimacy of the New Order government. Even though from the point of view of domestic politics, particularly from the viewpoint of the military, the most advantageous choice was obvious, DEPLU seemingly still held to the view that China was an important power which should not be ignored by Indonesia. Therefore, it was reasonable to speculate that there was a search for some sort of compromise to cope with the issue. In this regard, it is likely that a compromise was found in the actual form of severing diplomatic relations itself, namely, in the term used to describe it. After the decision to suspend was taken, Adam Malik insisted that Indonesia-China relations had not been ‘broken’ (putus), but ‘frozen’ (dibekukan).59 The use of the term ‘frozen’ had two strategic or long-term implications for Indonesia’s China policy. First, as van der Kroef has argued, by insisting that the relations had not been broken, both countries retained the formal means to resume relations relatively easily if and when circumstances warranted.60 Second, by describing the relations as ‘frozen’, DEPLU made it difficult for those who wanted to establish diplomatic relations with Taiwan. Because relations had not been broken, Indonesia clearly indicated that it still recognised Beijing as the sole legitimate government of China. Indonesia’s ambivalent attitude was reflected also in its position on the question of China’s representation in the UN. In December 1966, Indonesia’s Representative to the UN, Ruslan Abdulgani, while deploring the ‘remarkable change’ which he said had taken place in Beijing’s attitude towards Indonesia, still supported Communist China’s admission to the world body. Jakarta’s stand on this issue underwent only a slight change, from maintaining that Beijing’s seating in the UN was a procedural matter, requiring a simple majority only, to the view that Communist China’s seating was a matter of major substance and thus

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required a two-thirds majority vote. Indonesia followed this policy again in December 1967.

Even though the Indonesia-China dispute reached its peak with the break in diplomatic relations in October 1967, Indonesia continued to support Communist China’s representation in the UN and, by implication, as a permanent member of the prestigious Security Council. On 8 September 1971, for example, Adam Malik stated that ‘this year Indonesia will support the entry of People’s China into the United Nations’.62 It may be difficult to appreciate why Indonesia should support the People’s Republic of China which was perceived as a threat in occupying such a strategic position in the UN. In other words, it was odd that Indonesia was willing to back Communist China to be recognised as a major power with the same privileges as other members of the Security Council. Moreover, at that time the military-dominated Indonesian government was highly sensitive to what it described as the ‘immature behaviour’ of China.63 The ultimate stand taken by Indonesia on this issue suggests there was a contradiction in Indonesia’s position. Indonesia first voted in favour of the resolution declaring the expulsion of Nationalist China to be an ‘important’ question, thus requiring a two-thirds vote in the assembly. But, it abstained in voting on the resolution to seat China.64 This suggests that the earlier remark by Malik was not shared by other members of the New Order administration, especially within military circles. On the contrary, some military leaders were even prepared to adopt a stronger stance in opposition to China. For example, as early as October 1966, the Deputy Army Commander General Maraden Pangabean had proposed a joint defence organisation to be established in South-East Asia to face ‘China’s expansion’ in the region, though such a proposal was in contradiction to the traditional principle of Indonesia’s foreign policy of non-alignment.65 The two episodes demonstrated the differences in ABRI and DEPLU’s views of China. Even though they agreed with the notion of China as a threat to Indonesia’s national security, they differed with regard to how to translate that threat perception into actual policies. This difference of views marked the beginning of a protracted debate between the two policy-making bodies in Indonesia’s foreign policy. Both institutions had their own allies in the debate. DEPLU, on the one hand, found strong support from members of the business community within Indonesia’s Chamber of Commerce and Trade (KADIN). On the other hand, ABRI’s position of opposing a restoration of diplomatic ties with China was supported by Islamic and Nationalist groups. The basic positions of the contending parties: the significance of diplomatic ties with China Pro-normalisation groups

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The Foreign Ministry66 Indonesia’s Foreign Ministry (DEPLU) was the home for the most ardent proponents of an early normalisation with China. They all gathered around the New Order’s first Foreign Minister, Adam Malik; and then around its successive foreign ministers, Mochtar Kusumaatmadja and Ali Alatas. That said, one should not ignore the fact that they all agreed with the notion that China posed a security threat to Indonesia’s political stability. They also shared the same conviction with other groups that China was involved in the 1965 abortive coup. However, they entertained a point of view distinct from other groups with regard to the meaning and utility of diplomatic ties in general, and the significance of diplomatic ties with China in particular. Given its nature as a state bureaucracy mainly responsible for managing the country’s relations with the outside world, it is only logical that many DEPLU officials held the most comprehensive understanding of the meaning and significance of diplomatic relations. There were at least three main functions of diplomatic relations in the eyes of Foreign Ministry officials. First, diplomatic ties were regarded as a means of dialogue with other states. They strongly believed that the existence of formal diplomatic ties was essential for reducing friction and conflict as well as for establishing friendly relations among states. Second, they maintained that for Indonesia, diplomatic ties with other countries should be seen as parameters by which the country’s national identity and national role in international society were defined. For example, if Indonesia wanted to show the true character of its independent and active foreign policy, then such a foreign policy should be reflected in ‘balanced’ relations with members of all groups of states, regardless of their ideology and political system (during the Cold War era, for example, it should be reflected in balanced relations with members of both Eastern and Western Blocs). They also defined the non-aligned character of the country’s foreign policy in the same manner. This notion suggests that Indonesia should maintain good relations with countries which did not belong to any political and military blocs. Third, diplomatic ties were also seen as a function of national development. They believed that diplomatic ties served as a vehicle through which a state could advance its national interests and objectives. The course of diplomacy being pursued by a state was determined by and should reflect the national objectives of the state concerned. In the case of Indonesia, they argued that the country’s diplomatic relations should reflect Indonesia’s national priority of economic development. Conceived in this way, it was argued that Indonesia should cultivate diplomatic ties with countries that offered economic opportunities for the benefit of national development. Given such a view of the meaning of diplomatic ties held by DEPLU, it was understandable why members of the Ministry favoured an early normalisation with China. In the eyes of many of DEPLU’s officials, normalisation of diplomatic relations with China was necessary for at least three major reasons, and they in a sense reflected their interpretation of diplomatic ties as mentioned above. First, as a member of the international community, it was believed that Indonesia’s handling of foreign affairs should reflect its diplomatic norms and customs. Since diplomacy was one of those norms, many felt that it did not make sense for Indonesia not to try to settle any problem with China through

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diplomatic means. As a retired DEPLU official put it, ‘Indonesia’s policy towards China was governed by emotion or sentiment rather than by rationality. There was not much understanding that diplomatic ties, with the existence of an embassy, constituted a channel of direct communication which can be used both to improve and downgrade relations.’67 Therefore, so this argument goes, in order to win respect from the international diplomatic community, Indonesia should restore diplomatic ties with China. The second reason was that as a non-aligned country, especially in the context of an independent and active foreign policy, DEPLU officials believed that Indonesia should not avoid relations with socialist countries, including China, and just maintain close relations with Western countries. In the words of a senior DEPLU official, ‘as a non-aligned country, Indonesia could not afford not to have relations with a Socialist country such as China.’68 Many felt that the absence of normal diplomatic relations with China damaged Indonesia’s credentials as a leading member of the Non-Aligned Movement, especially in the eyes of many African countries. Based on this concern, DEPLU officials felt that the normalisation of relations with China was of paramount importance for implementing Indonesia’s nonaligned principle. The third reason emphasised the nature of China as a great power. Many DEPLU officials entertained the view that China was an important country, and it was crucial to stability in the Asia-Pacific region. As one official put it, ‘it is impossible for Indonesia to ignore China. It exists and that is a fact of life. Moreover, China is the power, both an economic and political power.’69 This impression of China was closely linked to Indonesia’s role in seeking a solution to the Cambodian conflict during the 1980s. Due to Beijing’s close link with the Khmer Rouge, China’s role in the Cambodian conflict was then regarded as an important factor in any overall solution. Many felt that normalisation of relations with China would make it easier for Indonesia to talk directly with the Chinese on the issue.70 In other words, the proponents of normalisation within DEPLU argued that if any Indonesian-led solution to the Cambodian conflict was to be found, then China would have to be involved; and the restoration of diplomatic ties with Beijing would serve this larger foreign policy goal. DEPLU’s view of the significance of diplomatic ties with China was based mainly on foreign policy considerations. Of course this was not unusual since DEPLU’s main concern, like any foreign ministry in other countries, was to deal with the outside world. As a retired general put it, ‘the DEPLU men tend to take only foreign considerations in their thinking. Well…that is what they are supposed to do. But, foreign policy is not merely for the sake of foreign policy. It should take domestic considerations into account as well.’71 As we shall see in the next section, it is exactly this point that underscored the differences of view between DEPLU and ABRI on the significance of diplomatic ties with China. Business community The business community was actually a late-comer to the foreign policy debate which had begun from the early 1970s. During the early years of the debate, this group had not shown any interest in promoting business links with their counterparts in China, let alone in persuading the government to resume direct trade and economic relations with China which were suspended in 1967. There are at least three main reasons why this was the case. First,

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with the fall of the Old Order regime, its crony businessmen also had gone. A new business community was still in the making, and close links with, and support from, the New Order government was significant to help them in the process. Early contacts with Communist China, albeit in the name of business, might antagonise many in the government. Therefore, it was not in their interest to touch upon an issue entailing such a great risk. Second, the dominant element in the business community in Indonesia has always been drawn from the ethnic-Chinese minority. Despite a number of attempts by the government to revise the situation, this characteristic was retained during the Guided Democracy era. 72 Many Indonesians suspected that the underlying objective of the ethnic-Chinese businessmen’s involvement in business was not Indonesia’s development but the development of their ‘homeland’, China. Moreover, many of them were suspected as having acted as financial backers of the PKI. Therefore, even though this group had access to connections to and finance from overseas, early contacts with their counterparts in China would have entailed great political risks for their own survival and position which was already vulnerable in a political system imbued with a strong anti-Chinese sentiment in Indonesia following the abortive 1965 coup. Third, there was not much opportunity offered by China itself. In the early 1970s, China had still to settle the dust of the Cultural Revolution and was more preoccupied with political and geostrategic issues of world politics than with economic development and trade. By contrast, Indonesia’s domestic developments offered more opportunities for its own business as the implementation of the First Five Year Development Plan (REPELITA-I, 1969–1974) began to produce fruitful results. Moreover, as the New Order government was seeking close political and economic relations with Western countries and Japan, it would be more profitable for the emerging business community, and more acceptable to the New Order, to do business with these countries rather than with an impoverished and politically sensitive China. When opportunities began to appear in the mid-1970s, the business community did not pay much attention to the political question of diplomatic ties. It would seem that the motives of interested businessmen were purely economic. They were concerned only to probe the possibility of resuming direct trade with China. However, there was a political aspect to this resurgence of interest among the Indonesian business community in resuming direct trade with China. Significantly, it was KADIN which took the initiative in November 1977 to send a mission to attend a trade fair in Canton. The fact that it was KADIN (an identifiable group of indigenous Indonesian businessmen instead of Indonesian businessmen of Chinese descent) which took the initiative probably reduced the risk of sparking political and racial suspicions from anti-Chinese forces in Indonesia. As their economic interests strengthened, many KADIN businessmen began to feel that the question of diplomatic ties was inevitably related to success in resuming direct trade. Therefore, KADIN leaders began to express their views on the significance of diplomatic ties more publicly. Unlike many DEPLU officials who considered normalisation with China to be significant for Indonesia’s international standing, the businessmen’s arguments were based on other considerations. Their positive stand on normalisation was based on an economic standpoint. They argued that it would encourage more exports to China which would promote business in Indonesia. Many were convinced that direct trade with China,

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instead of trading indirectly through a third party such as Singapore and Hongkong, would bring more advantages for Indonesia. As a KADIN spokesman argued, ‘if we import Chinese goods through a third country, such as Singapore and Hongkong, the cost is more expensive by 10–12 per cent than if they are imported directly.’73 Even though KADIN leaders tended to emphasise the economic aspects of their arguments, they did not hide their view that the economic and political issues were in fact closely related. As KADIN’s Chairman Soewoto Sukendar once put it, ‘in opening up relations with China, the emphasis would be on economic, not political aspects because political aspects are concerns of the Government. However, in inter-state relations, it would be better to balance both aspects.’74 In other words, there were views among KADIN businessmen which acknowledged that a restoration of diplomatic relations with China would make business easier. Even though KADIN’s concern was more with the economic, rather than the political, aspects of Indonesia-China relations, its views and motivations provided significant leverage for the pro-normalisation forces, especially within DEPLU, in advancing their position in the debate on the significance of diplomatic ties with China. Anti-normalisation groups The military As a staunchly anti-communist force, the Indonesian Armed Forces (ABRI) stood as the strongest opponent to any attempt at normalising diplomatic relations with China. However, it would be wrong to represent ABRI as a monolithic political force. Even though ABRI’s nature as a military organisation necessitated a strong sense of esprit de corps, stern loyalty and a unity of views among its ranks, in reality such qualities have not always obtained. Indeed, there have been striking differences among ABRI leaders on particular issues over time. However, with regard to the significance of diplomatic ties with China, any differences were more a matter of nuance rather than of substance. There were leaders who posited themselves as ‘hard-liners’ or (in the word of a retired General) ‘the hawks’ and there were those who entertained more moderate views.75 In resisting the normalisation of diplomatic ties with China, for example, some military officials within Indonesia’s State Intelligence Coordinating Board (Badan Koordinasi Intelijen Negara-BAKIN) appeared more ‘hawkish’ than their colleagues within other military institutions. Despite such shades of difference within the military itself, there was a unanimous, standard view among military officials as to the meaning of diplomatic ties in general, and the significance of diplomatic ties with China in particular. Many ABRI leaders entertained the same view as that of DEPLU’s officials as to what diplomatic relations meant. They understood that diplomatic relations were the norm in the practice of inter-state relations. It was also well understood that diplomacy -was an instrument for the conduct of foreign policy. However, they strongly maintained that for ABRI, diplomatic ties were not only conceived as a means of dialogue with other states, but also as a function of national security as perceived by the ruling elite. Especially when it came to China, diplomatic ties were seen as a function of national security. National security was then defined in terms of political

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stability (as will be discussed throughout this study, in Indonesia’s New Order, national security and political stability were often conceived in terms of the absence of threat to the position of the ruling elite). With such a notion of national security, the received logic of threat of the New Order government prevailed and constituted a significant factor for understanding ABRI’s attitude towards China and the question of normalisation itself.76 Given such a strong emphasis on the security dimension of diplomatic ties in ABRI’s understanding of diplomacy, it is understandable why security considerations were central to ABRI’s views on the significance of diplomatic ties with China. It should be noted that it is rather difficult to discern a consistent line in ABRI’s reasoning in resisting normalisation with China, since it tended to change over time. What can be said is that ABRI’s opposition to normalisation stemmed from five main considerations. First, despite its destruction following the 1965 abortive coup, the communist remnants were still regarded as a ‘latent danger’ who still posed a threat to Indonesian national security. A typical response from ABRI officials when asked about the nature of threat to the New Order was ‘the PKI will never give up its attempts to seize power by armed struggle, turn Indonesia into a communist state, and destroy Pancasila. So, we have to be vigilant’ As President Suharto remarked in March 1969, ‘annihilation of PKI remnants is our cardinal task, for the comeback of the PKI means the collapse of Pancasila.’77 Second, many ABRI officials pointed out that China, which was believed to be the main external supporter of the communists’ attempt to take over power in October 1965, still maintained links with the PKI and continued to support the Party. During 1967–1971, Beijing’s hostile propaganda through Radio Beijing against Indonesia’s government was taken as clear evidence of China’s subversive intention towards Indonesia. Later on after Radio Beijing had terminated its propaganda, the fact that some PKI leaders were still enjoying political asylum in Beijing was often cited by military officials as evidence of China’s continuous support for the PKI. As Indonesia’s President Suharto once remarked, ‘Indonesia is willing to normalise diplomatic relations [with China] as long as it no longer provides help and facilities to leaders of former PKI involved in the G-30-S rebellion.’78 Third, the question of the ethnic-Chinese minority had not been satisfactorily solved. There was always suspicion on the part of many military figures (as in other parts of Indonesia’s elite) as to where the loyalty of the ethnic-Chinese community rested. Many ABRI officials felt that the ethnic-Chinese community in Indonesia was still susceptible to Beijing’s persuasion to maintain relations with their motherland. China’s alleged continuous attempts to repatriate Overseas Chinese back to Indonesia and the ‘Chineseness’ of Indonesia’s ethnic-Chinese community were frequently cited as prime justification for such wariness. As. an ABRI leader once pointed out, the status of Indonesia’s ethnic Chinese had to be made clear first before Jakarta could embark upon and accelerate the process of normalisation with China.79 Fourth, ABRI’s resistance to normalisation was also reasoned in terms of China’s role in South-East Asia. Many ABRI officials maintained that China’s policies in the region constituted a threat to regional stability in two ways. First, China had been a constant source of inspiration for underground communist movements in South-East Asia due to the country’s continuous support in their attempts to seize power there. Second, China was seen as an expansionist, hegemonic power which never ceased to try to bring the entire

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South-East Asian region within its ‘sphere of influence’. China’s role in the Cambodian conflict, especially in supporting the Khmer Rouge against Vietnam and Beijing’s attempt to forge some kind of diplomatic alignment with ASEAN countries, was cited as a case in point. In the eyes of many ABRI officials, therefore, normalisation of diplomatic ties with China would pave the way for China to realise its hegemonic ambitions in the region.80 The fifth reason was more psychological. According to ABRI, China was implicated in the 1965 abortive coup but it had never acknowledged its involvement. Many ABRI leaders found it difficult to forgive China’s role in the event during which six of their fellow generals had been brutally murdered. President Suharto himself was believed to have shared the same grievance, even deeper than that of other military officials. The majority of ABRI leaders interviewed raised this feeling in the context of normalisation of relations with China. Some military leaders within BAKIN circles even went further, to the extent of demanding that China should apologise publicly for its involvement in the 1965 coup attempt.81 Based on such considerations, ABRI, including President Suharto, presented the view that normalisation with China would bring enormous disadvantages to Indonesia. ABRI officials maintained that since Beijing had never withdrawn its support for communist movements in South-East Asia, then the opening of a Chinese embassy in Jakarta would open up a new opportunity for the PKI remnants to rebuild the Party with help from China. And, there was an economically powerful ethnic-Chinese community at home that would act as middle men in facilitating China’s subversive activities on Indonesia’s soil. In short, ABRI maintained that normalisation would entail a greater risk of an increase in subversive threat. Since China, communist remnants, and the ethnic-Chinese community were all portrayed as threats to national security, then normalisation would jeopardise the New Order’s economic development programmes.82 The Muslim community ABRI was not alone in its opposition to the restoration of diplomatic relations with China. Its position was widely supported by, and in line with, majority Muslim politicians who also objected to early normalisation with Communist China. Many of them were leaders of the Muslim-based United Development Party (Partai Persatuan Pembangunan—PPP). Of course, it would be misleading to suggest that the view held by the Muslim community was monolithic. There was also a smaller group of Muslim politicians who advocated normalisation on grounds rather similar to that of DEPLU. Some leading Muslim politicians, such as Chalid Mawardi of the largest Islamic organisation Nadhatul Ulama (NU) and Ridwan Saidi of the PPP, were known to have advocated an early normalisation with China. However, the majority view among Muslim politicians was that normalisation would be detrimental to Indonesia’s national interests, and therefore it should be subject to serious thinking and assessment. Arguments put forward by Muslim politicians in resisting normalisation with China were largely similar to those of ABRI. They were worried that the normalisation of diplomatic ties with China would lead to a renewal of Beijing’s attempt to support the communist movement in Indonesia. They were also concerned with the position of Indonesia’s ethnic-

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Chinese minority in the economic field. Based on such suspicions, they supported the military view that a restoration of diplomatic ties with China would pose a threat to national stability and security. In showing such strong support for ABRI, a leading Muslim politician even went to the extent of saying that ‘military know more about the issue, because diplomatic relations are not just a matter of concern to the Foreign Ministry alone, but to the whole nation’.83 Nationalist group The third group which showed a consistent opposition to any attempt at normalising diplomatic ties with China was the so-called Nationalist group. This group comprised diverse figures from various segments of society. They hardly acted as a group per se in propagating their views on the question of diplomatic ties with China. However, many figures in this group were affiliated with a leading nationalist newspaper, Merdeka. As one analyst observed, the Merdeka group that ‘is known for its pro-Moscow and anti-PRC views, was actively promoting antiBeijing propaganda’.84 The views of members of this Nationalist group appeared regularly in various articles on the normalisation issue published by the daily. The Merdeka also helped publish a few books on China and the Overseas Chinese written by those who were close to it. The views advanced by these publications usually contained strong suspicions of China and the Overseas Chinese. Like the other two groups within the anti-normalisation alignment, the Nationalist group also maintained that normalisation of diplomatic ties with China was a risky business. They were of the opinion that diplomatic relations with China were not necessary either on economic or political grounds. There was not much Indonesia could expect from economic relations with China, they maintained. In Merdeka’s view, China’s economy was poor and it would be better for Indonesia if it stayed that way. The Nationalist group consistently warned those who advocated normalisation with China of what Beijing had done in the past. They were also worried that once diplomatic ties were restored, then Indonesia would have to face a serious security problem which might emanate from the renewal of Beijing’s subversive activities to revive the defunct PKI and to exploit the ethnic-Chinese minority.85 Conclusion After the breakdown of diplomatic relations in 1967, China’s position as the principal source of threat to the country was confirmed. The threat was not construed in a conventional direct military form, but as an indirect one with subversion as its main vehicle. The New Order believed that China would always attempt to revive communism in Indonesia, and that the domestic Chinese minority was seen as a ‘fifth column’ ready to help its home country. Such a threat perception became a central theme in Indonesia’s domestic and foreign policy and provided a pretext for the New Order to suspend diplomatic ties with China as a means of isolating the PKI remnants from their foreign ally. More importantly, the decision to suspend diplomatic ties with China served as a source of political legitimacy, a means of solidifying political support, and as a standard of nationalist credentials.

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The fact that the New Order’s threat perception appealed to broad segments of Indonesian society owed very much to Indonesia’s experience with China since 1950 and its traditional perception of China and the Chinese. It was the result of complex historical events as learned and experienced by the Indonesians. Its origins can be traced back at least to the fourteenth century when the Yuan Dynasty and the Kingdom of Singhasari were involved in some sort of struggle for influence in South-East Asia. This historical episode had been invoked and kept alive not only during the New Order period, but also during the previous ones. The internal dimension of Indonesia’s perception of China was influenced by the local Chinese. There are three points that can be drawn from the above discussion. First, the source of resentment among the Indonesians against the Chinese was their relatively privileged position in Indonesian society. Second, the Chinese were seen as non-loyal citizens and indifferent to matters concerning the ‘national interests’ of Indonesia. This image was visible during the Indonesian Revolution when the Chinese were regarded as uninterested in joining the struggle against the Dutch. Third, the dislike towards them among the Indonesians was related to the relatively better-off economic position of the Chinese. Even though the majority of Indonesia’s foreign policy elite agreed with the notion of a ‘China threat’, the decision to suspend diplomatic ties with China was marked by differences between DEPLU and ABRI. From the outset, DEPLU adopted a cautious approach and argued that Indonesia should continue to maintain diplomatic ties with China. On the other hand, ABRI maintained that diplomatic ties with China had to be severed. Given strong pressures from ABRI and other social forces, DEPLU had no choice but to go along with the prevailing majority view. However, it insisted that the relations be not ‘broken off’ (diputuskan) but only ‘frozen’ (dibekukan). Indeed, a continuing hostility by China towards Indonesia after the suspension of diplomatic relations seemed to prove, and reinforce, that ABRI’s view about China was more accurate than that of DEPLU. Given China’s hostile attitude, DEPLU had no immediate reasons and opportunity to press for an early restoration in relations. Moreover, China’s hostile attitude indirectly provided ABRI with the opportunity to strengthen the legitimacy of the New Order’s policy priorities of internal stability and national development. ABRI’s view that there was no urgent need to restore diplomatic relations with China helped to legitimise its dominant role in the political system as the only force capable of carrying out these two priorities. Nonetheless, despite ABRI’s objections, DEPLU began to explore the possibility of normalising diplomatic relations with China as early as 1970. However, as will be discussed in the next chapter, that effort was challenged by important sections within ABRI, and that challenge persisted with effect until well into the late 1980s. Notes 1 Carl Taylor, ‘Indonesian Views of China’, Asian Survey, vol. 3, no. 3 (March 1963), p. 167.

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2 This assertion is based on interviews with a number of Indonesia’s foreign policy elite from July 1994 to March 1995. The belief is especially strong among the military. 3 Quoted in Michael Richardson, ‘Indonesia Plans War Games to Caution China’, International Herald Tribune, 16 August 1996. 4 Quoted in Justus van der Kroef, “‘Normalising” Relations with China: Indonesia’s Policies and Perception’, Asian Survey, vol. XXVI, no. 8 (August 1986), p. 203. 5 Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Keterangan Pemerintah Mengenai Hubungan Republik IndonesiaRepublik Rakjat Tjina Sesudah Gestapu/PKI [Government’s Explanation on the Relationship between the Republic of Indonesia and the People’s Republic of China after Gestapu/PKI], n.d., p. 2. See also Jay Taylor, China and Southeast Asia: Peking’s Relations with Revolutionary Movements, second edition (New York: Praeger, 1976), p. 83. 6 Justus van der Kroef, ‘The Sino-Indonesian Rupture’, The China Quarterly, no. 33 (JanuaryMarch 1968), p. 23. 7 For a brief discussion of the army’s effort to weaken the PKI’s influence in domestic politics, see, among others, Justus M.van der Kroef, ‘Indonesian Communist Policy and the Sixth Party Congress’, Pacific Affairs, vol. XXXIII, no. 3 (September 1960). The army’s strong endorsement of the regulation banning alien retailers (Chinese) in 1959–1960 can also be seen in this light. See, for example, J.A.C. Mackie, ‘Anti-Chinese Outbreaks in Indonesia, 1959–1968', in J.A.C. Mackie, ed., The Chinese in Indonesia: Five Essays (Melbourne: Nelson, 1976); and Herbert Feith, ‘President Soekarno, the Army and the Communists: The Triangle Changes Shapes’, Asian Survey, vol. IV; no. 8 (August 1964), p. 971. 8 For a detailed discussion of this episode, see Harold Crouch, The Army and Politics in Indonesia, revised edition (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1988). 9 Ibid., pp. 138–139. 10 Ibid., p. 138. See also Nawaz B.Mody, Indonesia under Suharto (London: Oriental University Press, 1987), p. 10. 11 Justus M.van der Kroef, ‘Indonesian Communism since the 1965 Coup’, Pacific Affairs, vol. XLIII, no. 1 (Spring 1970), pp. 35–36. 12 Cited in ibid., p. 36. 13 The PKI’s activities after the abortive coup have been extensively documented by van der Kroef. His research was mainly based on Indonesian sources. Therefore, the following discussion of the PKI clandestine activities was heavily drawn from his account in ibid., pp. 34–60 and his ‘How Dead is the Indonesian Communist Party?’, Communist Affairs, JanuaryFebruary 1967. 14 van der Kroef, ‘Indonesian Communism’, pp. 36–37. 15 van der Kroef, ‘How Dead is the Indonesian Communist Party?’, p. 4. 16 Justus M.van der Kroef, ‘Indonesia, Communist China, and the P.K.I.', Pacific Community, no. 5 (Winter 1970), p. 29. 17 Ibid., pp. 48–49. 18 Justus M.van der Kroef, ‘Indonesia’s “Gestapu”: The View from Moscow and Peking’, The Australian Journal of Politics and History, vol. XIV, no. 2 (August 1968), p. 171. 19 Cited in Sheldon Simon, The Broken Triangle: Peking, Djakarta, and the PKI (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1969), pp. 173–174. 20 van der Kroef, ‘Indonesian Communism’, p. 57. 21 See Justus M.van der Kroef, ‘Before the Thaw: Recent Indonesian Attitudes towards People’s China’, Asian Survey, vol. XIII, no. 5 (May 1973), p. 517. 22 Ibid., p. 57.

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23 Taylor, China and Southeast Asia, pp. 127–128. For a more detailed account of Chinese propaganda, see van der Kroef, ‘Indonesia, Communist China, and the P.K.I.'. 24 Taylor, China and Southeast Asia, p. 128. 25 Ibid, p. 131. 26 Cited in van der Kroef, ‘The Sino-Indonesian Rupture’, p. 27. 27 van der Kroef, ‘Before the Thaw’, p. 515. 28 See van der Kroef, ‘Indonesia, Communist China, and the P.K.I.', pp. 27–42. 29 Some scholars have maintained that this suspicion was untenable. See, for example, Stephen Fitzgerald, ‘Overseas Chinese Affairs and the Cultural Revolution’, The China Quarterly (October-November 1969), pp. 108–109. However, it is what Indonesia’s government believed that mattered, because it is from this perception that Indonesia’s attitudes and policies towards China should be understood. 30 van der Kroef, ‘Indonesia, Communist China, and the P.K.I.', pp. 29–30. 31 Ibid., p. 41. 32 For a discussion of this early contact, see, among others, Victor Purcell, The Chinese in Southeast Asia (London: Oxford University Press, 1965), especially Chapter 2. 33 Wang Gungwu, China and the Chinese Overseas (Singapore: Times Academic Press, 1991), p. 107. 34 It is beyond the purpose of this book to discuss the detailed history of this event. For a comprehensive treatment of this issue in Indonesian history, see, among others, Drs Hidajat. Z.M. Masyarakat dan Kebudayaan Cina Indonesia [The Society and Culture of Indonesian Chinese] (Bandung: Tarsito, 1971); and Satyawati Suleiman, Concise Ancient History of Indonesia (Jakarta: The Archeological Foundation, 1974). 35 Suleiman, Concise Ancient History of Indonesia, p. 31. 36 Sartono Kartodirdjo, Marwati Djuned and Nugroho Notosusanto, Sejarah Nasional Indonesia [The National History of Indonesia], vol. II (Jakarta: Departemen Kebudayaan and Pendidikan, 1977), pp. 253–254. 37 Taylor, ‘Indonesian Views of China’, p. 165. 38 John K.Fairbank, China: A New History (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1992), p. 61. 39 Soeroto, Indonesia Ditengah-tengah Dunia dari Abad Keabad [Indonesia in the World from Century to Century], vol. 1 (Jakarta, 1954), p. 68, cited in Taylor, ‘Indonesian Views of China’, p. 166. 40 Ibid. 41 Hidajat. Z.M., Masyarakat dan Kebudayaan Cina Indonesia, p. 64. 42 Ibid., p. 65. 43 Wojowasito, Tiongkok (Pembangunan Politik) [China (Political Development)], cited in Taylor, ‘Indonesian Views of China’, p. 171. 44 See Peter Christian Hauswedel, ‘The Anti-Imperialist International United Front in Chinese and Indonesian Foreign Policy 1963–1965: A Study of Anti-Status Quo Politics’, Ph.D. diss., Cornell University, 1976, pp. 176–177. 45 The Indonesian government’s decision in 1972 to use the term ‘Cina’ to refer to China rather than ‘Tiongkok’, can be seen in this context as an attempt to eliminate the impression of China’s superiority. The term ‘Tiongkok’ which means ‘the Middle Kingdom’ was widely used by the Chinese in Indonesia during the pre-war period. This term reflected a concrete manifestation of the emerging Chinese nationalist solidarity and at the same time was seen as a reflection of Chinese arrogant attitudes. For a comprehensive discussion of this issue, see Charles A.Coppel and Leo Suryadinata, ‘The Use of the Terms “Tjina” and “Tonghoa” in

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53 54

55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78

Indonesia’, in Leo Suryadinata, The Chinese Minority in Indonesia: Seven Papers (Singapore: Chopmen Enterprise, 1978). Leo Suryadinata, Pribumi Indonesians, the Chinese Minority, and China: A Study of Perception and Policies (Kuala Lumpur: Heinemann, 1978), p. 165. For a more comprehensive discussion, see, among others, Charles A.Coppel, Indonesian Chinese in Crisis (Kuala Lumpur: Oxford University Press, 1983); Mackie, ed., The Chinese in Indonesia; and Suryadinata, The Chinese Minority in Indonesia; and also Pribumi Indonesians. Coppel, Indonesian Chinese, p. 3. Ide Anak Agung Gde Agung, Twenty Years Indonesian Foreign Policy: 1945–1965 (The Hague: Mouton, 1973), pp. 426–427. See Lie Tek Tjeng, ‘Hubungan Baru RI-RRC Dilihat dari Jakarta’ [New Indonesia-China Relationship as Seen from Jakarta], Kompas, 6 August 1990. Cited in Coppel, Indonesian Chinese, p. 8. For a more comprehensive discussion of the ethnic Chinese and the Indonesian Revolution, see Mary F.Somer-Heidhues, ‘Citizenship and Identity: Ethnic Chinese and the Indonesian Revolution’, in Jennifer Cushman and Wang Gungwu, eds, Changing Identities of the Southeast Asian Chinese since World War II (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 1988), pp. 115–138. Agung, Twenty Years Indonesian Foreign Policy, p. 427. The events during this period have been extensively recorded by van der Kroef. Therefore, the following discussion is heavily drawn from his ‘Sino-Indonesian Rupture’, especially pp. 38–46. Ibid., p. 40. Ibid., p. 41. Ibid., p. 45. Ibid., p. 42. Ibid., p. 45. Ibid. van der Kroef, ‘Indonesia, Communist China, and the P.K.I.’, pp. 38–39. Quoted in van der Kroef, ‘Before the Thaw’, p. 518. van der Kroef, ‘Indonesia, Communist China, and the P.K.I.’, p. 28. Ibid., pp. 518–519. Simon, The Broken Triangle, pp. 180 and 196. The assessment of the meaning and functions of diplomatic ties held by DEPLU officials is primarily based on interviews conducted in Jakarta during July 1994 until March 1995. Interview, 8 August 1994. Interview, 9 February 1995. Interview, 9 February 1995. Several interviews, 8 August 1994; 11 January 1995; and 8 February 1995. Interview, 6 January 1995. For an illuminating discussion of the ethnic-Chinese role in business during this period, see Richard Robison, Indonesia: The Rise of Capital (Sydney: Allen and Unwin, 1986), Chapter 3. Merdeka, 29 December 1977. Sinar Harapan, 10 November 1977. Interview, 18 January 1995. The last two paragraphs were drawn from several interviews with military officials. Suharto’s Message to the Commanders’ Call, 3 March 1969, quoted in Arnold Brackman, Indonesia: Suharto’s Road (New Jersey: American-Asian Educational Exchange, 1973), p. 69. Kampas, 31 March 1973.

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79 80 81 82

See General Ali Moertopo’s statement in Antara, 17 August 1976. Interviews with several military figures. See, for example, General Yoga’s statement in The Jakarta Post, 20 February 1986. That this line of reasoning in portraying normalisation of diplomatic relations with China constituted a threat to internal security was evident in interviews with ABRI officials. 83 See statement by H.Jaelani Naro in Nusantara (Jakarta), 12 April 1973. 84 Leo Suryadinata, ‘Indonesia-China Relations: A Recent Breakthrough’, Asian Survey, vol. XXX, no. 7 (July 1990) p. 686. 85 The description of the Nationalist group position in this paragraph, especially that of the Merdeka, was drawn from several editorials and reports which appeared in the daily.

4 Foreign policy debate The primacy of national security

It has been argued in the last two chapters that despite some evident changes and differences, the New Order’s foreign policy, not unlike that of Guided Democracy, continued to reflect the reality of domestic politics. Changes in domestic political structure and priorities were bound to produce a corresponding effect in foreign policy. The destruction of Indonesia’s Communist Party (PKI) paved the way for the Indonesian Armed Forces (ABRI) to revise the political order and to institute a new one in which it played the dominant role. Sukarno’s radicalism in domestic and foreign policy was quickly replaced with pragmatism. Revolutionary domestic slogans were replaced by calls to create internal stability and promote economic development. Correspondingly, radical foreign policy themes, such as ‘anti-nekolim’ (anti neocolonialism and neo-imperialism) and ‘Ganyang Malaysia’ (crush Malaysia), were replaced by a foreign policy of seeking foreign aid from the West and deterring security threat from communism. Instead of relying on the credo of the revolution, the New Order government sought to legitimise its rule through the pursuit of the twin objectives of internal stability and economic development. The attainment of these objectives, according to the New Order, required unrelenting vigilance against the communist threat, for which the dominant role of ABRI in national political life was significantly necessary. The suspension of diplomatic ties with China in October 1967 matched such a domestic requirement. After the dust of the internal power struggle in Indonesia had been settled, and mutual condemnation and diplomatic hostility between Indonesia and China had subsided, the relationship between the two countries entered a more temperate phase. As early as the end of 1969, some elements in the Indonesian government, especially within Foreign Ministry (DEPLU) circles, began to raise the possibility of restoring diplomatic relations with China. From the outset, DEPLU had been hesitant to break diplomatic relations with China, but it did so due to popular demands and pressures from ABRI. Therefore, when the situation in Indonesia’s domestic politics returned to normalcy, it began to advocate an early restoration of diplomatic relations with China. Such an initiative, however, soon brought DEPLU onto a collision course with ABRI and other anti-communist forces resulting in a protracted debate which lasted almost for two decades. This chapter seeks to examine the characteristics of the New Order’s domestic politics and foreign policy making and how they underlined the nature of the foreign policy debate on the question of restoring diplomatic ties with China. The foreign policy debate on China

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in Indonesia during the New Order can be divided into two broad phases. This chapter addresses the main issues and the result of that debate in its first phase which began in 1970, when Foreign Minister Adam Malik began to probe the possibility of restoring diplomatic ties, until the end of 1984. The second phase, from 1985 to 1988, will be discussed in Chapter 5. During this second phase, Indonesia-China relations entered a period of gradual improvement, but ABRI still succeeded in resisting a restoration of full diplomatic relations. The nature of the New Order’s domestic politics and foreign policy decision making The rise of the New Order became possible after the elimination of the PKI and the formation of a coalition among the military, students, Islamic groups and selected party politicians with the object of stripping Sukarno of power. It could be described as an ‘impossible coalition’ because it included social forces with differing ideological standpoints. The only basis upon which its parties could unite was a common interest in overthrowing the same enemy. In 1967, not long after the rise of the New Order government, this coalition began to disintegrate. Under General Suharto’s leadership, ABRI was determined to secure its position as the most powerful political force. To that end, it began to consolidate its own power at the expense of its coalition partners. In its attempts at consolidation of power, ABRI was faced with four main tasks. The first was to reorganise its own ranks in the interest of internal consolidation. ABRI in the wake of the 1965 abortive coup was in fact a divided institution. Its leaders realised that for the military to play a prominent role in Indonesian politics, such divisions had to be eliminated. In their view, ABRI had to become a highly organised and unitary force with a clear and strong hierarchical structure of command. Under the leadership of General Suharto, ABRI moved to strengthen discipline and organisational unity, and give a sense of purpose to its ranks through a series of measures. These included the purge of officers suspected of being ‘leftist elements’, streamlining the structure of regional military commands, spreading new doctrines which emphasised the military’s rights and duties in modernising the country and eliminating potential challenges that might come from some generals by sending them abroad to take up diplomatic posts as ambassadors.1 These measures effectively transformed ABRI into a more unified institution in which discipline was enforced from above with firm control resting in the hands of General Suharto and his closest fellow generals. Second, after dealing with its own organisation, ABRI was faced with the problem of strengthening its own legitimacy as power-holder. For this purpose, at the ideological level, ABRI reaffirmed the doctrine of dwifungsi (dual function) which justified the growing role of the military (especially the army) in social, political and economic life. This doctrine maintained that ABRI constituted not just a defence force, but also a social and political one.2 It defined two major roles to be played by ABRI: a defence role and a social-political role. In the first role, ABRI saw itself as responsible for maintaining internal security and external defence. In the second, ABRI maintained that it also reserved the right to play a management and development role.3 At a practical level, it presented the twin imperatives of pembangunan nasional (national development) and stabilitas politik (political stability) as Indonesia’s national interests. As mentioned in Chapter 2, the New Order maintained that

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if pembangunan was to succeed, there should first be stabilitas. In this regard, ABRI saw itself as the only force capable of carrying out these twin objectives for the benefit of all Indonesian people. It was in this light that ABRI also described its role in Indonesian politics as a ‘stabiliser and dynamiser’ of the society and the vanguard of national unity. Taken together, the above ideological and practical foundations of legitimacy set out by ABRI served as the prime justification for the military’s involvement in almost every aspect of political life. The third task was the need to search for a new political format which suited the above objectives. For this requirement, the New Order embarked upon a political manoeuvre which aimed, on the one hand, at reducing the role and influence of political parties and, on the other hand, at strengthening its own role by creating a new political vehicle through which its aspirations could be legitimately channelled. For this purpose, the military-backed New Order government turned to Sekber Golkar (Joint Secretariat of Functional Groups, or GOLKAR), an organisation formed in October 1964 to counter the PKI. It was through employing GOLKAR as an electoral machine that ABRI’s grip on governmental power was further legitimised as the result of Parliamentary general elections in July 1971, in which it won 62.8 per cent of the vote or 227 out of the 360 contested seats. The DPR initially had 460 members. However, since 100 seats were to be filled by government-appointed members, with 75 seats reserved for the military, it was evident that GOLKAR and government-appointed MPs would hold an overwhelming majority. Therefore, in a Parliament consisting partly of appointed seats and guaranteed representation, the military did not not have to worry about a hostile legislature that might hinder the implementation of government policies. On the contrary, through GOLKAR and appointed members, it was able to control the legislative branch of government.4 The New Order regime also strongly believed that the failure of the pre-1965 period to attain stability was caused by party politics. In the eyes of military leaders, political parties were concerned more with their narrow interests than with the interests of the whole nation. Nonetheless, the military saw that for stability to be established, it needed ‘to regularise’ a post-1965 Indonesian society imbued with a strong sense of political participation inherited from the Sukarno era. The nature of Indonesia’s polity was reflected in the determination of Old Order political parties in resisting the attempt by the New Order regime to limit and curb their position and role in the political system. Even though the government had expressed its desire to ‘simply’ (menyederhanakan) the party system by limiting the number of political parties into three at the end of 1969, the existing political parties still succeeded in maintaining their existence and identities in the general elections in July 1971 in which 10 parties, including the governmentbacked GOLKAR, participated. The general elections in 1971 were a drastic failure for political parties, but a massive victory for GOLKAR which in turn strengthened the government’s grip on power.5 With such a reassuring result, the New Order government intensified its attempt to ‘simplify’ the party system. This task was completed in January 1973 when political parties were forced to merge into two newly created parties, the United Development Party (PPP) and the Indonesian Democratic Party (PDI). The first comprised four Muslim parties; Nahdhatul Ulama (NU), Partai Sarekat Islam Indonesia (PSII), Partai Muslimin Indonesia (Parmusi), and Pergerakan Tarbiyah Islamiah (PERTI). The PDI consisted of the secularnationalist Partai Nasional Indonesia (PNI), Murba, Ikatan Pendukung Kemerdekaan

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Indonesia (IPKI), together with the Christian Partai Kristen Indonesia (Parkindo), and Partai Katolik. This merger of political parties with such diverse ideological and political interests made it difficult for them to play a strong role in politics. Moreover, they became dependent on government financial support. The introduction of a new bill on Political Parties and GOLKAR in 1985, which restricted party activity, weakened further the ability of political organisations to act independently of state control. As a result, the military effectively limited the role of political parties in the political affairs of the nation to subordinate roles.6 The fourth task was how to create a bureaucracy or administrative machine through which New Order policies could be implemented. For this purpose, the military moved to extend its presence in government and administration at the national and regional levels. At the national level, several important ministerial posts, such as Home Affairs, Defence and Security, and Justice (at least until 1992) were held by military generals. Even in ministries headed by a civilian cabinet member, at least one high-ranking official in each of those ministries was a member of the armed forces.7 At regional level, the military’s control over Indonesia’s political system was strengthened further by the fact that many officers assumed important positions as heads of regional and local administrations, from governor, bupati (regent), down to camat (head of sub-district).8 At the same time, ABRI realised that it could not run the country alone, since this would create the impression that Indonesia was ruled exclusively by a military regime. Moreover, ABRI had never had any experience of dealing with economic matters on a national scale. It had to rely therefore on civilians who in this domain were represented by a number of prominent economists from the University of Indonesia, most of them having received their training at the University of California at Berkeley in the United States. These economists, ‘the technocrats’ or ‘the Berkeley Mafia’ as they came to be called, were given a relatively broad authority to implement economic policies to realise the military’s promise of improving the country’s ruined economic condition inherited from the Sukarno era. What emerged as a result was a unique feature of the New Order political system characterised by, at least nominally, a blend of military and civilian rule. This feature often prompted debate, especially among foreign analysts, over the true nature of the New Order government. The debate focused primarily on whether the New Order was an authoritarian or democratic regime.9 At issue is the fact that domestic politics during the New Order have been dominated by the military. As one leading architect of the New Order, General Maraden Pangabean, acknowledged as early as 1966: if we looked at ABRI’s role in crushing the PKI, in uniting new political forces which demanded changes, in forming the cabinet since 11 March [1966], in bringing the New Order voices into the MPRS [provisional Parliaments] meetings, and in the government such as [in the position of] secretary generals and director generals, and so on, then the only conclusion which can be drawn is that as a political force, at the present time ABRI is ‘leading and commanding’.10 Indeed, that ‘leading and commanding’ role of ABRI was reflected in the political system created by the New Order. The military emerged as the dominant force with a heavy concentration of influence over the formation of policy—domestic and foreign—in the

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hands of its top leaders. Political participation from civilian politicians was permitted as long as they were supportive of the government’s position and policies. The same was also true for the civilian ‘technocrats’ within the government. Otherwise, they would not have been assigned the role of ‘technocrat’ in the first place. The presence of the military, either through direct participation or through the kekaryaan programme (which assigned military officials to take up civilian posts in a non-military capacity), was felt almost in every government body, the foreign ministry included. This main feature of the New Order was reflected in and coloured the nature of foreign policy decision-making process, and in turn shaped the course of policies followed by the government. During the Guided Democracy era, foreign policy became very much the privileged domain of President Sukarno. Indeed, DEPLU was used as a political tool by Sukarno to realise his romantic international objectives. As Professor Leifer has noted, during this period ‘the foreign policy of Indonesia assumed a rumbustious quality which reflected Sukarno’s temperament.’11 Under the leadership of Dr Subandrio as foreign minister, the Foreign Ministry (DEPLU) played an active role in supporting Sukarno’s vision of foreign policy. Subandrio had been an active advocate of radical foreign policy courses such as konfrontasi against Malaysia, revolutionary diplomacy aimed at restructuring the international system, and notably the creation of the ‘Jakarta-Beijing Axis’. As mentioned in Chapter 2, this course of policies had domestic implications in helping to strengthen the PKI’s position at the expense of the military. From this period, ABRI apparently learned that foreign policy could also have unexpected consequences affecting its position in the domestic domain. For example, when Sukarno and DEPLU embarked upon konfrontasi against Malaysia during 1963–1965, albeit reluctantly, the military followed suit in order to prevent the PKI from gaining the most from that policy. Similarly, close Indonesia-China relations which helped to strengthen the PKI’s influence and position in domestic politics, especially after Beijing had agreed to arm the PKI-proposed ‘Fifth Force’, made ABRI realise that DEPLU could serve as a meeting point for uniting a domestic with a foreign threat. Therefore, once the Sukarno era was ended, ABRI was determined to assume control over the formulation of Indonesia’s foreign policy. ABRI moved to purge diplomats and officials closely associated with Dr Subandrio, and set up a new organisational structure within DEPLU that assured the military’s direct participation, if not firm control, over important foreign policy issues, including the assignment of military personnel to ambassadorial posts abroad. To that extent, as a retired diplomat has put it, ‘foreign policy also falls in the domain of dwifungsi.’12 There is no doubt that the military, especially its intelligence services, played a leading role in ending the policy of konfrontasi against Malaysia. The military, with President Suharto taking the lead, also played a significant role in reviving the idea of regional cooperation in South-East Asia and translating it into reality by the creation of ASEAN.13 However, it is also true that ABRI’s leadership lacked formal training and experience in general international affairs and in the field of diplomacy. Moreover, the New Order leadership was faced with the more pressing domestic priority of restoring order and consolidating power rather than in allowing its energy to be absorbed by foreign policy issues. It, therefore, needed an able and experienced civilian to fill the position of Foreign Minister. General Suharto, with the recommendation of General Soenarso, his political adviser during

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the early days of the New Order,14 retained DEPLU’s character as a civilian institution by appointing Adam Malik as the New Order’s first Foreign Minister. What was the nature of ABRI’s participation in Indonesia’s foreign policy making? How far was the military’s actual intervention in foreign policy? There are no easy answers to these questions. The most common way of addressing such questions has been to count how many military men are employed in government bodies including the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.15 However, in the case of Indonesia, it could easily be misleading if one analyses the extent of ABRI’s intervention in the formulation of foreign policy by looking only at the structure of the foreign policy establishment. Since ABRI’s role in foreign policy making tended to be informal rather than institutional, the process was no less, if not more, important than the structure. Therefore, it is important to look at both structure and process of foreign policy making with emphasis on the latter. However, it should be made clear from the outset that understanding the foreign policy process—how policy is made and by whom—is not always an easy task. Though a great number of theoretical works have been written about foreign policy decision making, there have always been difficulties in any attempt to discern the specific structure and process of foreign policy making in a particular country. This is especially true if one tries to understand the structure and process of foreign policy making in a relatively closed political system such as Indonesia’s. Moreover, that task becomes even more difficult when one has to deal with a foreign policy system which is characterised more by personalised rather than institutionalised decision making. Therefore, what follows is not an attempt to make generalisations about the entire policy process in Indonesia. Nor is it an attempt to provide a comprehensive account of all Indonesian institutions involved, directly or indirectly, in the making of foreign policy.16 That would deserve a separate study altogether. The present study only intends to shed light on how the basic feature of New Order’s political system —the dominant role of the military—has been reflected in the field of foreign policy. Structure Indonesia’s Foreign Ministry had been largely a civilian domain since the birth of the Republic of Indonesia. The position of Foreign Minister has always been filled by a civilian. With the inception of a military-dominated New Order government in 1967, this civilian characteristic was to a certain extent retained. As mentioned above, the Suharto government assigned the post of Foreign Minister to Adam Malik. Nevertheless, the rise of ABRI to power had also indirectly revived an old ‘rivalry’ between DEPLU and the military. The seed of some sort of ‘bureaucratic rivalry’ within the Indonesian government can be traced back to the period of revolution in 1945–1949 when the competing notions of diplomasi (diplomacy) and perjuangan (struggle)—as the best means of securing independence from the Dutch—created division among Indonesian leaders. During this period, ABRI leaders lent their sympathy to the policy of revolutionary armed struggle (perjuangan). Meanwhile, DEPLU continued to be influenced by the position of civilian leaders such as Sukarno, Hatta, Sutan Sjahrir and Mohammad Roem that the objective of Indonesian independence would be served best through the policy of negotiation and diplomasi.17

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During the early years of the New Order, DEPLU was heavily staffed by senior military officers. Initially, ABRI’s direct administrative involvement in DEPLU affairs took the form of a ‘clean up’ of the Foreign Ministry from the PKI remnants and other elements allegedly involved in the abortive coup. On 7 April 1966, a Tim Penertib (Team of Restoring Order) was formed. This team later on developed into a Badan Koordinasi, Integrasi, dan Sinkronisasi Penanggulangan Gerilya Politik di Luar Negeri (the Body for Coordination, Integration and Synchronisation in Controlling Political Guerrillas in Foreign AffairsBakispalu) which assumed the same responsibility as the previous team.18 Since then, there had been a considerable increase in the number of military officers assigned to DEPLU. Many senior military officers took up various important and high positions in the Ministry. With the exception of the Foreign Minister’s position, for example, the two next highest ranks in DEPLU, Secretary-General and Inspector-General, were occupied by military generals. These two positions ensured the military’s control of DEPLU’s departmental administration. ABRI personnel also held key positions such as Director-General in the Directorate-General for Safeguarding of Foreign Relations and the Director for the Asia-Pacific regional desk. After DEPLU’s reorganisation in 1983, some important posts previously held by military personnel were handed back to civilian career diplomats, but the positions of Secretary-General and Inspector-General were still retained by military men. Moreover, despite the fact that over the years the number of people of military background holding official positions in DEPLU has decreased, this did not not mean that the influence of the military over DEPLU, and foreign policy making in general, had also waned. Nor did it indicate that the military was no longer interested in foreign policy. The informal structure of foreign policy making through which ABRI’s role was mostly exercised remained very much intact. The role of ABRI in determining the course of foreign policy did not not derive from those military men holding official positions in DEPLU. Rather, it stemmed from ABRI’s nature as the dominant policy source in the world of Indonesia’s policy making. As Weatherbee has pointed out, ‘critical decisions about foreign policy in general and security policy in particular are made by a small group that is primarily Army in composition.’19 ABRI’s role in foreign policy making was exercised through a more complex and sophisticated structure within the New Order’s political system. The first, and the most important, was through its own military governmental institution, that is, HANKAM (Ministry of Defence and Security). Unlike the Sukarno era when HANKAM had no direct control of troops, between 1969 and 1970 all four services of ABRI—the army, navy, airforce and police—were put under HANKAM following a reorganisation in April 1970. From 1969 to 1983, the structural command of HANKAM and the overall Armed Forces (ABRI) was put under one ministerial rank where the Commander of ABRI also held the position as Minister of Defence and Security (Menhankam/Pangab). Under such an arrangement, HANKAM was responsible for executing ‘operational’ and ‘territorial’ functions.20 One of the most significant functions of HANKAM was the management of politics, as the chief executor of dwifungsi doctrine. In practice, this included the important task of assigning military personnel to civilian jobs, and maintaining a certain measure of continuing control over them, including those assigned to DEPLU.

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Second, the military also exercised influence over foreign policy making through the involvement and the role of military-associated institutions in the field. Besides through HANKAM, for example, ABRI’s access to the formulation of foreign policy was also channelled through BAKIN (State Intelligence Coordinating Body). Although BAKIN is nominally a civilian agency, in practice it is run by the military and responsible directly to the President. As an agency in charge of intelligence affairs, BAKIN is primarily responsible for three main tasks: evaluating the state of internal security, identifying problems and in presenting possible policy alternatives for the government. In carrying out such tasks, BAKIN assumes the authority for an annual evaluation as to whether Indonesia’s internal security and stability was ‘terkendali’ (under control) during which it also identifies the sources and types of threat to national security coming either from within or from without Indonesia. More importantly, as part of its task to present possible policy alternatives, BAKIN prepares a daily intelligence report for the President’s personal use. Given such important tasks, there is little doubt that BAKIN’s influence over foreign policy is indeed significant. With regard to sensitive issues closely related to national security considerations, for example, Hein quoted a top BAKIN official acknowledging that ‘we almost always get our way’.21 Third, there have also been other channels available for the military through which to play a foreign policy role such as KOPKAMTIB, Lemhanas (Institute of National Defence) and the ABRI faction in the DPR. KOPKAMTIB was formed on 10 October 1965 within ABRI soon after the coup attempt of 1965 with the main purpose to crush PKI members and their allies. Later, from March 1969 the function of KOPKAMTIB had been extended to become an instrument for assuring and maintaining internal security, and dealing with dissidents. Again, since security in Indonesia encompasses all aspects of life and internal security was of paramount significance for the New Order government, then, as Hein observed, KOPKAMTIB ‘has its says on those important foreign policy issues that are seen as having potentially damaging effects on the internal security of the nation.’22 KOPKAMTIB was replaced in 1988 by a new body, BAKORSTANAS (Badan Koordinasi Bantuan Pemantapan Stabilitas Nasional-Coordinating Body for the Enforcement of National Stability), with much less authority than its predecessor. Lemhanas was formed by ABRI in the period before the 1965 abortive coup, but taken over by President Sukarno who wanted to use it as a clearing-house for information. In the New Order era, it functions mainly as an educational institution where ‘future Indonesian leaders’ (calon-calon pimpinan nasional) are trained. Participants in the courses run by Lemhanas have been drawn from a wide range of the Indonesian elite, consisting of military as well as civilians from various ministries (such as senior officials from various governmental departments, including Foreign Ministry, and university lecturers) and non-governmental institutions (such as journalists). Each course, which runs for either ten or three months, encompasses a wide range of issues such as national security, national resilience and foreign policy. In addition to its educational function, Lemhanas also carries out research and has provided policy recommendations to the President on certain issues.23 In a sense, Lemhanas functions as a ‘think tank’ for the government. Last but not least, the military also exercises influence over foreign policy making through its officers appointed as members of Parliament (DPR). In the DPR, the ABRI faction has

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stood out among its civilian counterparts partly because of its internal discipline and cohesion, but more because of its direct link with HANKAM. Since HANKAM has been successful in maintaining continuing control over members of the ABRI faction in the DPR, then it can be said that HANKAM views on various policy issues, including foreign policy, could be continuously channelled through them. In other words, with the representation and participation of members of the ABRI faction in the DPR, especially in the Committee for Defence, Foreign Relations and Information (Komisi I), the military was able to exercise influence over foreign policy making not only through executive channels (for example, through its personnel in DEPLU) but also through a legislative body. Such arrangements, of course, provided an enormous opportunity for the military to play a role both in influencing and shaping policies to be taken (in the DPR) and in executing them (through other state institutions mentioned earlier). Process It has been mentioned that ABRI’s role and influence in foreign policy making cannot be assessed merely by looking, for example, at the number of official positions held by military officers in DEPLU. The Ministry of Defence and Security (HANKAM) has constituted a formal institution for the military with which to participate in making policies closely related to foreign policy in general. In theory, it is possible to differentiate the separate fields of responsibility between HANKAM and DEPLU. HANKAM has been concerned mainly with the overall question of national security, while DEPLU has been responsible for the execution of foreign policy in general. In practice, however, these two areas have been closely intertwined and also overlapping. As shown in Chapter 3, ABRI’s thinking on foreign policy has been to a considerable degree guided by the need to maintain internal security. Meanwhile, DEPLU has been guided by broader foreign policy interests, such as the need to maintain a free and active foreign policy, including the need to restore Indonesia’s image as a leading non-aligned country.24 For ABRI, almost all governmental activities were related to the question of ‘security’. This was understandable since ABRI entertained a notion of security which embraced almost all aspects of life including ideology, politics, economics, society and culture (IPOLEKSOSBUD). Such a comprehensive notion of security provided prime justification for ABRI’s entitlement to determine the course of foreign policy. The result was a tacit division of role and responsibilities between the military and DEPLU where the former assumed more influence in determining guidelines for national security policy in general and foreign policy in particular, while the latter was left with the task of conducting dayto-day operations of diplomacy and assuming responsibility for issues that had no direct ‘security’ implications such as Indonesia’s position within the Organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC), the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM), and on other questions relating to Indonesia’s interests and involvement in global political and economic issues.25 In other words, DEPLU was left without much choice than to perform the diplomatic functions of foreign policy. Actually, during the early years of the New Order, especially during 1970–1974, there had been some sort of coordination between the military and Foreign Ministry in handling

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foreign policy issues. ABRI and DEPLU senior officials worked together through a ‘Regular Working Group on Foreign Policy’ (Panitia Kerja Tetap untuk Politik Luar Negeri) to present their joint position papers to the President on important international issues.26 However, such coordination tended to decline from 1974 when the military attempted to regain firm control over power after its position was shaken by the student demonstrations in January 1974 and by internal military friction that ensued before and after the event. After the crisis ended, the military leadership succeeded not only in restoring internal ABRI unity but also in strengthening its previous position so that it became even stronger than before. However, ABRI’s influence in foreign policy, as in other policy issues, was not unlimited. Mention should be made of the role of President Suharto (a more comprehensive analysis of Suharto’s role in foreign policy making, especially in the making of Indonesia’s China policy, will be dealt with later in Chapter 7). During the first 15 years of the New Order rule, President Suharto’s position in the power configuration remained very much integrated with the military. He relied largely on the military’s backing to remain at the top of the power structure. Since the early 1980s, however, President Suharto has gradually been able to become a power in his own right. Aided by constitutional rights which granted Indonesia’s president strong and broad executive power over policy matters, any major policy alternative had to be presented to Suharto first. In the event, it was the prerogative of the President to decide which alternative should be made actual policy. Although his decision was shaped by his own perceptions and calculations of the surrounding environments, Suharto did not not make decisions in vacuum. In this regard, Suharto certainly took into account how his main power base—the military—saw things, although it is almost impossible to determine to what extent he was influenced by them. What is certain, however, is that President Suharto consistently threw his support behind ABRI’s position instead of DEPLU during the debate among the political elite on the question of restoring diplomatic ties with China during 1970–1988, even though he accepted a temporary compromise in 1985 when he supported the plan to resume direct trade with China initiated by DEPLU and KADIN. Within such a context, foreign policy often became a ‘competing ground’ between DEPLU and ABRI in determining who had the bigger say. In most cases the military gained the upper hand. Since ABRI saw itself responsible for national security affairs, and ‘security’ was defined to include all aspects of life, then it was inevitable that ABRI presented this case as the rationale for its involvement in foreign policy making. Therefore, it can be said that policy was made when it was in line with ABRI’s concern over matters of national security and internal stability. No policy could be put into effect easily without approval from the military, either from HANKAM or from ABRI as a whole. This fact became a major source of resentment among senior DEPLU officials who came to see ABRI’s role in foreign policy more as an act of intervention rather than one of coordination.27 As will be discussed in the following section, the question of normalisation with China presented one illustration of such ‘competition’ between DEPLU and ABRI. And, due to the dominant position of ABRI in Indonesia’s New Order and the enormous influence it wielded over foreign policy making, the military was able to thwart DEPLU’s attempt to normalise relations with China for more than two decades. Moreover, DEPLU’s

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ability to push through its pro-normalisation view to become an actual policy was further reduced by the military’s attitude which always construed the question of normalisation with China as a ‘national security’ issue. The nature of debate among the foreign policy elite on the question of restoring diplomatic ties with China, like the debate over domestic political affairs, had tended to reflect the underlying characteristics of the New Order’s domestic politics and foreign policy making. ABRI’s strong opposition to normalisation, and Suharto’s support for it, made it difficult for DEPLU to move the debate beyond a series of ritual exchanges of views, let alone to determine the outcome of policy debate. For almost two decades, DEPLU only managed to keep the issue as an agenda item for public debate through a series of spontaneous expressions of interest. DEPLU’s long-standing engagement in the debate owed much to efforts by Indonesia’s Foreign Minister Adam Malik, almost a personal ‘crusade’, to persuade the military-backed New Order leadership of the merits of restoring diplomatic ties with China. Adam Malik’s quest for normalisation: the problem of a communist revival A protracted debate on the significance of diplomatic ties with China among Indonesia’s foreign policy elite had begun as early as late 1969 when Foreign Minister Adam Malik raised the question for the first time. In early November 1969, Malik stated that Indonesia hoped for increased contacts with China.28 He said that Indonesia would welcome the restoration of relations as long as China stopped its subversive activities in Indonesia and no longer carried out antiIndonesia propaganda.29 In February 1970, Malik again indicated that Indonesia had always been ‘open’ to any talks about the possibility of resuming diplomatic relations with China. Such an ‘open attitude’ was demonstrated by Malik in April 1970 when he invited China to attend a meeting of foreign ministers in Jakarta to discuss how to prevent civil war and foreign intervention in Cambodia after General Lon Nol had staged a military coup against Prince Norodom Sihanouk; an invitation which was turned down by Beijing.30 In October 1970, Malik began to probe the possibility of restoring ties with China by assigning his secretary, Aboe Bakar Loebis, to establish contact with China. The mission was carried out through Indonesia’s Consulate in Hongkong. It was intended to gather firsthand information with regard to China’s position on various international issues, especially in South-East Asia since the establishment of ASEAN. Loebis believed that ‘after the establishment of ASEAN, Indonesia should have restored diplomatic relations with China, because China is the largest country in East and South-East Asia’.31 However, Loebis’s mission immediately met with a stiff rebuke from the military. Indonesia’s Consul General in Hongkong, Sutarto Sigit, was given a strong warning against engaging in the enterprise by the military. Loebis was summoned by General Sutopo Yuwono, head of BAKIN, and asked to explain his mission. At the meeting, General Yuwono showed his unease over what Loebis was engaged in as if it were an illegal activity (usaha gelap). Loebis tried to explain that it was difficult for Indonesia to carry out its foreign policy if Jakarta relied only on secondary sources for information regarding China. He

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sought to convince the general that the initiative was in fact in Indonesia’s own interest, but to no avail.32 Despite strong objections from ABRI, Malik continued to convey the impression that international conditions required Indonesia to rethink its position on the possibility of normalisation. When his attempt to resume contacts with the Chinese was depicted as an act of ‘begging’, for example, Malik defended his initiative by arguing that what he was doing was a response to ‘various developments that had occurred’. In this regard, he maintained, ‘Indonesia could not just wait’.33 Malik was apparently referring to the changing political and strategic feature of great powers’ alignments and their implications for SouthEast Asia. Significant developments such as the emerging conflict between China and the Soviet Union leading to intensified competition in South-East Asia, signs of possible changes in Washington’s relations with Beijing, and President Nixon’s determination to seek an end to American involvement in Vietnam, were undoubtedly not lost on Malik and other DEPLU officials. Within such a context, Malik believed that an improvement in relations with China would provide Indonesia with additional leverage and balance in dealing with the Great Powers. The moves to promote ties with China, he later on pointed out, were ‘to avoid a dangerous reliance on or dominance by a single world power’.34 More importantly, Malik’s interests in seeking an improvement in Jakarta-Beijing relations had been aroused by some changes on the part of China itself. In the aftermath of the Cultural Revolution, China was actively reorienting its foreign policy, resulting in a sharp rise in its profile in international relations. Correspondingly, Beijing was embarking upon a new course in South-East Asia. All these developments strengthened Malik’s conviction that China was an important power in South-East Asia that could not be ignored by Indonesia. He felt that a restoration of diplomatic ties with China would enhance Indonesia’s leverage in regional and international contexts. Such considerations clearly suggested that DEPLU had from the beginning promoted the need for normalisation with China on the basis of international necessity. ABRI leaders obviously did not not share Malik’s view. They claimed that China still posed a serious threat to Indonesia’s domestic security because it still maintained links with the banned PKI and continued to support the Party’s attempt to overthrow the Suharto government. China was also accused of providing assistance to the communist insurgents in Sarawak. Defence Minister General Maraden Pangabean acknowledged that ABRI was worried that Chinese subversion might lead to renewed communist activities in Indonesia. 35 To support its position, ABRI regularly released reports on various military operations against communist remnants in the country, highlighting the view that internal security was still of paramount importance to many ABRI leaders. The apparent clash of views between DEPLU and ABRI led President Suharto to spell out his government’s position in a speech before the DPR (Parliament) on 16 August 1972 on the eve of the 27th anniversary of Indonesia’s Independence. He stated that Indonesia wanted to open friendly relations with all countries, if there was no attempt to interfere in Indonesia’s internal affairs, and the country concerned did not not show a hostile attitude towards Indonesia.36 Even though such a condition was applied to all countries in general, Suharto also referred to China specifically. He made it clear that ‘whether these [Indonesia-

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China] relations will thaw or remain as they are now depends on their attitude [towards Indonesia]’, and that ‘the desire must not come from us [Indonesia] alone’.37 The President’s remarks were not lost on Foreign Minister Adam Malik. He interpreted the speech as a sign that Indonesia was ready to open talks with China. Without waiting for Beijing’s response to Suharto’s remarks, Malik began to push the issue further. For example, on 27 August 1972, he urged Indonesian journalists to visit China to sound out Beijing’s attitude towards Indonesia.38 In the following month, at a press conference in Washington, Malik went even further saying that ‘hostile Chinese propaganda against Indonesia has become less and less’. He also pointed out that relations between Indonesian and Chinese representatives at the United Nations (UN) had ‘proceeded quite correctly, mingling in social events’.39 However, Malik appeared to be more cautious this time when he also stated that Indonesia’s government was not in a hurry to restore relations with China. Despite the ambiguity in Malik’s remarks, his statement on improving China’s attitude towards Indonesia implied that Beijing was eventually about to fulfil the conditions set by Indonesia, and therefore Indonesia should be prepared to restore relations with China. As implied in Suharto’s remarks in August 1972, one of such conditions was that ‘frozen’ relations between Indonesia and China could be overcome if Beijing refrained from showing a hostile attitude towards Jakarta. In this context, therefore, Malik apparently tried to give the impression that China was about to meet such a condition. If China had fulfilled this condition, so the logic ran, then Indonesia would soon restore its relations with China. In January 1973, Malik again stated that the restoration of diplomatic relations between Indonesia and China ‘depends on just “one more step” and will not be as difficult as other countries in their efforts in normalising relations with Beijing’. That ‘step’, in Malik’s view, was Indonesia’s objection which stemmed from its internal security problems. He admitted that politically there had been no more problems that could constrain the restoration of relations and promised that if internal security problems were solved, then ‘relations with Beijing will be restored soon’. Malik also reiterated his earlier assessment that there had been some indications that Beijing no longer opposed Suharto’s regime.40 Far from sharing Malik’s view, ABRI had its own interpretation of Suharto’s August 1972 speech. The ‘internal security problem’ that Malik had mentioned earlier, in ABRI’s view, was far from being resolved. China had not given up its interference in Indonesia’s internal affairs, and this meant China had not fulfilled one of the conditions mentioned by President Suharto for an improvement in Sino-Indonesian relations. There was plenty of ‘evidence’ that could be used by ABRI to back up its view. At the end of December 1972, for example, it was reported that Indonesia’s Counter-Espionage Agency (Dinas Kontra Espionase) had arrested tens of China’s agents, and most of them possessed the identification card of Indonesian citizen. According to these reports, the network, called ‘Defenders of the People and Motherland’ (Pembela Rakyat dan Tanah Air-PERATA), had tried to undermine Indonesia’s government, and therefore ‘posed a very serious threat to the Republic’.41 On 8 January 1973, it was also reported that Indonesia’s intelligence had thwarted an attempt to smuggle 1,500 China-made guns to Semarang in Central Java. According to the report, the guns would be used by members of ‘China’s subversion networks’ in Java.42

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Such reports contradicted Malik’s earlier assertion that China was no longer opposed to Suharto’s New Order government, and therefore undermined Malik’s attempts at seeking to establish diplomatic contact with China. There was every possibility that the information for the newspaper reports on Chinese subversive activities had been supplied by the military. Asked about such reports, Malik dismissed allegations on continuing subversive activities by Beijing in Indonesia as merely ‘assumptions and accusations’ and yet ‘to be proved’,43 much to the surprise of ABRI leaders. Malik seemed determined to advance his own course when, upon his return from attending the International Conference on Vietnam in Paris in late February 1973, he disclosed to the press that he had met with China’s Foreign Minister Ji Pengfei. He had also met with Takeo Kimura, a special envoy of Japan’s Prime Minister Kakue Tanaka, and discussed the question of normalisation with China.44 Malik’s activities forced ABRI to clarify its position again with regard to normalisation. The clarification, which appeared in an editorial of the Armed Forces daily Angkatan Bersenjata in March 1973, was meant as a response to growing speculation on IndonesiaChina relations following Malik’s initiatives. The Daily reminded its readers that Indonesia’s government had repeatedly stated that the question of ‘de-freezing’ diplomatic relations with China was ‘just a matter of waiting for a good time’. ‘When the time comes,’ it added vaguely, ‘that will depend on the condition of the problem itself.’45 The daily argued: Indonesia is preoccupied with its domestic affairs. All attention is being given to developments in all sectors of life, especially when we are about to enter the second REPELITA (Five Years Development Plan). Based on that fact, it is difficult to expect that we will take the initiative in this question [of normalisation of relations with China].46 The Editorial also denied that there had been differences among Indonesian leaders on the issue. It wrote: What we want to add here is this: it is not true that there are two views among our leaders with regard to the question [of Indonesia-China relations], where it is said that one view wants the relations to be restored while the other wants to delay them for security reasons.47 This view was also echoed by some Muslim politicians. In April 1973, for example, a leading Muslim politician with strong connection with the military, Jaelani Naro, maintained that normalisation of relations with China should be subject to serious thinking and assessment. He also maintained that the military knew more about the issue, because ‘diplomatic relations are not just a matter of concern to the Foreign Ministry alone, but to the whole nation’.48 From the beginning, Naro had always been critical of normalisation of relations with China. In late September 1970, for example, he sharply criticised Malik’s support for China’s membership in the UN. He stated that Malik’s position ‘would distort the Provisional People’s Consultative Assembly Decision No. XXIV/MPRS/1969 on the banning of Marxism/Communism in Indonesia’.49

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Strong opposition from ABRI and other political forces put DEPLU, especially Malik, in a difficult position.50 By late April 1973, he was forced to review his early assessment on ‘progress’ in Indonesia-China relations. Contrary to his early statement, Malik stated that there had not been much progress in restoring relations between Indonesia and China. He also maintained that there was no need for Indonesia to be in a hurry to normalise. To justify his revised position, Malik presented the Chinese minority problem as a new factor which should be resolved by Indonesia before normalisation could take place. According to Malik, there were Indonesian citizens of Chinese descent who were still loyal to Beijing. Therefore, Malik maintained, ‘Indonesia’s government needs time to re-educate them to be good citizens and loyal to the Indonesian government and nation’,51 thus bringing up another reason to delay normalisation. While Malik seemed to become less optimistic, in 1974 ABRI stepped up its policy of crushing ‘PKI remnants’, intensifying operations to discover ‘new communist networks’, and calling attention to the danger of the ‘communist threat’. This did nothing but, in the words of a retired DEPLU official, help to perpetuate fears of China’s political intentions and of the effect of diplomatic relations on the possibility of a communist revival in the country.52 The position of the pro-normalisation forces looked even more hopeless when President Suharto told seven visiting Japanese journalists that Indonesia did not not see any urgency in restoring diplomatic relations with China, because it continued to support ‘wars of liberation in developing countries’, and this meant interfering in other countries’ internal affairs.53 The statement put an end to the heated debate which had begun in the early months of 1970. Indeed, from then on it became more difficult to gauge Malik’s true position. He offered a series of contradictory statements. In May 1974, for example, he stated that Indonesia was not ready for normalisation.54 In October 1974, Malik sounded rather frustrated when he stated that even though Beijing had fulfilled all conditions set by Jakarta, there had been no significant progress in Indonesia-China relations.55 Again, in December, he maintained normalising relations with China would have advantages and disadvantages, and that at present the disadvantages would outweigh the advantages if Indonesia restored relations. Therefore, he concluded, ‘the government could not say when diplomatic ties would be restored.’56 On 16 August 1975, President Suharto reiterated his views before the DPR. Obviously, as the President had made it clear that he was of the same opinion as other ABRI leaders, the prospect for an early normalisation seemed remote. The problem of the Ethnic-Chinese minority In April 1976, Malik stated that ‘Indonesia’s internal condition is not yet ready for the restoration of relations with China.57 Two months later, he explained that ‘even though problems at the official level between Jakarta and Beijing had been settled’, Indonesia was still facing ‘two internal problems’ in restoring relations with China; namely, ‘security problems’ and ‘the ethnic-Chinese minority problems’.58 On 13 August, LieutenantGeneral Ali Moertopo, a key figure in the New Order and a confidant of President Suharto, reinforced Malik’s view when he stated that the status of Indonesia’s ethnic Chinese should be made clear first before Jakarta could embark upon and accelerate the process of

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normalisation with China.59 Indeed, at the time, the question of the ethnic-Chinese minority had become tied up increasingly with the question of ‘national security’ and had emerged as a powerful reason that delayed normalisation further. The issue of the ethnic-Chinese minority provided a convenient reason for both antiand pro-normalisation groups in justifying their own positions. For DEPLU, it was often employed to account for its inability to push the normalisation proposal further whenever its initiative had been rejected by ABRI and other anti-normalisation forces. Correspondingly, ABRI brought up this issue to strengthen its opposition against any attempt to normalise diplomatic ties with China. In the event, both DEPLU and ABRI seemed to agree that the question of the ethnic-Chinese minority should be resolved first before Indonesia-China relations were restored. The significance of the question of the ethnic-Chinese minority for DEPLU was exemplified by various of Adam Malik’s statements which described the issue as ‘the only obstacle’ to normalisation. On more than one occasion, Malik stated that normalisation would be carried out after the completion of the registration of ‘stateless’ Chinese residents in Indonesia.60 His successor, Professor Mochtar Kusumaatmadja, was also inclined to adopt a similar view on this question. For example, when asked about the effect of SinoVietnamese conflict on the Chinese minority in Vietnam, Mochtar stated that although the issue was not serious enough for Indonesia to abandon its policy of seeking normal relations with China, ‘the pace must be slow’ because the way in which China had handled the issue had made Indonesia ‘cautious’. He added that Indonesia would continue to make necessary preparations for normalising ties with China, but before it could start talking about the issue, Indonesia still had to solve the problem of ‘the registration of Chinese citizens’.61 During 1979, the ethnic-Chinese minority issue was raised whenever the question of normalisation with China came up. Throughout the year, Mochtar stated repeatedly that ‘preparations’ were being undertaken by Indonesia’s government and that the registration of Chinese in Indonesia was part of them.62 However, those ‘preparations’ went on until the end of the year without any concrete results. At the close of 1979, Mochtar still spoke of the need to regulate the citizenship status of some 900,000 of Indonesia’s Chinese before normalisation with Beijing could be carried out. He also accused China of being inconsistent in its policy towards the Overseas Chinese, saying that ‘China still wanted them [the ethnicChinese minority] to maintain special links with their former motherland’.63 DEPLU’s position on this issue was in general related to its strong advocacy of normalisation. DEPLU, especially Foreign Minister Mochtar, seemed to understand that the ethnic-Chinese minority served as the only reason on which resistance to normalisation could be based.64 The problem posed by this issue, unlike other reasons offered for resistance such as ‘communist revival’ and ‘China’s threat’, was more genuine. He also probably realised that if Indonesia was to make concrete progress in the normalisation process then it would have to solve this issue first. For Mochtar, it seemed unrealistic to push the question of normalisation without paying attention to the issue of the ethnic-Chinese minority. As he later recalled, ‘intellectually and rationally, I agreed with DEPLU’s view and position, but due to domestic factors I also understood the security concerns of HANKAM people over this issue.’65

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As suggested in Chapter 3, many military officials and other antinormalisation elements harboured the view that China might seek to utilise the ethnic-Chinese minority in Indonesia to serve its national interests. They were suspicious that with the presence of a Chinese embassy in Jakarta, the Chinese minority could once again become a target of Chinese subversion. It was in connection with this view that the majority of members of the antinormalisation camp maintained that the Chinese problem could only be solved if the Chinese minority became ‘Indonesianised’ in a political and cultural sense. According to this majority view, before this ‘Indonesianisation process’ was completed, an early normalisation of diplomatic ties with China would pose risks to Indonesia’s internal security. As mentioned earlier, since it understood that this issue could delay normalisation efforts, DEPLU avoided becoming deeply involved in the debate over it in the context of SinoIndonesian relations. It was more prepared to move forward on other grounds in advocating normalisation with China, especially that of economic advantage. KADIN’s visit to China The second major debate occurred during 1977–1978 when the news broke that a mission from KADIN had visited China in November 1977 to attend a trade fair in Canton. The trip may be considered semi-official because, as revealed by the Third Chairman of KADIN Noer Amin, it had received government approval before going to Canton.66 Amin had stated also that the mission was to follow up a commitment given by Adam Malik to China’s Foreign Minister Huang Hua at their recent meeting in New York.67 Since it was almost impossible for KADIN to have sent its delegation to China without government approval, many speculated that the visit reflected the government’s intention to look into the possibility of direct trade relations between Indonesia and China. Even though discussions between the KADIN team and Chinese officials did not result in any agreement, the visit itself was seen as the beginning of a ‘new road’ to the normalisation process between Jakarta and Beijing. As Chairman of KADIN, Suwoto Sukendar stated, ‘it is time now to bring an economic aspect to the opening of relations with China.’68 Upon his return from China, Amin disclosed to the press that his team had an impression that China really wanted to resume direct trade with Indonesia.69 He also revealed that the resumption of direct trade would bring advantages for Indonesia and China, since both sides had in fact traded through a third party with a value already worth hundreds of millions of dollars.70 After KADIN’s first visit, the desire to begin direct trade with China increased. In May 1978, KADIN sent another team, led by its Chairman Sukendar, to visit China to probe the possibility of resuming direct trade.71 In Beijing, Sukendar met with China’s Vice-Prime Minister Jen Muhua, Minister of Foreign Trade Li Chiang, and Vice-Chairman of the China Council for Promotion of International Trade (CCPIT) Wang Wen Lin. After these meetings, Sukendar announced that, in principle, China had agreed to improve its trade relations with Indonesia. Sukendar also stated that Indonesia could export many commodities to China such as fertiliser, wood, rubber and pepper. From China, Indonesia in turn could import light industrial products such as light machinery, building materials, small generators, and other commodities.72

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Even though the KADIN visit seemed to have made a breakthrough in improving the atmosphere surrounding Sino-Indonesian relations, it had actually gone far beyond Jakarta’s expectations. According to a member of the team, Sukamdani Sahid Gitosardjono, the team had been permitted by the Indonesian government to visit Canton solely for the purpose of attending a trade fair. He had tried to warn Sukendar not to travel on to Beijing even though they had been invited by China’s officials, but Sukendar insisted. In Hongkong, on the way back to Jakarta, Sukendar even gave a press conference disclosing the results of the visit.73 The government was not happy with Sukendar’s move. Indonesia’s government regarded KADIN as having crossed its political line. President Suharto was said to be unhappy with how the visit had turned out.74 In its editorial of 23 May 1978, the Army’s newspaper Berita Yudha wrote that the relationship with China was not just a question of trade. The newspaper admitted that even though indirect trade with China had resulted in ‘a great loss’ to Indonesia, Sino-Indonesian relations should be viewed in terms of political considerations. It also added that since Indonesia’s economy was still dominated by Chinese, then direct trade relations with China should also be considered in this context.75 It did not not take too long for the Indonesian government to reveal its position on the matter. On 23 May, after studying the report of Sukendar’s mission, Indonesia’s Minister of Trade Radius Prawiro announced that the government had decided that it would not establish direct trade with China because ‘viewed from political, economic and social points of view, the present pattern is more efficient’.76 Indonesia’s Minister of Information, General Ali Moertopo also maintained that normalisation with China depended on China’s ‘seriousness’ and ‘motivation’. In June 1978, Foreign Minister Mochtar reiterated that the Indonesian government still considered the problem of ‘the Chinese minority’ as an ‘obstacle’ that should be resolved first. Several politicians soon lent their support to the Government’s decision. Muslim politicians received it with great relief. Rachmat Mulyomiseno, for example, stated that the government’s decision not to open direct trade with China had been the correct one. 77 The leader of the PPP faction in Parliament, Amin Iskandar, went even further to state that China might use any benefit it could gain from trading with Indonesia to finance ‘certain goals’. He went to the lengths of presenting an awkward argument by saying that such direct trade with China ‘would popularise the name of the PRC in Indonesia’ and in turn, ‘Chinese culture would dominate Indonesia’.78 As a consequence, the KADIN Chairman Sukendar had to comply with the government’s decision and cancelled his plan to send another KADIN team to Hongkong to discuss the possibility of resuming direct Sino-Indonesian trade. It is interesting to note, however, that some members of the ruling party GOLKAR expressed their disagreement with the government for the first time on this matter. The Vice-Chairman of GOLKAR’s faction in the DPR, C.J. Simandjuntak, maintained that resuming direct trade with China was in fact necessary because there was a mutual need between the two countries, and direct trade would bring mutual benefits to both sides. He maintained that Indonesia did not have to worry about a possible increase in subversive activities if trade relations were resumed because such activities ‘would never cease in the world’. What was important, he added, was ‘how to maintain our vigilance and enhance national resilience’ so that Indonesia could ‘gain as much benefit from our relations with

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other countries for the sake of economic development’.79 Earlier, another leader of GOLKAR’s faction in the DPR, Sugiharto, had also stated that there was a need for Indonesia to restore diplomatic ties with China because such ties would bring about economic advantages.80 Even though they came from leaders of its own party, such ‘economic arguments’ did not not convince Indonesia’s government of the pressing need for resuming direct trade, let alone restoring diplomatic ties, with China. The prevailing atmosphere in Jakarta, especially among military leaders who dominated the New Order government, was still characterised by a strong suspicion of China’s true intentions behind its desire to restore diplomatic ties with Indonesia. Indeed, the introduction of economic considerations by KADIN had added new leverage to the pro-normalisation argument advanced by DEPLU. However, DEPLU only returned to this argument after it had also failed to convince the government that restoration of diplomatic ties with China was necessary in terms of regional politics. The problem of Cambodia The debate on the question of normalisation with China was not only shaped by concerns over internal issues, but also triggered by developments in international and regional environments. During the mid-1970s, international politics in Asia-Pacific were undergoing dramatic change, and China’s strategic position globally and regionally was becoming increasingly more significant. The United States, which previously had pursued a policy of containment against international communism, including Chinese communism, had taken a major political step to foster good relations with China. Washington-Beijing relations were transformed after Nixon’s visit to China and the signing of the Shanghai Communiqué in February 1972. The withdrawal of American troops from Vietnam following the Paris Peace Agreement in January 1973 and then the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975 were followed by significant changes in the foreign policies of regional states towards China. In May 1974, Malaysia took a pioneering step in establishing diplomatic relations with China. Malaysia’s initiative was then followed by the establishment of diplomatic relations between Thailand and China in June 1975, and between the Philippines and China in July 1975. Earlier, Malik had hoped for the restoration of Indonesia-China diplomatic ties after ‘other ASEAN countries establish such relations with China’,81 but that had not been fulfilled. Until August 1975, Indonesia’s government was still in favour of the status quo even though Malaysia, Thailand and the Philippines had established diplomatic relations with China. Singapore, even though it promised not to establish diplomatic relations with China before Indonesia, also sought to improve its relations with Beijing. For example, Singapore’s Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew made his first visit to China in May 1976, meeting an ailing Mao Zedong. Indonesia was therefore practically isolated from all the other ASEAN countries which had sought to improve relations with China. Such developments in the regional environment from 1975 made DEPLU feel Indonesia’s government opposition to restoring relations with China was against the prevailing trend. Many DEPLU officials felt that without normal diplomatic relations with China, it was

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difficult for Indonesia to play a role in South-East Asia. As demonstrated by Indonesia’s experience in its abortive attempt to seek a solution to the Cambodian problem in mid-1970, there was not much that it could do in regional affairs without involving China in the process. China had turned down Indonesia’s invitation and did not not send a representative to the meeting in Jakarta. Beijing’s decision was matched by its two close allies, North Korea and North Vietnam. India followed suit when it declared that such a meeting would not have any significance without the presence of the three communist states, especially North Vietnam. The absence of these four countries left the meeting with the impression that it was a pro-Western Asian gathering; thus constituting a blow to the New Order’s initial attempt to demonstrate that it had resumed a free and active foreign policy, and it was determined to put that aspiration into practice.82 In the eyes of many DEPLU officials, the episode proved that any talk of peace and stability in the region would not have credibility unless China was involved. It provided a lesson that as China’s importance was growing, then diplomatic contact with China was necessary. Within this context, it seemed natural when Adam Malik stated that the rapprochement between ASEAN countries and China was not an extraordinary event, but a natural point of departure in responding to radical changes in the region.83 Unlike DEPLU, ABRI leaders still saw things differently. They had their own reasons to resist normalisation despite such regional developments. First, ABRI leaders were worried about the possible implications of the victory of Communist Vietnam in Indochina for communist activities in Indonesia. The fall of Saigon had in fact invigorated ABRI’s suspicion of the possible revival of communism in Indonesia. Significantly, it seemed to have had and effect in Malaysia where the Malaysian Communist Party (MCP) engaged in terrorist activities. General Maraden Pangabean, for example, stated that developments in Indochina could serve as moral support for PKI remnants to intensify their subversive activities in Indonesia.84 The same concern was also shared by KOPKAMTIB Chief of Staff Admiral Soedomo, Minister of Information Mashuri and other military figures. They all warned Indonesians to be more vigilant and called for an increase in military operations against the PKI remnants.85 In general, however, it should be noted that ABRI leaders did not not perceive the communist victory in Indochina as posing a direct threat to Indonesia. Second, they were not happy with China’s diplomatic offensive in South-East Asia, especially with Beijing’s attempt to woo ASEAN countries. Admiral Soedomo, for example, stated that he would like to see a ‘more positive regional cooperation’ against future communist subversion in the region instead of ‘the current “panicky rush”’ of ASEAN countries to Beijing.86 In the case of Malaysia, the military’s response was quite illustrative. According to a retired DEPLU official, as early as 1971 some military leaders had regarded Malaysia’s initiative to improve ties with China as ‘an unfriendly act against Indonesia’ and perceived the initiative as ‘a threat to the regional security’.87 It was also reported that Indonesia had tried to persuade Malaysia not to be in a hurry to establish diplomatic ties with China.88 The military’s newspapers, Angkatan Bersenjata and Berita Yudha, also highlighted unfavourable aspects of the establishment of diplomatic ties between Malaysia and China by printing reports of increasing communist activities in Malaysia and alleged Beijing support behind them.89

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The rise of Sino-Vietnamese conflict exacerbated the differences between DEPLU and ABRI even further. In July 1978, tension between China and Vietnam, which had emerged since the unification of Vietnam, escalated due to the treatment of ethnic Chinese in Vietnam. In November 1978, the Chinese were angered by the conclusion of a treaty of friendship and cooperation between Vietnam and the Soviet Union. In December 1978, Beijing-Hanoi relations deteriorated further when Vietnam invaded Cambodia. In January 1979, it overthrew the Beijing-backed Khmer Rouge government in Phnom Penh and set up a pro-Hanoi government. In February-March 1979, China launched a ‘punitive attack’ against Vietnam with the declared object of teaching it ‘a lesson’.90 For DEPLU, the invasion of Cambodia presented a delicate question of how to reconcile the competing views between itself and ABRI. The main problem was how to respond to the Vietnamese invasion, especially with regard to China’s role in the conflict. Being a member of the Association, DEPLU felt that Indonesia should respect a sense of so-called ‘ASEAN Solidarity’ because of Thailand’s concern at being a ‘front-line state’ in the wake of Vietnam’s invasion of Cambodia. Thailand was deeply concerned with what it saw as Vietnam’s attempt to dominate Indochina. Other ASEAN countries such as Singapore and the Philippines, which were concerned with what they perceived as a larger SovietVietnamese design for influence in the region, supported Thailand’s position. Concerned with maintaining ASEAN’s solidarity, DEPLU was therefore more inclined to go along with ASEAN’s position against Vietnam’s invasion. DEPLU did manage to bring Indonesia in line with a common ASEAN position which, among other things, called for the withdrawl of Vietnamese forces from Cambodia. President Suharto’s preference for maintaining ASEAN unity was said to have played a significant role in this regard.91 However, since such a position implied that ASEAN was aligned with China, DEPLU was also obliged to avoid the impression that by siding with ASEAN’s stance, Indonesia indirectly supported China’s position in the Cambodian conflict. As a result, Indonesia’s policy towards the Cambodian conflict was marked by ambivalence. While supporting ASEAN’s position against Vietnam’s invasion of Cambodia, Indonesia also entertained the view that a compromise should be reached between ASEAN and Vietnam, and such a view was reflected in Indonesia’s unilateral diplomatic attempts to soften Vietnam’s position.92 The roots of such ambivalence are to be found in the internal disagreement between DEPLU and ABRI over the issue. ABRI did not see Vietnam as posing any threat to Indonesia, but on the contrary viewed China’s act of punishment with suspicion. As General Ali Moertopo put it, the attack showed that ‘the PRC intended to demonstrate to the world its willingness and capability of performing a “policing” role internationally’.93 Some ABRI generals, especially those in HANKAM, appeared to be very sympathetic to Vietnam. They believed that Vietnam was trying to maintain its independence both from China and the Soviet Union. In their view, it was China’s hostility that had forced Vietnam to rely on the Soviet Union and to undertake its subsequent invasion of Cambodia. Moreover, the question of Cambodia was not construed as a problem between ASEAN and Vietnam, but a conflict between Vietnam and China. Viewed in this context, military leaders argued that Vietnam served as a ‘buffer’ against China’s expansionist drive in the South-East Asian region.94 Unlike DEPLU, which acknowledged the implications of the conflict for Thailand’s national security, ABRI was worried that Bangkok could be drawn into an open

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confrontation with Hanoi, and that such a development would increase the propensity for China’s military involvement in Thailand. In other words, Vietnam’s invasion of Cambodia did not alter ABRI’s perception of China as the main threat to Indonesia and South-East Asia. The Commander of ABRI, General Benny Moerdani, despite ASEAN’s deep concern over Vietnam’s role in Indochina visited Hanoi in February 1984 and stated that Vietnam was not a threat to South-East Asia.95 The differing views between DEPLU and ABRI over the Cambodian issue also affected their stance over the question of normalisation of diplomatic ties with China. China’s involvement in the Cambodian conflict put DEPLU in a dilemma in advocating normalisation. On the one hand, DEPLU had to acknowledge the strategic role of China in a settlement of the Cambodian conflict. DEPLU officials admitted that diplomatic relations with China were a necessary precondition for facilitating the settlement of the conflict. Without such relations, it would be difficult for Indonesia to play its role as ‘ASEAN’s interlocutor’ to the full extent in seeking a peaceful solution. In this respect, a dialogue between Indonesia and China was seen as critical since China itself had also recognised the significance of such a dialogue, especially for the purpose of normalisation of relations.96 On the other hand, DEPLU worried that intensive contacts with China would generate domestic speculation over the possibility of normalising relations with China, thus provoking opposition from anti-normalisation forces. As a result, DEPLU tried not to link Indonesia and China’s role in the Cambodian conflict with the question of diplomatic relations between them. Foreign Minister Mochtar’s position was therefore not too far from that of his predecessor Adam Malik. Mochtar continued Malik’s habit of making contradictory remarks. In January 1980, for example, Mochtar stated that ‘the urgency to restore diplomatic ties with China had been greater than in the previous years’.97 However, in response to a query by a member of the DPR on 6 February, Mochtar maintained that it would be ‘more beneficial’ for Indonesia not to normalise relations with China ‘at this time’, because of China’s ‘current role in Southeast Asia’.98 In Mochtar’s view, there was an impression that China was using ASEAN for its own political objectives, and ASEAN was implementing Chinese policies.99 Mochtar’s view reflected his concern over the possible domestic implications of normalisation even though he acknowledged the importance of improved relations with China in this context. As Mochtar recalled, ‘what is the use for us if for the sake of foreign policy interests then we created domestic problems?’100 However, one may speculate that such an attitude also showed DEPLU’s inability to pursue its course further in convincing the pro-normalisation forces of the merits of improved relations with China amid dramatic changes in South-East Asian regional politics. The anti-normalisation forces were of the opinion that normalisation of relations with China would serve the purpose of China’s foreign policy in South-East Asia. ABRI leaders and other elements in antinormalisation circles were suspicious of China’s attempt to foster good relations with ASEAN countries after Vietnam’s invasion of Cambodia. For example, when in March 1980 China’s Foreign Minister Huang Hua expressed Beijing’s desire to restore diplomatic ties with Jakarta, they suspected that Beijing’s appeal was not genuine but one motivated by its desperate attempt to gain support from ASEAN countries in China’s conflict with Vietnam and the Soviet

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Union. Chairman of DPR, General Daryatmo, for example, warned Indonesia not to be dragged into the disputes.101 As a leading Indonesian scholar put it, ‘there was a strong view within ABRI that [Indonesia’s] low profile diplomacy [in the Cambodian affairs] reinforced the impression that Indonesia had given in to Thailand, China, and the US’.102 Two leading Muslim politicians, Imron Rosyadi and Amin Iskandar, also maintained that it was not yet time to restore diplomatic ties with China. They both worried that if Indonesia restored those ties with China, then it would be forced to oppose the Soviet Union.103 Objection was also heard from the ruling party of GOLKAR, especially from leaders of its faction in the DPR. Another episode in March 1984 also served as a good illustration of DEPLU’s tactic not to link the question of Cambodia with normalisation of relations with China. In his speech before the Annual Conference of the Asian Press Foundation in Hongkong, the former VicePresident and Foreign Minister Adam Malik, a long-standing advocate of normalisation, once again urged the Indonesian government to play a greater role in seeking a peaceful solution to the Cambodian conflict. For that purpose, he argued, Indonesia should normalise its relations with China first.104 Foreign Minister Mochtar responded to Malik’s proposal stating that he did not not see any link between ASEAN’s initiatives in the Cambodian conflict and the normalisation of diplomatic relations between Indonesia and China.105 Mochtar also stated that the Cambodian conflict was ‘an ASEAN problem’ while the normalisation between Indonesia and China was ‘a bilateral problem’.106 What was striking in the case of Cambodia and its link with the question of SinoIndonesian normalisation was that it showed that DEPLU was not able to pursue its course further. Various developments in regional politics did not alter the attitude and position of the anti-normalisation forces. Mochtar still had to submit to the view of the pronormalisation group when he stated that ‘as long as China has not lifted its support [for Communist Parties in South-East Asia], it is difficult for Indonesia to normalise relations with China’.107 He also repeatedly echoed the military and other anti-normalisation forces’ concern that ‘security’ remained a major problem in moving towards normalisation.108 This demonstrated that, in the mind of the foreign policy elite, the political reality of international relations had little bearing on the question of normalisation with China. This point in turn indicated that for Indonesia, normalisation of diplomatic relations with China was a domestic political issue. Therefore, it was only new domestic impulses that might bring about any significant change in the Indonesian government’s position on this question. The importance of any such impulses had to outweigh the primacy of national security considerations narrowly defined in terms of the China threat and its link with the possible revival of communism and the question of the ethnic-Chinese minority. Conclusion This chapter has attempted to analyse why anti-normalisation forces, especially within ABRI, had been able to dominate the debate on the question of restoring diplomatic ties with China among foreign policy elite. Since it came to power in 1967, ABRI had continuously consolidated its position as the dominant force with a heavy concentration of influence over the formation of policy—domestic and foreign—resting in the hands of its

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top leaders. The presence of the military was felt in almost every government body, including the Foreign Ministry. It is within such a domestic context that the debate between pro- and antinormalisation forces—especially between DEPLU and ABRI—over the significance of diplomatic ties with China should be understood. As the analysis in this chapter has revealed, the dominant position of ABRI in the structure of debate reflected its dominant position over a wide range of issues in Indonesian domestic politics. The dominant role of ABRI in foreign policy making meant that those foreign policy issues which enjoyed a security dimension constituted the privileged domain of the military. In this respect, the question of normalisation of diplomatic relations with China fell into that broad category. Therefore, the role, perceptions and attitude of the military greatly influenced and shaped Indonesia’s resistance towards normalising diplomatic relations with China. Other groups—except DEPLU—played only a marginal role in making policy. This chapter has sought to demonstrate how pro-normalisation groups, especially DEPLU, repeatedly tried to advance their arguments for an early restoration of diplomatic relations with China, while the anti-normalisation forces consistently rejected the proposal on the basis of the need for maintaining ‘internal security’. Strong resistance from antinormalisation groups repeatedly forced DEPLU to revise its arguments over time in order to make them more credible. What is striking from the whole debate is that no matter how credible the arguments put forward by the pro-normalisation groups, they could not persuade their opponents. It failed to convince the main pillar of the New Order, ABRI, that normalisation of relations with China would benefit Indonesia’s foreign policy and economic interests. Indeed, the whole effort by pronormalisation groups seemed to make little impact on the New Order leadership’s stance vis-à-vis China. Foreign policy debate in Indonesia, like the debate over domestic political affairs, has tended to be carried out within two ‘boundaries’ underlying the character of the New Order’s political culture. First, although foreign policy debate in Indonesia can sometimes be open, critical, frank and lively, it has been noted that ‘the whole debate continues to take place within the framework of the Indonesia consensus-building approach to politics’. 109 Second, debates over policy issues also ‘take place within the parameters of what is thought to be acceptable to the President’.110 And, these two ‘boundaries’ were firmly kept in place due to the fact that it was the government which had the strongest grip on politics and the decision-making process in Indonesia’s New Order. In such a policy-making environment, therefore, only DEPLU and ABRI can be said to be the main contenders in the debate. They constituted two parts of an ‘inner structure’ of the New Order’s pyramid of power, in which ABRI stood as the most significant pillar of state, while DEPLU played a role as the governmental body which assumed formally direct responsibility for foreign policy. However, even the debate between the two groups of an ‘inner structure’ of the regime did not not show that the parties involved commanded the same influence on policy making. As this chapter has demonstrated, DEPLU failed to convince the military-backed government headed by President Suharto to restore diplomatic ties with China. ABRI’s view which maintained that restoring diplomatic ties with China posed security risks for internal stability continued to prevail during the debate. During the debate, ABRI’s position was also shared and endorsed by President Suharto. On more than one occasion, DEPLU was forced to halt its attempt after the President made

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it clear that he was of the same opinion as his military colleagues. Indeed, DEPLU had to accept the fact that it was ABRI’s views which carried more weight with the President. However, to know the position and views of the debating parties, and how the issue was debated, does not present a complete picture of Indonesia’s resistance to normalisation with China. Why did DEPLU fail to convince Suharto’s New Order government of the benefits of restoration of diplomatic ties with China? As this chapter has sought to demonstrate, the official reason given by the New Order government was that the restoration of diplomatic ties with China entailed security risks for national security defined in terms of ‘internal security’ and ‘the ethnic-Chinese minority’ problems. However, such an explanation only provides half of the picture. The resistance to restoring diplomatic ties with China had also served the important function of advancing the domestic political interests of the ruling regime. Analysis of this aspect of the New Order’s resistance to normalisation requires an examination of the domestic political context within which such a policy was carried out. Notes 1 The true intention of the government in assigning military officials to ambassadorial posts abroad (pendubesan) has always been subject to various interpretations. Some would argue that the assignment of military—and in some cases civilians as well—to take up ambassadorial posts was not used by the government as a means to remove potential challenges at home. However, as former Army Chief of Staff and Minister for Home Affairs General (ret) Rudini acknowledged, there were some which bore the impression of penyingkiran (purge). For a debate over this issue, see Forum Keadilan (Jakarta), 31 July 1995. 2 In August 1966, ABRI convened an important seminar at the Army School of Staff and Command (SESKOAD) in Bandung. The seminar decided that dwifungsi should be a feature of Indonesian politics. The doctrine was spelled out in initial form by former Army Chief of Staff General A.H.Nasution in 1957. For a brief discussion on the evolution of this doctrine, see David Jenkins, ‘The Evolution of Indonesian Army Doctrinal Thinking: The Concept of Dwifungsi’, Southeast Asian Journal of Social Science, vol. 11, no. 2 (1983), pp. 15–30. 3 See Harold Ward Maynard, ‘A Comparison of Military Elite Role Perceptions in Indonesia and the Philippines’, Ph.D. diss., American University, 1976, p. 263. 4 For a comprehensive discussion of Sekber Golkar, and ABRI’s role in it, see Leo Suryadinata, Military Ascendancy and Political Culture: A Study of Indonesia’s Golkar, Monographs in International Studies, Southeast Asia Series, no. 85 (Ohio University, 1989). 5 For an analysis of the 1971 general elections, see Oey Hong Lee, ed., Indonesia after the 1971 Elections, Hull Monographs on South-East Asia, no. 5 (London: Oxford University Press, 1974). 6 For a brief discussion of the New Order’s initial attempt at limiting the role and influence of political parties, see Robert Cribb and Colin Brown, Modern Indonesia: A History since 1945 (London: Longman, 1995), pp. 120–128. 7 Harold Crouch, ‘Military Politics under Indonesia’s New Order’, Pacific Affairs, vol. 45, no. 2 (Summer 1972), p. 212. 8 This feature of the New Order began to change in the mid-1980s. There has been a significant increase in the number of civilians taking up these positions since then.

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9 For a brief analysis outlining various interpretations of the nature of the New Order regime, see Donald K. Emmerson, ‘Understanding the New Order: Bureaucratic Pluralism in Indonesia’, Asian Survey, vol. XXIII, no. 11 (November 1983), pp. 1220–1241. See also Benedict Anderson and Audrey Kahin, eds, Interpreting Indonesian Politics: Thirteen Contributions to the Debate, Interim Reports Series, publication no. 62 (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University, Modern Indonesian Project, 1982). 10 General M. Pangabean’s address at the Second Army Seminar held in Bandung, 25–31 August 1966, quoted in Hidayat Mukmin, TNI dalam Politik Luar Negeri: Studi Kasus Penyelesaian Konfrontasi Indonesia-Malaysia (Jakarta: Sinar Harapan, 1991), pp. 74–75. 11 Michael Leifer, Indonesia’s Foreign Policy (London: Allen & Unwin, 1983), p. 59. 12 Forum Keadilan, 31 July 1995. 13 For an account of ABRI’s role in ending konfrontasi, see Mukmin, TNI dalam Politik Luar Negeri. See also Franklin B.Weinstein, Indonesia Abandons Confrontation: An Inquiry Into the Functions of Indonesian Foreign Policy (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University, 1969). For an account of the military’s role in formulating policy of regional cooperation in South-East Asia, see Dewi Fortuna Anwar, Indonesia in ASEAN: Foreign Policy and Regionalism (Singapore: ISEAS, 1994). 14 See interview with Major General (ret) Soenarso in TIRAS (Jakarta), 20 April 1995. According to Soenarso, Suharto initially wanted to appoint Malik as Minister of Trade. Soenarso advised Suharto to appoint Malik as Foreign Minister because he had been well known to the outside world. Indeed, Malik had served as Indonesia’s Ambassador to the Soviet Union from 1957 to 1962. Upon his return to Indonesia, he then played a leading role in negotiations over West Irian. As Professor Leifer noted, ‘Malik’s revolutionary credentials, his proven anticommunism, and his diplomatic experience made him a natural political partner for a military establishment which required a civilian figure as public interlocutor with the outside world’. See Leifer, Indonesia’s Foreign Policy, pp. 113–114. 15 See, for example, John A.MacDougall, ‘Patterns of Military Control in the Indonesian Higher Central Bureaucracy’, Indonesia, 33 (April 1982), pp. 89–121. 16 So far, the first, and the only study that provides relatively comprehensive information on the structure and process of foreign policy making in Indonesia’s New Order is Gordon Hein’s ‘Suharto’s Foreign Policy: Second Generation Nationalism in Indonesia’, Ph.D. diss., University of California at Berkeley, 1986. 17 What ensued was the combination of diplomasi and perjuangan with the emphasis on the former. Indonesian officials even spoke of diplomasi perjuangan (diplomacy of struggle). It should be noted, however, that the policy of perjuangan was not a monopoly of the military alone. Adam Malik himself, for example, was a proponent of the policy of perjuangan from the civilian side. For a more comprehensive discussion on the role of diplomasi and perjuangan in Indonesia’s struggle for independence and its relationship to foreign policy, see Leifer, Indonesia’s Foreign Policy, especially Chapter 1. 18 This body later on became the Pelaksana Khusus Kopkamtib Bidang Luar Negeri (Special Executor of KOPKAMTIB in Foreign Affairs). See Mukmin, TNI dalam Politik Luar Negeri, p. 149. 19 Donald E.Weatherbee, ‘Indonesia’s Security Perceptions and Policies: Implications for US Policy’, paper prepared in fulfilment of Contract N000124–78-RQ-01633, Centre for Advanced Research, US Naval War College (1979), p. I-23. 20 In March 1983, the posts of Minister of Defence and Security and Commander of the Armed Forces were separated. 21 Hein, ‘Suharto’s Foreign Policy’, p. 18. 22 Ibid., p. 177. 23 Information on Lemhanas’s function is drawn from ibid., pp. 174–176.

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24 This is not to suggest that ABRI was less concerned than DEPLU in its commitment to a free and active foreign policy. What differentiated ABRI and DEPLU in this specific case was that ABRI’s leadership was more preoccupied with the need to attract foreign assistance than resuming diplomatic ties with China just for the sake of showing Indonesia’s non-aligned position. Many ABRI leaders maintained that Indonesia’s refusal to resume diplomatic ties with China had nothing to do with the country’s position as a leading non-aligned country. 25 Peter H.Lyon, ‘Indonesia: Reconciling Variable Roles, Regional Leadership, and Great-Power Intrusions’, in Raju G.C.Thomas, ed., The Great-Power Triangle and Asian Security (Lexington, Mass.: Lexington Books, 1984), p. 103. 26 Hein, ‘Suharto’s Foreign Policy’, p. 194. 27 ABRI leaders, however, maintained that ABRI men became involved in foreign policy because they were ‘qualified’, ‘capable’, ‘eligible’, ‘needed’ and ‘asked’ to do the job. See, for example, interview with Minister of Defence and Security General (ret) Edi Sudradjat in Forum Keadilan, 31 July 1995. 28 Djakarta Times, 8 November 1969. 29 Djakarta Times, 28 November 1969. 30 Kampas, 28 April 1970. 31 Interview, 8 August 1994. 32 Ibid. 33 Kompas, 20 July 1971. 34 New York Times, 13 August 1972, cited in Robert C.Horn, ‘Indonesia’s Response to Changing Big Power Alignments’, Pacific Affairs, vol. 46, no. 4 (Winter 1973–74), pp. 528–529. 35 Kompas, 4 March 1972. 36 The Straits Times (Malaysia Edition), 17 August 1972. 37 Ibid. 38 The Straits Times (Singapore Edition), 28 August 1972. 39 Ibid., 16 September 1972. 40 Antara, 17 January 1973. 41 See Buana Minggu, 31 December 1972; and Pedoman, 2 January 1973. 42 Nusantara, 8 January 1973. 43 Antara, 17 January 1973. 44 The Straits Times (Singapore Edition), 20 February 1973. 45 Angkatan Bersenjata, 2 March 1973. 46 Ibid. 47 Ibid. 48 Nusantara, 12 April 1973. 49 For Naro’s attack on Malik, see Indonesian Observer, 24 February and 24 September 1970. 50 Interview, Jakarta, 11 January 1995. 51 Berita Yudha, 26 April 1973; Antara, 25 April 1973; and Kompas, 26 April 1973. 52 Interview, 11 January 1995. 53 Indonesia Raya, 15 January 1974. 54 Antara, 25 May 1974. 55 Antara, 4 October 1974; Merdeka, 5 October 1974; and Sinar Harapan, 5 October 1974. 56 Antara, 3 December 1974. 57 Antara, 9 April 1976. 58 Antara, 1 July 1976. 59 Antara, 17 August 1976. 60 The Straits Times, 13 March and 6 May 1977.

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61 Seh Chiang Nee, ‘Jakarta More Cautious on China’, The Straits Times, 21 July 1978. 62 See, for example, Mochtar’s statements in Antara, 6 February 1979, and The Straits Times, 16 October 1979. 63 Kompas, 7 December 1978. 64 Interview, 11 January 1995. 65 Interview, 14 February 1995. 66 The Straits Times, 15 November 1977. 67 Sinar Harapan, 10 November 1977. 68 Ibid. 69 Antara, 19 November 1977. 70 Merdeka, 29 December 1977. 71 Sinar Harapan, 5 May 1978. 72 Antara, 18 May 1978. 73 Sukamdani Sahid Gitosardjono, Wirausaha Mengabdi Pembangunan (Jakarta: CV Haji Masagung, 1993), pp. 342–344. 74 Ibid., p. 343. 75 Berita Yudha, 23 May 1978. 76 Berita Yudha, 24 May 1978. 77 Quoted in Rosihan Anwar, ‘No Breakthrough in Indonesia-China Relations’, New Straits Times, 31 May 1978. 78 Antara, 25 May 1978. 79 Ibid. 80 Suara Karya, 22 May 1978. 81 Antara, 11 May 1974. 82 For a comprehensive discussion of Indonesia’s initiative, and its motives, in convening the meeting, see Leifer, Indonesia’s Foreign Policy, pp. 129–136. See also Lau Teik Soon, Indonesia and Regional Security: The Djakarta Conference on Cambodia (Singapore: Institute of South-East Asian Studies, 1972). 83 Suara Karya, 18 July 1975. 84 Kampas, 2 May 1975. 85 See their statements in Kompas, 19 May and 11 June 1975. 86 Justus M.van der Kroef, ‘Indonesia’, in Yearbook on International Communist Affairs 1976 (Stanford, Calif.: Hoover Institution Press, 1977), p. 295. 87 Interview, 8 August 1994. 88 FEER, 13 May 1974. 89 See, for example, Angkatan Bersenjata, 31 December 1975; Berita Yudha, 28 May 1974; and FEER, 10 June 1974. 90 For a discussion of the episode, see Nayan Chanda, Brother Enemy: The War after the War: A History of Indochina since the Fall of Saigon (Orlando, Fla.: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1986). 91 FEER, 20 January 1980. 92 For an account of Indonesia’s policy towards the Cambodian conflict, see Andrew J. MacIntyre, ‘Interpreting Indonesian Foreign Policy: The Case of Kampuchea, 1979–1986’, Asian Survey, vol. XXVII, no. 5 (May 1987), pp. 515–534. 93 Ali Moertopo, ‘Great Powers Configuration: Indonesian View’, Asian Perspective, vol. 4, no. 1 (Spring-Summer 1980), p. 15. 94 Many ABRI generals raised this point during the interviews. 95 Nayan Chanda, ‘ASEAN’s Odd Man Out’, FEER, 1 March 1984. 96 Interview, 8 August 1985.

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Warta Berita (Antara), 5 January 1980. Antara, 7 February 1980. Ibid. Interview, 14 February 1995. Pelita, 13 March 1980. Juwono Sudarsono, ‘Catatan Politik Luar Negeri RI: Indonesia, ASEAN dan RRC' [A Note on Indonesia’s Foreign Policy: Indonesia, ASEAN, and the PRC], Kompas, 28 May 1984. Pelita, 14 March 1980. Kompas, 1 and 9 March 1984. Sinar Harapan, 9 March 1984. Kompas, 12 March 1984; and TEMPO, 17 March 1984. Kompas, 12 March 1984. Sinar Harapan, 9 March 1984. Hein, Suharto’s Foreign Policy, p. 143. Andrew McIntyre, Business and Politics in Indonesia (Sydney: Allen and Unwin, 1991), p.31.

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5 The functions of resistance Domestic politics and regime legitimacy

It has been argued in the previous chapter that the nature of the debate among Indonesia’s foreign policy elite over restoring diplomatic ties with China reflected the political culture of the New Order in Indonesia. It reflected both the nature of domestic politics and of foreign policy making under Indonesia’s New Order since the regime came to power in the aftermath of the abortive coup of 30 September 1965. As argued in Chapters 2 and 3, Indonesia’s foreign policy, both during the Sukarno and Suharto eras, may be best understood as ‘domestic foreign policy’. Close relations between Indonesia and China during 1963–1965, for example, were a direct result of the growing alliance between President Sukarno and the PKI in domestic politics. A shared foreign policy agenda between the two countries of opposing the existing international order helped Sukarno and the PKI justify their revolutionary domestic agenda at the expense of the military. Correspondingly, Indonesia’s resistance to normalisation with China during the Suharto era may be understood as a result of the New Order’s excessive preoccupation with internal stability rather than as a response to the reality of the international environment. In fact, the international environment provided a convenient pretext to further justify a preoccupation with internal stability as the main reason for resisting normalisation with China. Above all, the dominant nature of ABRI’s role in Indonesia’s domestic politics and foreign policy making contributed significantly to the defeat of pro-normalisation forces in advocating an early restoration of diplomatic ties with China. Indeed, as argued in the previous chapter, ABRI’s dominant role in domestic politics and foreign policy making helped to sustain Indonesia’s continued resistance to restoring diplomatic relations with China. However, within a broader context, a policy of resisting restoration of diplomatic ties with China was also necessary in terms of ABRI’s overall attempt to maintain its dominant role in national political life. The first section of this chapter argues that incipient challenges to its legitimacy in domestic politics required ABRI to focus on maintaining internal stability and national security. Preoccupation with internal stability, defined primarily in terms of regime legitimacy and survival, in turn reduced the utility of diplomatic ties with China in the eyes of the New Order government. The second section analyses the nature of the Indonesian govern ment’s resistance to restoring diplomatic ties from 1985, at a time when serious economic problems brought about a limited change in Indonesia’s attitude towards China. Finally, it addresses President Suharto’s surprising decision in February 1989 to end Indonesia’s long-standing resistance to restoring diplomatic ties with China.

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Domestic politics and resistance (1970–1984): national security and normalisation Since ABRI was a dominant force in the New Order political system, it assumed an extensive prerogative in defining the domestic and external environment, and consequently, in determining which particular policy was suitable to be carried out under a particular condition and at a given time. Correspondingly, since ABRI was responsible for and also preoccupied with internal security, and all government activities were seen as having a ‘security dimension’, then under ABRI’s influence, the domain of foreign policy in Indonesia became closely intertwined with that of domestic security policy, thus reflecting the extent to which foreign policy was closely subordinate to domestic politics. As a leading architect of the New Order saw it, ‘foreign policy in Indonesia is a reflection of domestic politics’.1 This feature of foreign policy was strongly evident in the making of Indonesia’s policy towards China. On this issue, ABRI’s view was heavily shaped by its concerns with internal security. This concern centred around the questions of the revival of the communist threat and the problem of the ethnic-Chinese minority. The significance of these two factors in foreign policy making cannot be ignored. In this respect, ABRI was able to construe and present these factors as two major domestic barriers to normalising diplomatic relations with China. The following analysis seeks to show that ABRI’s consistent attempt at linking these two barriers to normalisation with the question of national security was closely related to more fundamental problems of regime legitimacy and its continued dominance in national political life. It is within this context that the domestic functions of Indonesia’s refusal to restore diplomatic ties with China—as one main aspect of this study—will be assessed. It has been maintained in Chapter 4 that the main barrier to normalisation stemmed from ABRI’s objection. For more than two decades, ABRI strongly maintained that normalisation of diplomatic relations with China involved great security risks for Indonesia. The greatest security risk, in the view of many ABRI leaders, would come from the possibility that the presence of a Chinese embassy in Jakarta might provide an opportunity for Beijing to help revive the banned PKI. Such a possibility was given paramount attention by the military because it believed that PKI remnants were still active in Indonesia, and would always try to rebuild the Party. Following this argument, therefore, normalisation would only be carried out when it no longer posed any significant threat to national security. In the words of many of the Indonesian elite opposed to the idea, normalisation ‘would take place only after the internal condition was ripe’. Indeed, the record of the Indonesian government’s concerns over the question of national security shows that ABRI was preoccupied with protecting internal stability (keamanan dalam negeri) from a possible revival of the communist threat. However, this main characteristic of ABRI’s concern over national security was not merely caused by its apprehension of a possible communist revival and the threat it would pose to internal stability. There was also a more fundamental problem involved; namely, the potential challenge to regime legitimacy from other forces, either within the ruling elite or the society at large, or both. In Indonesia’s New Order, there was a national consensus about a communist revival as a threat to national security, but the threat to regime legitimacy was also closely tied up with the overall question of internal stability and national security.2 And regime resistance to

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the normalisation of diplomatic relations with China reflected, and found its roots in, this conception of national security. Normalisation would have indicated a much diminished threat to national security and a reduced need for ABRI to play such a dominant role in politics. The relationship between normalisation, national security and ABRI’s role as indicated above can be observed throughout the period 1970–1988. There was a consistent pattern underlying ABRI’s strong resistance towards normalisation throughout it. That pattern indicated a continuous link between ABRI’s resistance to normalisation and the underlying political condition bearing on the military’s legitimacy and continued dominance in political life. Such a pattern may be seen in three periods of resistance: (1) during 1970–1974, when Adam Malik actively sought normalisation; (2) the period following the 1974 Malari episode, especially around 1977 to 1978; and (3) during the early 1980s until 1985 when direct trade relations between Indonesia and China were resumed. Resistance in 1970–1974 During the period 1970–1974, when Adam Malik actively sought to probe the possibility of normalising diplomatic ties with China, there were two main reasons why the New Order government was bound to resist. The first was the question of timing. In the eyes of military leaders, Malik’s initiative had come too soon. As argued in Chapter 3, the suspension of diplomatic relations with China reflected the New Order’s image as an anticommunist force, and in turn, strengthened its legitimacy and power at home. As Professor Leifer has argued, ‘because a prime justification for the dominant position of the armed forces in the political life of the Republic had been their role in quashing an externallyinspired plot, an early restoration of diplomatic relations with China would have undermined their credibility.’3 Second, and more significantly, Malik’s initiative came at the time when the New Order government was facing strong challenges to its legitimacy and position from new student movements. The movements, which began in 1970, were driven by growing unease among student leaders and other elements in society of what they saw as increasing corruption in high places after three years of New Order rule.4 In early January 1970, the government’s policy of increasing the price of gasoline and kerosene, which resulted in a 10 per cent increase in the cost of living in Jakarta in just one week, served as a catalyst that provoked the students to stage demonstrations protesting the increase and also corruption.5 The government’s response by holding dialogues with student leaders failed to convince them. On 22 January, the security authorities banned student demonstrations. From then on, student protests took the form of a larger protest movement directed against a wide range of economic and political issues, to the point of posing a direct challenge to the regime itself. On the economic side, the students criticised the government’s economic strategy and policies, which in their eyes had resulted not only in a widening gap between poor and rich, but also in a heavy concentration of wealth in the hands of a few Indonesian businessmen of Chinese descent. They also showed their apprehension of the New Order’s reliance on foreign aid and investment which was seen as an act of ‘selling out the country to foreign capital’, especially to the Japanese. On the political side, the

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students questioned the military’s role in politics, especially the role of Suharto’s Aspri (personal assistants). By the end of 1973, the students issued Tritura 1974 (Three People’s Demands 1974) which echoed the student protest of January 1966, calling for dissolution of the Aspri, the lowering of prices and an eradication of corruption.6 These criticisms reached a peak on 15 January 1974 with the outbreak of demonstrations which turned into riots in Jakarta when Japan’s Prime Minister Kakuei Tanaka visited Indonesia. After Tanaka had left the country, the military took stern action to curb the demonstrations by banning a number of newspapers, arresting hundreds of students and their leaders, and bringing them to trial. The first major student movement since the 1965–1967 period was finally put to an end. That movement had presented a powerful challenge which put the New Order regime in a rather fragile position to which it responded by tightening controls over society.7 More importantly, many observers maintain that the Malari Affair presented the most dangerous challenge to the Suharto government primarily because it involved intra-military rivalry.8 That rivalry was said to have centred around two leading ABRI leaders; the Commander of KOPKAMTIB General Soemitro, on the one hand, and the influential MajorGeneral Ali Moertopo, one of President Suharto’s Aspri, on the other. While the exact nature of the episode has never been satisfactorily explained, the outcome of it was clear; General Soemitro resigned from ABRI and Aspri was disbanded by the President. However, Ali Moertopo remained a close associate of the President and became deputy head of BAKIN, and went on to become Minister of Information in Suharto’s 1978–1983 Cabinet. It is against the background to that domestic situation that the Indonesian government’s objection to Adam Malik’s quest for normalisation during 1970–1974 is best understood. With such political turbulence, it would not have served any domestic political objectives for the government to move to restore diplomatic ties with China as Malik had wanted. A normalisation of relations with China at a time of mounting challenge to regime legitimacy could have provided a new ground for attack by the students. As mentioned above, one of the student criticisms was directed against Chinese businessmen who were seen as the main beneficiaries of the New Order’s economic programmes at the expense of indigenous people. A normalisation of diplomatic ties with China at a time of growing domestic resentment against Indonesia’s suspect Chinese minority would have antagonised and aroused student critics at the expense of governmental legitimacy. Indeed, Adam Malik’s quest for normalising relations with China during 1970–1974, besides being overshadowed by students’ actions against the New Order leadership and corresponding intra-military frictions was also overshadowed by outbreaks of anti-Chinese violence in Indonesia and ethnic-Chinese-led armed insurgencies in West Kalimantan. Apart from the fact that the question of the ethnic-Chinese minority was a domestic issue, its significance for Indonesia China normalisation was evident in its interaction with the government’s overall concern with internal stability. As discussed above, during 1970– 1974 student protests and the alleged involvement of Indonesia’s communists as well as foreign infiltration and subversion were construed as the main aspects of the threat to national security. An episode of anti-Chinese rioting in Bandung in August 1973, Overseas Chinese involvement in armed insurgencies in West Kalimantan and student resentment against

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Indonesian Chinese all provided some illustrations of such a relationship and how the question of the ethnic-Chinese minority contributed to the Indonesian government’s resistance to normalising diplomatic ties with China during this period. The riots in Bandung were sparked by rumours that an Indonesian had been killed in a fight with a Chinese. As a result, it was estimated that 900 shophouses and other buildings, 126 motor vehicles and 192 motorcycles were damaged, and one Chinese was killed and 23 others were seriously injured. West Java’s Governor, Major-General Solichin G.P. blamed the riots on communist agitators. So did the military authorities in the region, saying that among those detained in the riots were those who had possibly been involved in the 30 September 1965 attempted coup.9 Therefore, the issue, directly or indirectly, became closely tied up with the broader concern of the communist threat to national security. Another factor that raised concern over the role of the ethnic-Chinese minority and its impact on national security was more evident in the case of the communist insurgencies in West Kalimantan. In mid-June 1974, for example, the Commander of the West Kalimantan Military Region Brigadier General Seno Hartono declared that the involvement of Chinese in the rebellions in West Kalimantan was ‘a link in the struggle of the overseas Chinese in this region to try to become a class grouping of their own, which seeks power over the native born in a social and political sense’.10 This led to accusations and suspicions of local Chinese supporting the insurgencies, and aroused cause for concern over the question of their true loyalty. In the eyes of the military, there was still a legitimate ground to regard the ethnic-Chinese minority as a source of threat to national security. More significantly, the question of the ethnic-Chinese minority received special attention in the student protests of 1970–1974 against the government. They resented the fact that many Indonesian Chinese had flourished far more than their pribumi counterparts under the New Order’s economic programmes. In the eyes of many student leaders, the government should also be held responsible for creating the gap in wealth between the Indonesian Chinese and the pribumi. As Bresnan has observed, resentment against the Chinese was a crucial element in the Malari 1974 riots. ‘As events demonstrated,’ he noted, ‘…the damage in Jakarta on 15 January was chiefly to Japanese-made goods, but the goods were largely Chinese-owned.’11 The three examples above point to one conclusion. They all provide clear evidence that the question of the Chinese minority had not been resolved. It still constituted a highly explosive issue in Indonesia posing risks to internal stability. As long as the question of the ethnic-Chinese minority still had political implications that could threaten internal stability, there was a reason for the government to delay normalisation with China. The New Order’s hesitation towards normalisation at a time of continuing tensions between the ethnicChinese and native Indonesians reflected the government’s caution in avoiding any domestic repercussions that might arise from such action. First, it avoided antagonising antiChinese elements in Indonesia at a time when the political climate was imbued with strong resentment against the ethnic-Chinese minority. Second, as mentioned earlier, such hesitation limited the grounds for attack by students and other critics. Third, the delay would also add credibility to the New Order’s claim about the continued link between communist remnants and the Overseas Chinese, on the one hand, and the People’s Republic of China, on the other. More specifically, it helped to reinforce the military’s image as a

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staunchly anticommunist and nationalist force when that image was being questioned by its domestic opponents. A military preoccupation with continuous campaigns warning people about national security and the threat from a communist revival also provided a significant context for the relationship between the existing political situation and governmental resistance to normalisation with China. Of course, the government needed to present credible arguments in dismissing Malik’s initiative. Such arguments were to be readily found with reference to national security and the prospect of a communist revival to which the government turned in order to defend its view. It argued that the ‘internal condition was not yet ripe’ because the communist remnants still posed a threat to national security. Indeed, the government’s claim was to a certain extent based on legitimate grounds. For example, as mentioned in Chapter 3, PKI remnants were still involved in an armed insurgency in West Kalimantan, even though their actual military strength was open to mixed assessments.12 These insurgencies were carried out by two guerrilla organisations in part a legacy of confrontation, Pasukan Gerilya Rakyat Sarawak (People’s Guerrilla Army Sarawak-PGRS), operating in the western, and Pergerakan Rakyat Kalimantan Utara (Paraku) in the eastern border.13 Reports of the arrest and killing of members of the movements were released frequently by the military. The fact that PKI exiles abroad were also continuing to release propaganda attacks against the New Order added more credibility to the government’s claim about the communist danger.14 Since wide-scale campaigns against the communist threat were then being conducted at the national level, that factor also prevented the government from going along with DEPLU’s initiative during this period. ABRI continued to bring up this issue, repeatedly maintaining that the Indonesian people should always be vigilant because the communists would always try to rebuild the PKI. In February 1972, for example, President Suharto stated that ‘the Indonesian Communists will try with every means to revive the Communist Party, through all ways and channels, from outside and inside’.15 In addition, there had also been allegations about China’s involvement in helping Indonesia’s communists to make a come back. For ABRI, the various student actions were also related to the question of national stability, hence national security. In its attempt to discourage student protests the military also raised the possibility that their actions would provide opportunities for the communists to incite disturbances, and use them for their own purposes. For example, in May 1971, the Commander of the Jakarta Military Region Major-General Poniman stated that ‘there were people who sought to undermine the Pancasila and the Constitution; their activities must be stopped in order to prevent their destructive aspirations from growing into a force potentially harmful to national stability’.16 In January 1972, KOPKAMTIB had banned all student activities saying that they posed a threat to security and public order, authority and national stability. Such activities, in KOPKAMTIB’s view, would provide an opportunity for PKI remnants and extreme subversive groups to misuse and manipulate them.17 Again, at the height of student protests in November 1973, the Deputy Commander of KOPKAMTIB asked all segments of society ‘to refrain from creating conditions which the communist remnants could easily exploit for their political ends’. Although the remark did

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not specify the target, some editorials interpreted it as a clear warning directed to protesting students in Jakarta.18 Resistance in 1975–1978 After Malari in 1974, the military had to convince the people once again that ABRI’s position was still required as the dominant power-holder in Indonesia. To back up this assertion, the Indonesian military stepped up campaigns against the ‘latent danger’ of communist remnants in the country, and the student movements were also linked to possible attempts by communist and socialist forces to disrupt national stability and overthrow the government. In February 1974, for example, the Minister of Defence and Security, General Pangabean, stated that an investigation of the incident indicated that there were subversive movements that had been directed by the PKI as well as by ‘some elements of political parties’.19 The military also claimed that ‘New Left’ elements were also responsible for the incident. According to General Chairman of GOLKAR Major-General Amir Murtono, these ‘New Left’ elements attempted to incite (menghasut) the youths and students to start rebellions from campuses.20 More importantly, since the Malari incident, military campaigns against communists increased, and the discovery of new communist networks and activities were widely reported in the Indonesian press, thus establishing the fact that the communist threat indeed still existed.21 To a certain extent, such claims helped the military to reinforce its legitimacy. As shown in the period before and after the 1965 attempted coup, ABRI’s ability to deal with various threats to Indonesia’s national security and stability, especially those from communist elements, constituted a prime justification for ABRI’s dominant role in Indonesia. In this regard, as long as the communist and other threats to national security still existed, then the presence of ABRI was still needed to counter them. Viewed in this perspective, it can be argued that if ABRI claimed that Indonesia’s national security was still threatened by PKI remnants with.help from China, then a normalisation of relations would have reduced the credibility of its own claims. Against this backdrop, resistance to normalisation with China was closely intertwined with the condition of domestic politics and its interaction with ABRI’s claims of the threat posed by communist remnants to national security. This linkage helped the military’s efforts to retain its legitimacy and to strengthen its position after having been shaken by challenges from students and other critics. In this context, the proponents of normalisation faced up to the fact that it had to be delayed in favour of the more fundamental interest of maintaining regime legitimacy. As we have seen in Chapter 4, the year of 1974, following the Malari Affair, marked the beginning of a weakening in Malik’s initiative in advancing his view of the need for and the significance of diplomatic ties with China. The condition of domestic politics in the years after Malari was also not favourable both for ABRI and President Suharto to proceed with the normalisation of diplomatic relations with China. First, as mentioned above, this period constituted one of consolidation for President Suharto and his friends not only to strengthen the legitimacy of the New Order government, but also to restructure the main pillar of his power—ABRI—which was also affected by the Malari incident through intra-military frictions. The consolidation was

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significant since the government needed to take preparatory measures to face the forthcoming general elections in May 1977. Second, and more importantly, the Suharto regime continued to face new, more direct challenges to its authority and legitimacy from students which took the form of a movement opposed to the nomination of Suharto as President in the 1978 presidential election. Like the previous student movements in 1973– 1974, the students’ criticisms also centred on the government’s economic policies, the role of ABRI in politics and other ‘deviations and abuses of power by government officials’. More directly, this time the students also declared that they ‘do not trust and do not want Suharto to be President of the Republic of Indonesia again’.22 As had been the case in previous student protests, the resentment against Indonesian Chinese businessmen was also part and parcel of the protests. Adding more pressure to the government, student opposition was this time reinforced by a matching attitude taken by some prominent retired military officers. In the event, in February 1978 the government ordered troops to move into university campuses and arrested a number of student leaders. On 23 March, under tight security precautions, Suharto was reelected president for a third term. Renewed attempts by pro-normalisation forces to promote diplomatic relations with China after Malari took place against such a political background. The renewed initiatives came, first, from DEPLU in the wake of leadership changes in China after the death of Zhou Enlai and Mao Zedong. In October 1976, Malik declared that ‘whoever is in power in China, it will not affect our desire to restore relations with Peking. We still want to normalise our relations with China’.23 In Malik’s view, recent developments in China were encouraging for normalising relations between Jakarta and Beijing. At the close of December 1976, Malik declared that ‘the time has come for Indonesia not to ignore a country of 800 million people any longer’.24 Second, a new initiative was launched by KADIN which argued for the importance of restoring diplomatic ties with China on the basis of economic considerations. Again, embarking upon normalisation with China at this time would not have served the political advantage of the government. First, as general elections and a presidential election were approaching, the government would not risk its image before the majority of Indonesian people who were still opposed to the idea, especially the Muslim constituency. Normalisation of relations with China at such time would have been considered unpopular. For example, in February 1976 General Ali Moertopo stated that Indonesia saw ‘no urgency’ in normalising diplomatic ties with China because Indonesia was ‘busy with its own problems such as the general elections in May and the presidential election next year’.25 Second, the government was also faced with the same situation as it had been during 1973–1974 in its attempts to deal with growing student opposition. The possibility of a repetition of 1974, with devastating consequences, could not be ignored. As it did in the 1970–1974 period, the military also repeatedly warned of the danger of creating an opportunity for the communists to exploit the existing situation and threaten national stability. In June 1977, for example, General Pangabean stated that ‘ABRI will take firm actions if the motivations of current movements in the society are contradictory to the Pancasila and UUD 45, disturb the continuation of development or the continuance [kelestarian] of New Order leadership’. He also warned that ‘the PKI remnants had not been eliminated entirely and they will continue to achieve their objectives’.26 An editorial of

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Armed Forces daily Angkatan Bersenjata branded them as ‘political parasites’ (benalu-benalu politik), and warned that those who still adhered to liberalism and capitalism would be easily ‘cultivated and used by these benalu-benalu politik in their efforts to exploit the opportunity until the general meeting of MPR 1978’.27 As the communist threat was still claimed to be active, there was no reason for the government to undermine its own claim by normalising relations with China, a country which was regarded as the main supporter of Indonesia’s communists. Third, as for President Suharto himself, the situation was not favourable for a decision to normalise. Such a decision would create problems with ABRI leaders whose support was crucial for ensuring his nomination for president. As Profes sor Mackie has observed, the 1978 presidential election was marked by great uncertainty due to political tension and student protests demanding that Suharto step down. The protests also brought up issues of popular resentment against the ethnic-Chinese minority whom the students saw as the main beneficiary of Suharto’s economic policies. The protests ‘gave rise to deep reservations within the Armed Forces high command about the advisability of nominating President Suharto for another term’.28 Due to such uncertainty over ABRI’s support, a decision to restore diplomatic ties with China would have made the situation less favourable for Suharto in his attempts to reduce popular discontent and to court ABRI’s support. Resistance in 1979–1984 The same constraint from domestic politics also prevailed after the 1978 election which affirmed Suharto’s position as Indonesia’s president for a third term. In 1980, a challenge to President Suharto erupted and raised the question of regime stability and continuity. The challenge was triggered by two speeches by the President, the first, on 27 March in which Suharto spoke of the ‘threat’ to Pancasila and UUD 1945 from those who still oriented themselves on the value systems of the past, in which he included ‘Marxism, Leninism, Communism, Socialism, Marhaenism, Nationalism, and Religion’. He also urged ABRI to choose ‘its partners from like-minded groups who truly defend the Pancasila, and have no doubts whatsoever in Pancasila’.29 Second, on 19 April 1980, Suharto expressed his public anger at rumours orchestrated by ‘certain subversive groups’ directed at him and his family. 30

The speeches upset a large number of people, prompting them to react and challenge Suharto to explain them further. This time the challenge came from a group consisting of 50 retired generals, former prominent civilian leaders and intellectuals who were increasingly critical of Suharto and government policies. Seen from the composition of the challengers, which included prominent figures such as former Minister of Defence and Security General A.H. Nasution, former Commander of West Java-based Siliwangi Military Division and Secretary-General of ASEAN Lieutenant-General H.R. Dharsono, former Governor of Jakarta Lieutenant-General Ali Sadikin, former Police Chief of Staff General Hugeng, former Prime Minister Mohammad Natsir and former Vice-President Mohammad Hatta, this group—called the Petition-50 group—presented a more powerful challenge to the government than other previous challenges. In May 1980, the group signed a petition called a ‘Statement of Concern’ and submitted it to the DPR. The group argued, in sum,

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that the President’s speeches had ‘misunderstood’ the Pancasila and caused controversy within society. The group objected to Suharto’s way of using the Pancasila ‘as a means to threaten political enemies’ rather than as ‘a basis for unity’.31 The group, therefore, asked members of DPR to consider those issues. In responding to these criticisms, the government resorted to the classic practice of uncovering a threat to ‘national stability’. On 3 June, the Chief of BAKIN General Yoga Sugomo and the Commander of KOPKAMTIB Admiral Soedomo told the press that there was a plot to assassinate government officials, including President Suharto.32 In his annual address to Parliament on 16 August 1980, President Suharto reiterated that ‘in order to implement development, we must all be able to maintain dynamic national stability’.33 And, as usual, in the background, military authorities continued to refer to the ever-present communist threat waiting to exploit every opportunity resulting from any challenge to the New Order government. Therefore, as in the periods 1970–1974 and 1977–1978, the domestic political situation in the early 1980s was not favourable to normalisation. During the early 1980s the government still claimed the existence of a threat to national security; normalisation of relations with China was consequently out of the question. Moreover, there was another presidential election to be faced in March 1983, at which President Suharto successfully sought re-election for a fourth time. In addition to such political constraints, the question of the ethnic-Chinese minority also continued to be an obstacle to Indonesia’s restoration of diplomatic ties with China in the post-Malari 1974 period. In April 1980, anti-Chinese riots broke out in Ujung Pandang, the capital of North Sulawesi province. On 19 November 1980, at a time when the New Order government was facing challenges from the Petition-50 group, an even more devastating riot took place in Solo in Central Java which lasted for three days. On 24 November, the riots spread to Semarang, the capital of Central Java, and to other towns such as Pekalongan, Kudus and Magelang. During 1982–1983, anti-Chinese outbreaks also occurred in Aceh and North Sumatran cities. In early October 1984, in the context of a growing tension between the government and the Muslim community, there were bombings of Chinese-owned banks in Jakarta. When the tension erupted into a riot in Jakarta’s port district of Tanjung Priok in September 1984, Chinese-owned shops readily became targets. What was striking in the government’s response to such anti-Chinese riots was that, ‘rather than admit racial tension exists, security personnel search for an organisation or mastermind behind events’.34 In this respect, the military authorities often put the blame on ‘irresponsible elements’ in the society, and charged the rioters with having political motives to overthrow the government. The government’s response to anti-Chinese riots in Central Java in November 1980 was illustrative. On 23 November, the Commander of Central Java Diponegoro Division Major-General Sukotjo stated that the riots had been exploited by ‘dirty hands for personal gains’.35 On 8 December, Commander of KOPKAMTIB Admiral Soedomo presented a more ‘spectacular’ explanation. In his official account of the event, Soedomo revealed that the riot constituted an ‘organised action’ which was ‘part of a comprehensive planned political move to launch a revolution which started in Central Java’, by ‘inciting anti-Chinese sentiment’ and ‘using secondary school and university students [pelajar dan mahasiswa] as core executors [kekuatan inti pelaksana]’.

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Echoing the earlier statement by Major-General Sukotjo, he also stated that a criminal organisation known as GALI (Gang of Wild Kids) had also ‘exploited the situation by committing robbery’. However, when asked by the press, Soedomo refused to disclose who were the main plotters of that ‘political move’.36 Such response suggests that the New Order’s government tended to see anti-Chinese riots not only in terms of a threat to internal stability and national security, but also in terms of a threat to regime survival. A more direct relationship between the question of the ethnic-Chinese minority and Indonesia-China normalisation was manifest in a dilemma faced by the New Order government. The dilemma resulted from two main claims made by the New Order over the link between Communist China and the ethnic-Chinese minority in Indonesia. First, the New Order government claimed that the socalled Chinese threat to Indonesia took its main form as subversion, not through a possible direct military assault. The main objective of China’s subversion in Indonesia, in the eyes of many military leaders, was to rebuild the defunct Indonesian Communist Party. One of the channels through which such subversion could be realised was the presence of the ethnic-Chinese minority in Indonesia. According to this claim, the ethnic-Chinese minority would probably play a role as a link between China and PKI remnants in the country. Second, the New Order government believed that the ethnic-Chinese community could be used by China to realise its subversive intent in Indonesia for three main reasons. First, the question of their citizenship had not been resolved. There was a large number of Chinese residing in Indonesia who had not become Indone-sian citizens. They could be either citizens of Taiwan or China, or neither (stateless). And, there was a suspicion among the Indonesian military that Communist China agents were among Chinese who were technically China’s citizens. Second, the loyalty of Indonesia’s Chinese was still suspect. It was believed that they still maintained cultural, and to a lesser extent political, links with mainland China. Third, there was the historical fact that many Indonesian officials often referred to when the question of the ethnic-Chinese loyalty and their link with the PKI was brought up. In the past, many Indonesian Chinese were known to have been not only the main financiers of the PKI but also active members of the party. Such claims, in turn, served as some sort of confirmation of public suspicions of the ethnic-Chinese minority and also helped to preserve a general anti-China sentiment in Indonesia’s society. As discussed in Chapter 3, the majority of Indonesia’s people have perceived the ethnic-Chinese as an alien race and have resented their position in society. The source of resentment against the Chinese is their relatively privileged economic position in Indonesia’s society. Moreover, Indonesians have tended to perceive that the Chinese were not loyal citizens but were indifferent to matters concerning Indonesia’s national interests being concerned only with their own safety and economic well-being. It was believed that the ultimate loyalty of the Chinese rested with mainland China, not with Indonesia. In turn, such general feeling among Indonesians towards the Chinese posed a problem that the government found not easy to overcome given the periodic occurrences of anti-Chinese violence. The government was obliged to reduce social tensions between pribumi (indigenous) Indonesians and Indonesians of Chinese descent. This led them to issue a series of regulations that clarified the question of nationality, and to enforce programmes of socio-cultural

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assimilation. For example, Presidential Instruction no. 2/1980 in January 1980 and Presidential Decree no. 13/1980 in February of the same year were meant to deal with the ethnic-Chinese minority problems. With these two regulations, Indonesia’s government expected to solve the status of the ethnic-Chinese minority by 17 August 1980.37 However, as events in November-December 1980 demonstrated, more fundamental efforts were needed. In this respect, the willingness on the part of the government to renounce its suspicion of the ethnic-Chinese minority was also significant for a comprehensive solution. In other words, this would include renouncing the claim that the ethnic-Chinese minority constituted a potential group that would willingly act as China’s political surrogate in rebuilding the defunct PKI. However, this option presented another problem for the New Order government. If the first claim (that the ethnic-Chinese minority might serve as a potential political tool of China) was renounced, then the second claim (that the ethnic-Chinese minority could be used by China to rebuild the PKI) would inevitably appear less credible. This meant that ABRI would lose ground in maintaining public wariness about China’s possible subversion through the ethnic-Chinese minority in Indonesia which provided a reason to continuously oppose the normalisation of relations with China. Such opposition matched the domestic political requirements of strengthening ABRI’s role in maintaining internal stability and national security; in effect to guarantee the regime’s survival and the military’s continued dominance in national political life. Moreover, resistance to normalisation would also limit possible grounds on which challenges to regime legitimacy could be mounted by its opponents. Domestic politics and resistance (1985–1988): change amid continuity The resumption of direct trade relations and the Bandung Incident In March 1984, a strong call for the restoration of diplomatic relations with China was made by the former Vice-President and Foreign Minister Adam Malik. The call provoked another round of foreign policy debate over the utility of restoring those ties. The government, through Foreign Minister Mochtar, responded to the call by saying that the time had not yet come. However, in October 1984 Mochtar brought the issue into a new light when he stated that there was an impending prospect of resuming direct trade with China. After meeting President Suharto, Mochtar stated that it was unnecessary to suspect those who traded with the Chinese. According to Mochtar, the time had come for Indonesia to resume direct trade, otherwise Indonesia would be left behind by Malaysia and other countries in benefiting from the potential of China’s market.38 Mochtar also acknowledged that there was great enthusiasm among Indonesian businessmen to open direct trade links with China. Even though he made it clear that enthusiasm for direct trade was only in society and not yet the government’s official policy, Mochtar stated that the government was seriously studying the possibility of resuming direct trade.39

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Rather surprisingly, Mochtar’s pronouncements were received with a great deal of enthusiasm by the foreign policy elite, even though objections were still heard from some quarters. The leaders of Indonesia’s three political parties made positive statements in support of the idea. Vice-Chairman of the DPR Hardjantho Sumodisastro of the PDI, for example, agreed that direct trade between Indonesia and China could be resumed because it would not bring ‘political instability’ to Indonesia.40 The Secretary of GOLKAR’s faction in the DPR Haditirto stated that the government’s willingness to probe the possibility of resuming direct trade was a good step.41 At the same time, the Chairman of the PPP faction stressed that Sino-Indonesian direct trade should be resumed soon, because ‘we are encouraging non-oil exports’.42 From the headquarters of ABRI, General Moerdani stated that ABRI was ready to ‘safeguard’ direct trade between Indonesia and China and such direct trade would not ‘disturb Indonesia’s political stability’.43 However, with regard to the restoration of diplomatic ties, ABRI’s view remained unaltered. As explained by the Chief of BAKIN General Yoga Sugomo, ABRI did not want to see the resumption of direct trade as a beginning to a full restoration of diplomatic ties between the two countries. He blatantly stated that BAKIN would prevent direct trade between Indonesia from developing into ‘other relations’, a clear reference to diplomatic relations.44 Mochtar’s pronouncement on the possibility of resuming direct trade and ABRI’s support indicated a slight improvement in the position of pronormalisation groups in the debate on normalisation. The position of these groups, especially that of DEPLU, strengthened with the rise of a new domestic enthusiasm demanding that Indonesia should play a more active role in international affairs. The growing mood for a more active foreign policy could certainly be used to revive a declared need for normalisation with China and such a need could be set within a new context. What was required by DEPLU was an opportunity. Such an opportunity arose when Indonesia convened an international conference in April 1985 to register the Republic’s interest in a more active foreign policy which commemorated the 30th Anniversary of the Asian-African Conference in Bandung in April 1985. China’s Foreign Minister Wu Xueqian was invited to that conference. Wu’s visit to Indonesia was the first by a Chinese senior official since the suspension of diplomatic relations in October 1967. The Chinese side seemed to anticipate the prospect of a breakthrough on the question of normalising diplomatic relations. Remarks by China’s leaders on the subject of Indonesia-China relations appeared to be directed towards creating a favourable atmosphere surrounding Wu’s visit, particularly to send a clear message to Jakarta that Beijing had changed its attitude with regard to the defunct PKI. For example, during a visit to Australia in mid-April 1985, the Secretary-General of China’s Communist Party Hu Yaobang stated that his party had no relations with communist groups in Indonesia. 45 Foreign Minister Wu, after stating that ‘China has not supported the PKI since 18 years ago’,46 pledged that ‘China will never interfere in the internal affairs of other countries’.47 Such favourable developments, which could strengthen the position of pronormalisation groups on the question of normalisation, were obviously not lost on the military and other anti-normalisation elements. By the time Wu visited Indonesia, preparations for the resumption of direct trade initiated by KADIN were already underway. And since the plan had been endorsed by several high officials,48 it seemed difficult for those opposed to it to

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block the initiative. Moreover, the President himself had lent his support to KADIN. Therefore, the visit by China’s foreign minister was expected to smooth negotiations further which strengthened speculation that a breakthrough in the normalisation of diplomatic relations between Indonesia and China was pending. By this time, there were three aspects of Indonesia-China relations that DEPLU had to encounter: direct trade, the Cambodian conflict and diplomatic relations. Foreign Minister Mochtar apparently realised that any attempt to link direct trade with normalisation would provoke strong opposition from antinormalisation groups. He repeatedly asserted that the two questions were not, and should not be, linked. With regard to the Cambodian conflict, however, Mochtar did not hide his view when on April 24, after a meeting with Wu, he stated that the absence of diplomatic relations with China was a ‘missing link’ for Indonesia in its attempt to play a role in Cambodia, because Indonesia ‘cannot communicate directly with the Chinese’.49 Progress in DEPLU’s attempt to push through the normalisation plan was marred by an unexpected incident, however, which had the effect of preventing Wu’s visit from producing any significant result. It was reported that Wu had requested a private meeting with President Suharto, but at the last moment it failed to materialise. President Suharto was only prepared to meet him on the day he was due to leave to return to China to attend a meeting with Denmark’s visiting Foreign Minister. Three versions circulated as to what happened. The first was an official account which maintained that Wu had missed ‘a good opportunity’ to talk to the President because he had departed half an hour before the scheduled meeting.50 The second version maintained that the meeting was deliberately scheduled, apparently by the military, at the time when it would be impossible for Wu to attend without insulting Denmark, thus precluding any possible breakthrough that might have arisen from a Suharto-Wu meeting.51 The third version suggested that Wu was not prepared to come to a meeting to which he was expected to bring a letter of apology from China’s government regarding its alleged involvement in the 30 September abortive coup. However, as van der Kroef has noted, ‘who snubbed whom in this diplomatic flap never did become clear’.52 Whatever really happened, it was clear that the incident constituted a failure on the part of DEPLU in utilising the growing domestic mood for a more active foreign policy as a new reason to push for normalisation with China. However, the setback did not undermine DEPLU’s determination to improve Indonesia-China relations. Foreign Minister Mochtar gave full support to KADIN to implement the plan of resuming direct trade relations with China. This might have triggered some officials to raise warnings. For example, after repeating his early statement that the resumption of direct trade should not be interpreted as the beginning to the restoration of diplomatic relations, BAKIN Chief General Sugomo on 22 May warned that the arrival of Chinese ships and their crews in Indonesia after SinoIndonesian direct trade was resumed might give an opportunity for communist subversion in the country, and to former Indonesian Chinese, residing either in China or Hongkong, to re-enter Indonesia as illegal immigrants.53 Vice-Chairman of GOLKAR for Political and Security Affairs, Dr Suhardiman, shared Sugomo’s view and warned that trade relations with China should be prevented from being used by the communists.54 Former Army Chief of Staff General Widodo said that in dealing with China, Indonesia should settle political

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problems first before it moved towards other relations because ‘it is not unlikely that China’s political interests will enter Indonesia through non-political channels’. He also reminded that ‘our heart is still hurt by what the PKI had done in September 1965’.55 Despite all their warnings, it was difficult for anti-normalisation groups to deny the fact that economic pressures faced by Indonesia due to the sharp fall in oil prices since 1982 had obliged the country to try to boost its non-oil exports. It forced Indonesia to diversify its export markets. China constituted an alternative that could not be ignored any longer (this point will be discussed further in Chapter 6). Therefore, the Indonesian government moved to endorse KADIN’s plan to produce a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) which would regulate how the direct trade would be undertaken. To monitor the implementation of the plan, the government appointed Junior Minister for the Cabinet Secretariat (Mensekab) Major-General (ret) Moerdiono as the coordinator of a team which would oversee the process of resuming direct trade. Moerdiono had been one of President Suharto’s close personal aides since the early days of the New Order. On 5 July 1985, Indonesia and China officially resumed direct trade relations when both sides signed an MoU in Singapore. It is important to note, however, the private nature of the venture. The MoU was signed by KADIN and China’s Council for Promotion of International Trade (CCPIT), without any reference to the official names of both countries. On 24 July, President Suharto issued a Presidential Instruction no. 8/1985 governing the implementation of direct trade with China. Tanjung Priok Affair and its aftermath Although the resumption of direct trade showed that ABRI’s position in the debate over the utility of restoring diplomatic ties with China had begun to weaken, it still succeeded in delaying normalisation. ABRI continued to insist that the restoration of diplomatic ties with China was not possible due to internal security reasons. Indeed, there was a strong domestic reason for the New Order government not to restore diplomatic ties in 1985, but to opt only for a ‘limited normalisation’ in the form of resuming direct trade relations. As in the previous period, that reason was also rooted in the domestic political situation marked by a strong challenge to regime legitimacy and survival. This time that challenge was posed by the Muslim community with whom the New Order government had come into a serious political collision. That collision resulted from the government’s attempt to strengthen its grip on power further by demanding that all socio-political organisations, including political parties, accept Pancasila as their sole ideological foundation (asas tunggal). For the Islamic groups, that would have the effect of renouncing their religious identity. It was expressed symptomatically in a bloody clash between government troops and Muslims in the Jakarta port district of Tanjung Priok. Restoring diplomatic ties with China under such circumstances would have antagonised the Muslim community further. The Tanjung Priok Affair occurred in September 1984 at the time when the government was trying to secure the passage of the Asas Tunggal bill in the Parliament. Muslim groups had suspected that the introduction of Asas Tunggal was intended to weaken further the role of Islam in political life. Moreover, there had also been rumours of ‘Christianisation’ circulating. Frustrated Muslim groups and some Muslim preachers began to step up their

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campaign against the government. Dakwah (calls for heightened Islamic consciousness and worship) packed with fierce criticisms and attacks against government policies were increasingly voiced. The Tanjung Priok incident occurred against the background of such a tense atmosphere. While the established truth of what actually happened is still unclear, a minor incident involving two security officers and local leaders of the As Sa’adah prayer house at Tanjung Priok turned quickly into a national tragedy.56 On 8 September 1984, the two officers came to As Sa’adah prayer house to remove posters which they believed would incite hostility and disturb security. The local community found their behaviour unacceptable: one officer was accused of smearing gutter water on the posters, the other of entering the prayer house without taking off his shoes. On 10 September, a group of people confronted and demanded an apology from the two officers, but they denied the accusations. A minor scuffle broke out from which the two officers managed to escape but their motor-cycle was set on fire. After the incident, four people were arrested and detained at a nearby police station. Local community leaders tried to approach the authorities to secure the release of the detainees but to no avail. On the night of 12 September, around 1,500 people marched to the police station demanding the release of the four detainees. The crowd found its way blocked by armed soldiers. When it forced itself forward, the soldiers opened fire. Professor Bresnan believes that as many as 63 people were killed and that more than 100 were severely wounded. Around 171 people were reported missing by their families.57 Besides the ideological issue which was said to have served as the background to the incident, social and economic conditions also made up the context within which the Tanjung Priok Affair took place. As Professor Bresnan has observed, ‘in the latter months of 1984 the economic situation in the port district was more than usually depressed’. The price of ordinary commodities increased as the result of a cut in government subsidies of sugar, rice and domestic fuel prices due to the fall in revenues from oil and gas.58 Resentment was increasingly expressed against the widening of the social and economic gap between rich and poor. These economic problems, as well as the question of the future position of Muslims in national politics, were articulated in sermons given at local mosques and prayer houses in Tanjung Priok not long before the incident broke out. The outbreak of the Tanjung Priok Affair resulted, therefore, from ‘the interplay between ideological and structural factors, namely the economic dissatisfaction of the Muslim community in Tanjung Priok’. 59 In economic and political terms, the Tanjung Priok Affair posed a threat to the very foundation of regime legitimacy; the ability of government to deliver goods to the people and maintain stability. Following the outbreak of the Tanjung Priok Affair, the government was engaged in an attempt to restore the strained relationship with the Muslim community. Government high officials, especially ABRI Commander General Benny Moerdani and Commander of Jakarta General Try Sutrisno, embarked upon intensive travels to pesantrens (traditional Islamic boarding schools) and met with Muslim leaders to alleviate their suspicions that the government was hostile to the Muslim community. On 4 October, however, two bombs exploded in two of Jakarta’s branches of Bank Central Asia owned by Liem Sioe Liong, an Indonesian business magnate of Chinese descent with close personal relations to the President. This was followed by a bombing of the Temple of Borobudur in Central Java.

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A series of bomb threats were also received from unknown sources, causing a headache for the security apparatus. More importantly, in the wake of the Tanjung Priok Affair, the government arrested two leading critics of the New Order; General (ret) H.R. Dharsono, a former Commander of West Java’s Siliwangi Division, a former Secretary-General of the ASEAN Secretariat, and an architect of the New Order itself, as well as H. Mohamad Sanusi, a former cabinet minister in Suharto’s cabinet and a member of the Petition-50. Along with Dharsono and Sanusi, the government also arrested A.M. Fatwa, another member of the Petition-50 who had been secretary to General (ret) Ali Sadikin—another leading critic of the Suharto government—when Sadikin was governor of Jakarta. The three figures were charged with being involved in subversive activities, brought to trial, found guilty and subsequently sent to jail. Thus, as an Indonesian observer put it, ‘Tanjung Priok [Affair] at the end served as a means of eliminating “political opponents” by the state.’60 By mid-1985, however, the situation was firmly under the government’s control. The bill on Asas Tunggal (the GOLKAR and Mass Organisations Bill) was passed by acclamation in the Parliament without any significant modifications. By this time, the question of improving relations with China presented a particular dilemma for the government. On the one hand, the government was faced with mounting economic problems due to the sharp decrease in national revenue from oil and gas exports. An improvement of relations with China would enable Indonesia to boost its non-oil and gas exports. On the other hand, however, the political situation after the Tanjung Priok incident served as a constraint on the government’s attempt at improving ties with China for two reasons. First, the Muslim community, which posed strong challenges to regime legitimacy, was also a strong opponent of an early restoration of diplomatic ties with China. Second, the Tanjung Priok Affair itself was coloured by anti-Chinese sentiment. These two factors, as discussed in the previous chapters, were of significant influence on the government’s policy towards China. A decision to normalise diplomatic ties under such domestic circumstances would not have served any political purposes. Indeed, it would have antagonised the Muslim community further. On the contrary, a continued absence of diplomatic ties with China would avoid any further intensification of antipathy among the Muslim community against the government, and prevent the aggravation of popular resentment against the ethnic-Chinese minority. Moreover, in dealing with the challenges to legitimacy from the Muslim community, the New Order government also resorted to the strategy of linking any political disturbance with the ‘latent danger’ from communist elements who, in the eyes of security authorities, would exploit the situation. In March 1985, for example, the Commander of Jakarta Military Region Major-General Try Sutrisno warned PPP politicians commemorating the party’s 12th anniversary of ‘extreme elements and remnants of the PKI who are not happy to see Indonesia stable and peaceful’. He also asked the Muslim community not to be used as a kelinci percobaan (‘guinea pig’) by ‘irresponsible elements’.61 In this context, normalisation of diplomatic ties with China would obviously reduce the credibility of such warnings of the communist threat. Within such a political climate, the decision to resume direct trade without the restoration of full diplomatic ties served as a pragmatic solution. It served to fulfil the economic needs of the regime without providing new leverage to

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Muslim opponents of the New Order government who had been outspoken in opposing a restoration of diplomatic ties with China. The years after the Tanjung Priok Affair did not immediately produce favourable political conditions for normalisation. Indeed, the year 1985 and after were still marked by a tense political atmosphere between the government and the Muslim community. Besides security disturbances caused by a series of unexplained fires and explosions, in 1985 and through 1986, the government staged several trials of those charged with complicity in the Tanjung Priok Affair, including the trials of the alleged bombers and arsonists; many of them were closely associated with political Islam. Curiously, the period after the Tanjung Priok Affair was also marked with the government’s attempt to warn the people of ‘the communist latent danger’. In March 1985, for example, Minister of Defence and Security General Poniman warned that ‘the communist movement will never give up in realising its goals. In accordance with the theory of class struggle, [the communists] will always try to create conflicts in society, especially between…the government and the people.’62 In June 1985, three long-detained PKI leaders were executed. In November, the government disclosed that 637 oil workers at Caltex Pacific Indonesia, the biggest oil producer in the country, had been discharged due to their past membership of Perbumi, an oil industry trade union affiliated with the outlawed PKI.63 In September 1986, three other PKI leaders—Sjam Kamaruzzaman, Pono and Bono—who had been involved in the 1965 abortive coup, were also executed. It has been argued that by executing the detained communists, ‘the government wanted to show that it was firm in dealing with all extremists, whether communists or Muslims’.64 All these warnings undoubtedly contributed to the strengthening of government control over the political situation after being shaken by a major clash with the Muslim community in the Tanjung Priok Affair. Given the unfavourable domestic political atmosphere, the New Order government was unwilling to provoke any public debate on a sensitive issue, such as the restoration of diplomatic ties with China. DEPLU’s renewed attempt at normalisation After succeeding in resuming direct trade, which was a result of a DEPLU— KADIN ‘alliance’, DEPLU was now faced with the next task of maintaining the momentum of the policy without pushing too hastily towards a full restoration of diplomatic relations. DEPLU could not demand further concessions, since the government’s approval for resuming direct trade itself had been a partial victory for it in their efforts to improve Indonesia-China relations. Indeed, the situation at the time did not permit Mochtar to take new initiatives towards normalisation. Indonesia’s top leaders were still suspicious of China, and it was still claimed that there were no reasons to be in a hurry to restore ties. President Suharto himself was still of the opinion that Indonesia should not restore diplomatic ties with China before Beijing had officially renounced its support for underground communist parties in South-East Asian countries.65 A new DEPLU initiative towards normalisation, albeit indirectly, came in August 1986 when Foreign Minister Mochtar stated that Indonesia would continue to have a dialogue with China over the Cambodian conflict. Following China’s changing attitude towards the Cambodian conflict,66 Mochtar felt that it was necessary for him to meet the Chinese leaders

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‘to once again hear directly their views on the conflict’. However, Mochtar also stated that such a meeting, if it was convened, should not be seen as an effort by Indonesia to restore diplomatic ties with China.67 By separating the question of normalisation from the need to increase contacts with Beijing, it seemed that Mochtar did not want to provoke another intra-elite debate on the issue. He apparently understood that increased contacts with Beijing would generate domestic speculation on the possibility of normalising relations with China. To avoid hampering normalisation efforts, Mochtar drew a clear line between the bilateral and regional aspects of Indonesia-China relations. By highlighting Indonesia’s role as the so-called ‘interlocutor’ of ASEAN in searching for a solution to the Cambodian conflict, he made it clear that he was dealing with the Chinese as ASEAN’s representative, not as Indonesia’s foreign minister.68 Even after a direct dialogue with China over Cambodia had started, Mochtar still insisted that it was solely for the purpose of seeking a solution to the Cambodian conflict. On several occasions, Mochtar continued to maintain the same position on the issue. However, some positive developments may be observed following the resumption of direct trade. Trade relations, despite some technical difficulties, gradually improved. In addition, Indonesia’s government loosened its attitude with regard to visits to China. In May 1987, for example, Mochtar stated that even though Indonesia's position with regard to normalisation with China had not changed, it did not mean that Indonesian citizens, including government officials, were not allowed to visit China.69 In November, Mochtar gave the impression that Indonesia-China relations were improving when he stated that he expected a more constructive role from China in solving the conflict in Cambodia.70 By this time, the absence of diplomatic ties with China was increasingly viewed as a real constraint on Indonesia's role in the conflict. The increasing contacts between Indonesia and China, seen as a positive step towards normalisation, were called into question in February 1988 once again by a statement from BAKIN Chief General Sugomo. Before the DPR, he maintained that Indonesia would not restore diplomatic ties unless China apologised for its involvement in the 1965 coup attempt. He also stated that China should vow that it would not interfere in Indonesia's internal affairs." Sugomo's statement, especially on China's apology, was in contradiction to Mochtar's earlier denial in May 1985 that Indonesia demanded that China apologise for its alleged involvement in the 1965 attempted coup. Mochtar stated that 'what we want to hear is that China will no longer support underground communist movements against legal governments in Southeast Asia. How can we ask a sovereign country to apologise?'72 President Suharto also did not seem to share General Sugomo's view when on 1 March he only mentioned 'non-interference in other countries' internal affairs' as the condition for normalisation of relations, without making any reference to the question of China's apology. 73

Until the end of 1988, the debate on the question of diplomatic ties with China did not seem to lead anywhere. Differences between the debating parties could not easily be resolved. The pro-normalisation groups could not do more than make occasional remarks encouraging the government to restore diplomatic ties with China. The new Foreign Minister Ali Alatas, for example, stated that the process of normalising relations with China would be continued.74 Encouragement was also heard from some civilian elements in

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GOLKAR.75 The military still argued that normalisation with China was not yet necessary. The Coordinating Minister for Political and Security Affairs Admiral Soedomo, for example, continued to warn Indonesians to be vigilant, because China had not given an assurance in words and deeds not to interfere in Indonesia's domestic affairs.76 The PPP also remained strongly opposed to the idea of normalisation." The majority view was still of the opinion that Indonesia— China relations should not be restored, and for the present time those relations should be limited to trade only. No concrete moves had been taken by Indonesia's government that would shift the balance in the foreign policy elite debate on the significance of diplomatic ties with China. The arguments of the antinormalisation groups that normalisation would entail internal security risks that might jeopardise Indonesia's internal stability still prevailed. Then after almost two decades of debate, President Suharto's unexpected decision in February 1989 put an end to such arguments. The surprising 1989 decision: President Suharto ended the debate Signs of a significant change in Indonesia’s attitude towards China came in early February 1989 when Foreign Minister Ali Alatas revealed to the DPR that President Suharto had instructed him to normalise diplomatic relations with China ‘when the time was right’. According to Alatas, President Suharto also reiterated that security risks should be considered in any attempt at normalisation. However, Alatas was not able to give a definite answer to the question of when such a ‘right time’ would be, but he stated that normalisation would come if China promised not to interfere in Indonesia’s internal affairs. ‘At this time,’ he said, ‘DEPLU is continuously monitoring various statements made by China’s leaders.’78 Since Alatas’s remarks still indicated the ambivalence on the part of the government, which had obtained for almost two decades, no great reaction occurred. It was not the first time that the question of normalisation with China had been raised by Indonesia’s top leader. President Suharto had raised the issue previously on more than one occasion, maintaining that normalisation required China’s promise not to interfere in Indonesia’s internal affairs. Even when KADIN Chairman Sukamdani reported that China’s Vice-Premier Wu Xuqian had told him personally that ‘China has not maintained relations with the PKI for many years’, Indonesian top officials reportedly still said that ‘such a statement cannot be taken as an official stand of China’s Communist Party. It only constituted the Chinese government’s stand.’79Therefore, when President Suharto visited Japan on 22 February to attend the funeral of Japan’s Emperor Hirohito, no-one expected that Indonesia-China relations were about to enter a radical new phase. The Tokyo meeting On the evening of 23 February 1989, Indonesia’s Minister for the State Secretariat, Moerdiono, broke the news of an impending restoration of diplomatic relations at a press conference at the Imperial Hotel in Tokyo. Much to the surprise of both an Indonesian and an international audience, he disclosed to the press that Indonesia and China had reached an agreement to take necessary measures towards normalising diplomatic relations. The

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agreement had been reached during a meeting between President Suharto and China’s Foreign Minister Qian Qichen, who was also in Tokyo to attend the funeral of Emperor Hirohito. Before the meeting with President Suharto, Qian had also held a meeting with Moerdiono during which some basic issues relating to normalisation were discussed and clarified by both sides. According to Moerdiono, during the meeting he felt that Qian had given assurances that ‘the Chinese Communist party and China’s government would no longer maintain relationships with the PKI or support the G30S/PKI [the Indonesian acronym for the 30 September Movement/PKI] remnants’.80 Moerdiono revealed that the Chinese foreign minister had also promised that China would never allow the ten former PKI leaders involved in the September 1965 abortive coup, who were in exile in China, to carry out any political activities in that country. Besides an agreement to use the five principles of peaceful coexistence and the Ten Principles of the Bandung Conference as the basis for normalisation, both sides also agreed that further talks would be held at the United Nations (UN) in New York between representatives of the two countries, and should it be considered necessary, the foreign ministers of both countries would also meet.81 On his way back to Indonesia from Tokyo, President Suharto also maintained that Indonesia’s agreement to begin a concrete process of normalisation had come only after China had satisfied the conditions set up by Indonesia. He stated that ‘the Chinese government had provided confirmation in line with the conditions set up by Indonesian people’. According to the President, the promise given by China was not only from the Chinese government but also from the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) which had promised not to support the PKI remnants.82 Noting that he was aware of a domestic wariness caused by the decision, he maintained that the restoration of diplomatic ties with China did not mean that Indonesia would lower its vigilance against that country.83 According to Indonesian sources, the initiative to convene the Tokyo meeting had come from the Chinese side. It was reported that in early February, having learned that President Suharto would be travelling to Japan, the head of China’s Mission at the UN in New York Li Luye asked his Indonesian counterpart Nana Sutresna whether there would be a possibility of China’s Foreign Minister Qian Qichen, who was also going to Tokyo, meeting Indonesia’s President. China’s request was then passed on to Jakarta and Suharto agreed to accept the request, but, as Angkatan Bersenjata wrote, ‘the plan for the meeting was kept secret.’84 Therefore, when the meeting took place resulting in the decision to normalise, it came as a great surprise to Indonesia’s political elite. Post-decision reactions President Suharto’s decision to restore diplomatic relations with China was met with mixed reactions from the foreign policy elite in Indonesia. The strongest support came of course from Foreign Minister Ali Alatas who praised the Suharto-Qian agreement as ‘a step forwards’.85 Some leading members of GOLKAR in the DPR also expressed their support for the government. For example, Deputy Chairman of DPR from GOLKAR Raden Sukardi stated that President Suharto’s decision should be supported by the Indonesian people because Indonesia needed to establish diplomatic ties with all countries provided ‘the

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country concerned respects the rules’.86 Another prominent member of GOLKAR, Theo Sambuaga, commented that normalisation of diplomatic relations between Indonesia and China would not only benefit both countries, both also contribute to stability in the AsiaPacific region.87 Support was also heard from other pro-normalisation elements such as Sukamdani Gitosardjono of KADIN. Sukamdani, who had played a leading role in the resumption of direct trade between Indonesia and China in July 1989, stated that normalisation of diplomatic relations would be beneficial for improving trade and economic relations between the two countries.88 Reservations to the normalisation decision were clearly conveyed by leaders of the Muslim-based PPP. Imron Rosyadi, who was also Chairman of the DPR’s Foreign Relations Committee, stated that since the normalisation of Indonesia-China relations still needed time, there was no need for Indonesia to be in hurry. Moreover, he maintained, both countries had already resumed direct trade relations. Imron also expressed his doubts over the question of the ethnic-Chinese minority. He argued that this issue still needed clarification, since ‘many ethnicChinese minority had become Indonesian citizens only on the paper’.89 Another PPP leader, Vice-Chairman of DPR H.J. Naro, after asking that ‘the Parliament should be involved in the process of normalisation’, demanded that the Indonesian government ask China’s government to deport all former PKI leaders in exile in Beijing as a new condition for normalisation.90 On 9 March 1989, through its faction in the DPR, the PPP officially issued a statement calling on the government to explain its plan to normalise diplomatic ties with China before the Parliament. The statement also reminded the government that ‘China had in the past supported the PKI in trying to destroy Indonesia’. 91 All these reactions from the PPP indicated that a delay in completing the process of normalisation was expected. The Merdeka group was also apprehensive at the decision. For example, an editorial in the Merdeka daily asked ‘whether it is the right time for us to restore full diplomatic relations between Indonesia and China’. It also conveyed the impression of a deceitful China by repeating the story of interventions since the Kubilai Khan era on the part of China which ‘had stabbed Indonesia in the back’. And it pointed out that China often acted as ‘an enemy in the blanket’.92 On 1 March, Merdeka made its view clearer when it wrote that ‘there is no clear domestic interest that motivates Indonesia to accelerate the defreezing of diplomatic ties with China.’ ‘Therefore,’ it asked, ‘after Indonesia-China diplomatic relations are restored, who will actually take the credit point?!’93 Reactions from the military were more cautious, and in a sense ambivalent. On 1 March 1989, Commander of ABRI General Try Sutrisno called on the Indonesian people to support the government’s decision to normalise diplomatic ties with China ‘with full confidence’, because ‘recent developments demonstrated that a new configuration has emerged in the world’. General Try also stated that ‘whatever the government’s decision, ABRI will secure it’, but he made it clear that efforts to normalise diplomatic relations with China did not mean that Indonesia would lower its vigilance against the latent danger of a communist revival. While maintaining that communism still posed a threat to Pancasila, he also asked ‘how could we talk about threat all the time?’94 Minister of Defence and Security, General Benny Moerdani, also stated that Indonesia should not worry about normalising relations

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with China because ‘if we are afraid that our ideology would be removed due to our relations with China, that means we doubt of the strength our own ideology’.95 Other military figures were obviously less ‘confident’ than General Try or General Moerdani. On 10 March, a spokesman for ABRI’s faction in the DPR Sundoro Syamsuri stated since the question of Indonesia-China diplomatic relations was 'a very fundamental problem', ABRI wanted to see that efforts towards normalisation were carried out through constitutional means. He also appealed for strong vigilance against 'all kind of threats, from the left or the right', and 'communism still poses a threat to the Pancasila, either through global struggle [perjuangan semesta] or through its theories of peace'. More interestingly, ABRI's spokesman also maintained that steps towards normalisation 'should not be carried out hastily, and even though the President had met with China's Foreign Minister in Tokyo, that does not mean an Ambassador has to be assigned immediately. That is not the way it should be.' He also maintained that since there would be some preparations to be settled first, ABRI wanted Foreign Minister Ali Alatas to give a detailed explanation about the normalisation plan to the DPR.96 A few days earlier, in a seminar on ASEAN Regional Resilience in Jakarta, the Governor of the Institute of National Defence (LEMHANAS) General Subiyakto warned that China was still a potential threat. He noted that even though China had told Indonesia that it would not interfere in Indonesia's internal affairs, the country still supported communist guerrilla movements in Malaysia, and the Thai Communist Party still received instructions from Beijing.97 And, on 20 March, Admiral Soedomo stated that he did not see that Indonesia-China relations could be normalised soon. He maintained that Indonesia needed to prepare itself maturely, and that Beijing had to agree not to give shelter to members of the PKI in China any more.98 However, since the normalisation decision had been taken by President Suharto, preparations towards it soon began to be carried out by Indonesian and Chinese representatives at the UN. Such meetings began as early as the first week of March 1989. 99 Meanwhile, resistance towards normalisation continued. Some generals and even ministers in Suharto's cabinet still demanded that Foreign Minister Alatas postpone or delay the normalisation process. Even though Alatas repeatedly explained that the decision was Suharto's not his own, they still insisted that it was not yet the right time for Indonesia to restore diplomatic ties with China.100 In the event, President Suharto's decision put an end to any serious debate on the significance of diplomatic ties with China among the foreign policy elite. For the pronormalisation forces, Suharto's decision was something they had been waiting for over more than two decades. However, resistance towards normalisation was still heard. For example, in the wake of the Tiananmen bloodshed on 3 June 1989 in Beijing, General Subiyakto argued that since China had returned to a rigid centralised Party leadership and 'will never stop in its efforts to lead [communist] parties in the world through its communist movements', then 'Indonesia should review the process of Indonesia-China normalisation.'101 In October 1989, BAKIN Chief General Yoga Sugomo stated that 'it is not yet the right time for Indonesia to restore diplomatic ties with China', because 'the highest leadership which determined political policy in China is still in the hands of conservative elements.' 'With such conservative leaderships in Beijing', he added, 'not much benefit can be gained for Indonesia’s interests.’102

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Despite such calls from prominent ABRI figures such as General Subiyakto and General Sugomo, Indonesia's government seemed determined to move forward from its early decision to restore diplomatic ties with China. On 8 August 1990 in Jakarta, the protracted debate among Indonesia's foreign policy elite on the question of restoring diplomatic ties with China was officially terminated when Foreign Minister Ali Alatas and China's Foreign Minister Qian Qichen signed a Memorandum of Understanding on the Resumption of Diplomatic Relations between Indonesia and China. Conclusion The analysis in this chapter has sought to demonstrate that ABRI's resistance to normalisation had its roots in, and was influenced by, the condition of domestic politics. The dominant position of ABRI in domestic politics was not without challenge, however. Indeed, until the mid-1980s, the history of the New Order's domestic politics was a history of continuing challenges to the regime's legitimacy. Those challenges came from students, retired military officers, sections of the Muslim community and prominent civilian leaders. Therefore, the Indonesian government's resistance to restoring diplomatic relations with China should also be understood within such a domestic context. First, since challenges to regime legitimacy often carried a strong anti-Chinese sentiment with them, it would not have served any political objectives for the government to restore diplomatic ties with China. Moreover, normalisation at a time of mounting challenges against regime legitimacy would have provided a new ground for attack. Second, in responding to various challenges posed by critics to its legitimacy, ABRI often claimed that its dominant role in political life was needed to maintain national security and internal stability from various threats, especially those from the communists. Within such contexts, it may be concluded that at the time when ABRI represented a possible communist revival as the main threat to national security in order to defend its legitimacy, then normalisation with China would have reduced the credibility of such a claim. The presence of the ethnic-Chinese minority in Indonesia contributed another factor to Indonesia's domestic politics that prevented the country from restoring diplomatic relations with China. One of the reasons why ABRI was opposed to normalisation was because the problem of the ethnic-Chinese minority had not yet been solved. If Indonesia-China relations were restored before then, there would be security implications, because, in ABRI's view, China had been persistent in attempting to utilise the ethnic-Chinese minority to rebuild the PKI, and ABRI believed that they were willing to help China to realise that objective. Such a claim generated its own political difficulties because it indirectly reinforced general anti-Chinese feeling in Indonesia's society, which was not helpful to the government's attempt to reduce social tension between pribumi (indigenous) Indonesians and Indonesians of Chinese descent. But, if ABRI renounced its suspicion of the ethnicChinese minority, then ABRI's claim that China's subversion could be channelled through the ethnic-Chinese minority in Indonesia would also lose credibility. Consequently, ABRI would lose ground on which its resistance to normalisation was founded. Meanwhile, in the context of continued challenges to regime legitimacy, ABRI’s resistance to normalisation was part of its attempt to curb those challenges. All in all, in the case of the normalisation

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of diplomatic relations between Indonesia and China, issues in Indonesia’s domestic politics —the question of national security, regime legitimacy, communist threat and the ethnicChinese minority—formed a vicious circle with contradictory elements from which there was no easy escape for the government. ‘Frozen’ Indonesia-China relations began to enter a new phase of a limited improvement with the resumption of direct trade relations in July 1985. However, ABRI continued to oppose the restoration of full diplomatic ties. The tense domestic political atmosphere in the wake of the Tanjung Priok Affair, during which the government’s legitimacy was bitterly contested by sections of the Muslim community, provided reasons which prevented the New Order government from restoring diplomatic ties with China. Indeed, the continued absence of diplomatic ties still performed an important domestic political function of strengthening ABRI’s dominant role in national political life. However, the resumption of direct trade did mark the emergence of a new road towards normalisation. And a better prospect for an impending restoration of full diplomatic relations was secured in February 1989 when President Suharto decided that his government would take concrete measures to end Indonesia’s longstanding resistance to normalisation. As will be discussed in the next chapter, there had been favourable developments from the mid-1980s both in domestic and external developments that made such a decision desirable. More importantly, with those new developments, a continued resistance to restoring diplomatic ties with China no longer served the previous function of justifying the New Order’s attempt to maintain domestic legitimacy and regime security. Notes 1 Written communication, 8 September 1995. 2 For a more comprehensive discussion of national security conceptions in Indonesia, see Franklin B.Weinstein, Indonesian Foreign Policy and the Dilemma of Dependence: From Sukarno to Soeharto (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1976). See also his ‘The Meaning of National Security in Southeast Asia’, in Shigekaku Matsumoto, ed., Southeast Asia in a Changing World (Tokyo: Institute of Developing Economies, 1980), pp. 16–35. 3 Michael Leifer, Indonesia’s Foreign Policy (London: Allen & Unwin, 1983), p. 127. 4 McDonald noted that the issue of corruption came to the fore in November 1969, when Mochtar Lubis, a prominent journalist, in his Indonesia Raya daily published a detailed account of corruption by Indonesia’s elite, especially the ‘violations of law by the state oil company, Pertamina, and a series of questionable dealings reaching into Suharto’s office, including the exposure of a scandal involving one of his controversial personal assistants [aspri], General Suryo’. See Hamish McDonald, Suharto’s Indonesia (Victoria: Vontana Books, 1980), pp. 123– 124. 5 John Bresnan, Managing Indonesia: The Modern Political Economy (New York: Columbia University Press, 1993), p. 172. 6 McDonald, Suharto’s Indonesia, p. 136. 7 For a comprehensive analysis of the background and impact of the 15 January 1974 episode, see Bresnan, Managing Indonesia, especially Chapters 6 and 7. See also Gary Hansen, ‘Indonesia 1974: A Momentous Year’, Asian Survey, vol. XV, no. 2 (February 1975), pp. 148–156.

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8 See, among others, Ulf Sundhaussen, ‘Decision-Making within the Indonesian Military’, in Harold Z. Schiffrin, ed., Military and State in Modern Asia (Jerusalem: The Jerusalem Academic Press, 1976), pp. 182–183; Bresnan, Managing Indonesia, pp. 144–146; Jamie Mackie and Andrew MacIntyre, ‘Politics’, in Hal Hill, ed., Indonesia’s New Order: The Dynamics of SocioEconomic Transformation (St Leonards: Allen & Unwin, 1994), pp. 13–14; Harold Crouch, The Army and Politics in Indonesia, revised edition (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1988), pp. 306–317; and Michael Vatikiotis, Indonesia’s Politics under Suharto: Order, Development and Pressure for Change (London: Routledge, 1992), p. 75. For General Soemitro’s own account of the episode, see Ramadhan K.H., Soemitro: Dari Pangdam Mulawarman Sampai Pangkopkamtib [Soemitro: From Commander of Mulawarman to Commander of Kopkamtib] (Jakarta: Sinar Harapan, 1994). 9 Asian Research Bulletin, 1–31 August 1973, pp. 2060–2061. 10 Angkatan Bersenjata, 20 June 1974. 11 Bresnan, Managing Indonesia, p. 152. 12 It is interesting to observe that during this period, the military authorities themselves gave rather contradictory remarks about the nature of communist insurgencies in West Kalimantan. For example, in September 1971, West Kalimantan military commander Brigadier General Sumadi stated that the guerrillas posed no military threat. See his statement in Asia Research Bulletin, 1–30 September 1971. But, on many other occasions, military leaders maintained that the danger was still there. 13 Activities of communist insurgencies in West Kalimantan organised by these two organisations were reported in The Guardian (London), 21 August 1971. 14 For the activities of these groups, see Justus M. van der Kroef, ‘Indonesia’, in Yearbook on International Communist Affairs 1975 (Stanford, Calif.: Hoover Institution Press, 1975), pp. 332–346. 15 Cited in Justus M. van der Kroef, ‘Before the Thaw: Recent Indonesian Attitudes towards People’s China’, Asian Survey, vol. XIII, no. 5 (May 1973), p. 517. 16 Asian Research Bulletin, 1–31 May 1971, p. 31. 17 Asian Research Bulletin, 1–31 January 1972. 18 See van der Kroef, ‘Indonesia’, p. 339. For an editorial with such interpretations, see, for example, Jakarta Times, 28 November 1973. 19 Antara, 16 February 1974. 20 Antara, 20 September 1974. 21 For such reports, see Antara, 2 February and 13 August 1974, and 27 December 1974; Berita Buana, 15 February 1974; Merdeka, 19 February 1974; Berita Yudha, 15 April and 12 June 1974; Angkatan Bersenjata, 16 June 1974; and Pelita, 5 August 1974. 22 ‘White Book of the 1978 Student’s Struggle’, Indonesia, 25 (April 1978), pp. 151–152. 23 New Straits Times, 30 October 1976. 24 The Straits Times, 1 January 1977. 25 Antara, 6 February 1977. 26 Angkatan Bersenjata, 16 June 1977. 27 Ibid. 28 Mackie, ‘Indonesian Political Developments, 1987–1988’, p. 17. 29 Kompas, 8 April 1980. 30 For a more detailed discussion on the speeches and their impacts on Indonesia’s politics, see Ulf Sundhaussen, ‘Regime Crisis in Indonesia: Facts, Fiction, Predictions’, Asian Survey, vol. XXI, no. 8 (August 1981), pp. 815–837. 31 Cited in Bresnan, Managing Indonesia, p. 207.

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32 33 34 35 36 37

38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50

51 52 53 54 55 56 57

58 59 60 61 62 63

Ibid., p. 208. Kompas, 18 August 1980. FEER, 5 December 1980. TEMPO, 6 December 1980. Merdeka, 9 December 1980. For a more detailed discussion of these two regulations, see Justus M. van der Kroef, “‘Normalizing” Relations with the People’s Republic of China: Indonesia’s Rituals of Ambiguity’, Contemporary Southeast Asia, vol. 3, no. 3 (December 1981), especially pp. 209– 213. Suara Karya, 16 October 1984. Pelita, 6 November 1984; and Kompas, 12 November 1984. Antara, 3 November 1984. Kompas, 8 November 1984. Ibid. Suara Karya, 16 November 1984; and Merdeka, 16 November 1984. Kompas, 21 November 1984. Sinar Harapan, 17 April 1985. The Jakarta Post, 24 April 1985. TEMPO, 27 April 1985. See, for example, statement by Coordinating Minister for Economy and Industry Ali Wardhana in Antara, 8 February 1985. Sinar Harapan, 25 April 1985. See Mochtar’s explanation in The Jakarta Post, 27 April 1985; Suara Karya, 27 April 1985; and Kompas, 23 February 1988. During interview, Mochtar repeated the same story, accusing Wu of not valuing the opportunity given by Indonesia. He also maintained that this showed that China was not serious about normalising relations with Indonesia. Interview, 14 February 1995. Richard Nations, ‘Wu-ing Suharto’, FEER, 23 May 1985. Justus M.van der Kroef, “‘Normalising” Relations with China: Indonesia’s Policies and Perception’, Asian Survey, vol. XXVI, no. 8 (August 1986), p. 912. The Jakarta Post, 24 May 1985; and Berita Buana, 23 May 1985. Pelita, 25 May 1985. Sinar Harapan, 29 May 1985. The following account is based on the version given by Bresnan in Managing Indonesia, especially pp. 222–224. Initially, the government stated that 9 people were killed and 53 were wounded. This figure was later ‘corrected’ twice by the government. Then the government claimed that 18 people were killed, and later the number was increased to 40. See, for example, Panda Nababan, ‘Tragedi Berdarah di Priok’, Rekaman Peristiwa ‘84 (Jakarta: Sinar Harapan, 1985), p. 93; and Merdeka, 3 October 1984. Bresnan, Managing Indonesia, p. 220. R. Eep Saefulloh Fatah, ‘Manajemen Konflik Politik dan Demokratisasi Orde Baru’, Ulumul Qur’an, Special Edition, vol. V, nos. 5–6 (1994), p. 147. Ibid., p. 145. Merdeka, 14 March 1985, Kompas, 31 March 1985. The Jakarta Post, 6 November 1985.

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64 Leo Suryadinata, ‘Suharto’s Indonesia: Two Decades On’, Southeast Asian Affairs 1987 (Singapore: ISEAS, 1987), p. 136. See also Lincoln Kaye, ‘A Red Rash of Sackings’, FEER, 5 December 1985. 65 See Pelita, 9 October 1985. 66 China’s changing attitude will be discussed in greater detail in Chapter 6 which will focus more specifically on underlying factors that influenced Indonesia’s attitude towards the restoration of diplomatic relations with China. 67 The Jakarta Post, 23 August 1986. 68 See, for example, Mochtar’s statement in Kompas, 23 August 1986. 69 Prioritas, 2 May 1987. 70 The Jakarta-Post, 20 November 1987. 71 The Jakarta Post, 20 February 1988; and Pelita, 27 February 1988. 72 Kompas, 27 May 1988. 73 Sinar Harapan, 1 March 1988. President Suharto repeated the same position when he met with Romanian President Nicolae Ceau escu in April 1988. 74 The Jakarta Post, 16 April 1988. 75 See, for example, Marzuki Darusman’s statement in Suara Karya, 21 April 1988. 76 Antara, 24 April 1988. 77 See, for example, statements by Husnie Thamrin, Imron Rosyadi and Djafar Siddiq in The Jakarta Post, 22 April 1988; Pikiran Rakyat, 25 April 1988; and Antara, 26 April 1988, respectively. 78 Kompas, 4 February 1989. 79 Suara Pembaruan, 18 February 1989. 80 Suara Pembaruan, 24 February 1989; and The Jakarta Post, 24 February 1989. 81 Kompas, 24 February 1989. 82 Kompas, 27 February 1989. 83 Angkatan Bersenjata, 27 February 1989. 84 Angkatan Bersenjata, 25 February 1989. 85 Kompas, 25 February 1989. 86 Angkatan Bersenjata, 28 February 1989. 87 Angkatan Bersenjata, 25 February 1989. 88 Suara Pembaruan, 27 February 1989. 89 Merdeka, 25 February 1989. 90 Antara, 27 February 1989. 91 The Jakarta Post, 10 March 1989. 92 Merdeka, 25 February 1989. 93 Merdeka, 1 March 1989. The English words in italic are original. In Indonesia’s context, it means ‘who would get the benefit?’ 94 See Kompas, 2 March 1989; The Jakarta Post, 2 March 1989; and Merdeka, 2 March 1989. It is interesting to note how the three newspapers varied in their coverage on General Try’s statement. Kompas, for example, chose ‘Efforts of Indonesia-China Normalisation Should be Supported by All Parties’ as the headline. The Jakarta Post picked ‘ABRI to Secure Move to Restore Ties with China’. Meanwhile, Merdeka tended to emphasise the warning aspects of Try’s statement by choosing ‘Vigilance Should Not Be Lowered’ as its headline. 95 Angkatan Bersenjata, 2 May 1989; and Kompas, 3 May 1989. 96 Merdeka, 11 March 1989; Angkatan Bersenjata, 11 March 1989; and The Jakarta Post, 11 March 1989. 97 Suara Pembaruan, 3 March 1989.

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98 99 100 101 102

Angkatan Bersenjata, 21 March 1989. Antara, 10 March 1989. Interview, 8 August 1989. Merdeka, 27 June 1989. Angkatan Bersenjata, 16 October 1989; and Merdeka, 16 October 1989.

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6 Towards the restoration of relations The dimensions of change in the New Order’s China policy

In the previous chapter, it has been argued that Indonesia’s resistance to restoring diplomatic relations with China was the result of strong opposition from antinormalisation forces among which the Armed Forces (ABRI) constituted the most significant. As the powerful and dominant actor in the New Order’s decision-making structure, ABRI’s opposition appeared to serve as the main domestic constraint to normalisation for more than two decades. In opposing it, ABRI had maintained consistently that ‘the time was not yet ripe’, because there were two main problems—national security and the ethnic-Chinese minority —that had to be overcome first. In the eyes of ABRI and other anti-normalisation forces, these two problems were rooted in the so-called ‘China threat’ to Indonesia. China was seen as a hostile power which had attempted to revive the banned PKI and manipulate the ethnic-Chinese minority in Indonesia to its political advantage. As discussed in Chapter 5, the main locus of constraint to normalisation by the New Order was domestic. In the background to the New Order’s resistance lurked the fundamental problem of challenges to regime legitimacy and even survival. Seen from this perspective, it was the very nature of the New Order’s domestic politics that had prevented the restoration of diplomatic ties between Indonesia and China for more than two decades. Moreover, major initiatives by pro-normalisation forces had enjoyed a meagre chance of success because they had been taken at times when the New Order government, in which ABRI played a dominant role, was faced with strong challenges to its legitimacy from various opponents. It responded to those challenges by emphasising the evil of a communist threat with the object of deterring any future challenges and of justifying ABRI’s continued dominance in domestic politics. Seen from such a domestic context, the normalisation of diplomatic relations with China would not have served any political purpose. It would have made things worse. On the contrary, a continued resistance to restoration at the time when regime legitimacy was still justified primarily in terms of the communist threat continued to fulfil the important domestic political function of perpetuating perceptions of that threat. However, IndonesiaChina relations began to enter a new phase in 1985 when the New Order government resumed direct trade relations between the two countries. Again, the domestic political situation at the time still prevented the restoration of full diplomatic ties. ABRI, while it reluctantly supported the resumption of direct trade, continued to bring up the danger of such an enterprise for internal stability and opposed any attempt to develop trade ties into diplomatic ones. The long-standing resistance in Indonesia’s policy to restoring diplomatic

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ties with China was only terminated when President Suharto announced in February 1989 that his government would take concrete measures to restore them. This chapter seeks to examine the internal and external contexts of the change in Indonesia’s policy towards normalising diplomatic relations with China. The discussion is divided into three sections. The first section analyses the question of diplomatic ties with China in terms of the changing domestic context and requirements. It examines the extent to which changes in Indonesia’s domestic politics, especially with regard to the problems of internal security, the ethnicChinese minority, as well as political stability and economic development (as the bases of regime legitimacy) had created conditions favourable for the restoration of diplomatic ties with China. The second section examines the changing utility of those ties in terms of Indonesia’s foreign policy interests and international role, and also in terms of changes in China’s policy towards Indonesia. The third section analyses how the government justified the normalisation decision, and assesses the measure of continuity and change in the foreign policy elite’s views of China, especially those of ABRI. The changing domestic context By the mid-1980s, Indonesia’s domestic situation was characterised by an unprecedented political stability. The position of the New Order regime had become more secure; there had not been any significant challenges from its critics and opponents. The government had succeeded in curbing and silencing such critics and in exercising tight control over political participation, thus removing potential and actual challenges from among the military, students, members of political parties, Muslim groups, and even from a combination of those elements such as the Petition-50 group. The threat which had always been claimed to come from a possible revival of the PKI and communist insurgency was remote. There had been problems arising from regional aspirations for independence which found strong expression in remote provinces, such as Aceh, East Timor and Irian Jaya. Unlike regional rebellions during the 1950s, however, they did not pose a serious threat to regime survival. Indeed, it can be said that by the mid1980s, there was no serious challenge to regime legitimacy, even though the military continued to maintain the view that the ‘latent danger’ of communism still constituted the main threat to Indonesia’s national security and stability. Two decades of New Order rule had resulted also in a steady improvement of and notable progress in Indonesia’s economy. During the early years of its rule until the early 1980s, the New Order government had relied heavily on the principle of ‘stability for development’ as the prime foundation of its legitimacy. This chapter will argue that by the mid-1980s, the very success of economic development had itself become the most important source of regime legitimacy. However, as the result of the pace and scale of economic development, the New Order government was faced with new economic, social and political problems. The rise of new problems as the effects of the success of economic development forced the government to restructure the basis of its claim to legitimacy, from that of ‘stability for development’ to ‘development for stability’. It was within such a changing relationship between stability and development in Indonesia’s domestic politics that the question of diplomatic ties with China assumed a new significance in the eyes of Indonesia’s top policy makers.

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133

Political stability, internal security and the risks of normalising relations with China Political stability and internal security Maintaining political stability and internal security had been the principal objective of the New Order government since it came to power in 1966. The fulfilment of these two objectives enabled Indonesia, in President Suharto’s words, ‘to develop under the circumstance of political order’ (membangun dalam suasana tertib politik).1 Indeed, as discussed in Chapter 5, the process of fostering stability and ensuring internal security was not as smooth as the government had anticipated. The history of Indonesia’s domestic politics during the first two decades of the New Order rule was marked by the regime’s preoccupation with coping with challenges from various quarters. It was only by 1985 that the New Order government could be said to have succeeded in eliminating those challenges, and had even moved to define new boundaries within which the political game could be played. As a leading Muslim scholar has asserted, ‘the long process of political restructuring since 1967 had been more or less accomplished in 1985’. 2 Many in Indonesia agreed that the achievement of political stability was marked by the acceptance of Pancasila as Asas Tunggal (sole ideological basis) by all political parties and ORMAS (Mass Organisations) after the introduction of five bills on political development (pembangunan politik) during 1985.3 All political parties and ORMAS were now required to adopt Pancasila as their sole ideological basis (Asas Tunggal). Asas Tunggal removed any possibility of political parties and mass organisations using ideological values other than those prescribed by the state for their political purposes. With the adoption of Pancasila as Asas Tunggal, political forces outside the New Order were not permitted to claim any special representation on behalf of the interest of a particular group in the society or to have a special concern for particular political issues such as social justice. 4 This measure also effectively removed the ideological links between political parties and their traditional constituencies.5 It was therefore expected to mitigate ideological-driven conflict among social and political forces in the society. The introduction of Asas Tunggal into Indonesia’s political life was deemed to be the final step in a long-standing attempt by the New Order government to ‘homogenise’ (menyeragamkan) the national political platform6 as a prime foundation for political stability. The New Order government also succeeded in removing potential challenges posed by political forces outside the state. This study is not intended to describe in detail how political stability was achieved; nor does it seek to offer a moral judgement on its nature. It suffices to say that political stability, which required strong government control over political forces outside the elite, had been achieved in part ‘by suppressing and containing the scope of political conflict through repressive or quasi-repressive measures’7 and through what Professor William Liddle has called ‘Latin American-style corporatist cooptation (or creation) of organisations representing acceptable interests’.8 Such political measures, which had been undertaken for two decades in the name of stability, paved the way for the strengthening of state power at all levels of society.

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As a result, from around 1985 the New Order enjoyed a political stability characterised ‘by the weakening of those political forces which had acted as prominent critics of the regime. First, challenges which came from within the military, especially from retired military officers, no longer posed a significant threat to regime survival. The New Order government had succeeded in suppressing their challenges, containing the spread of related conflicts, and with its firm control over the press, left little room for critics to make their challenges known to the public. Second, challenges from student groups had also been greatly reduced since 1978. They ceased to be potential challenges to the regime due to the imposition of various limitations on their political activities beyond the legal framework established by the government. Third, political Islam, though still an important force in Indonesian politics, found itself unable to develop into a centre of opposition to the regime. With the incapacitation of these three important forces, there had not been any significant practical challenge to the legitimacy of the New Order. Communist insurgency, which had posed a threat to the New Order’s attempts at restoring order and maintaining security during the early years of its rule, had been crashed by the 1970s. Moreover, despite routine warnings by the security apparatus against China’s continued support for a communist revival in Indonesia, there had been no signs or evidence of China’s subversive activities. As Adam Malik had stated in early September 1994: ‘If I may ask, had there been any fact suggesting the existence of subversive activities masterminded by China during the last two decades?’9 Regional independence movements had also been suppressed, even though resentment against the central government continued. Stiff measures adopted by the military in dealing with the Free Aceh Movement (GAM) in Aceh, Fretilin in East Timor and the Organisation of Free Papua (OPM) in Irian Jaya, had reduced significantly the threat of regional armed opposition to the regime. The New Order government was also able to maintain internal security, especially in the absence of any major politically motivated disturbances that could threaten public order. From 1985 up to the time when President Suharto decided to normalise diplomatic relations with China in 1989, there had not been any major social uprisings. The last major political riot faced by the New Order government in the period before 1985 was the outbreak of Peristiwa Tanjung Priok (Tanjung Priok Affair) in September 1984. As discussed in the previous chapter, the Affair might be seen as a manifestation of Muslim resistance to the New Order regime and its policies on 'political development' (pembangunan politik), hence another form of challenge to the regime itself. However, as subsequent events suggested, there were two significant aspects to the Affair that should be noted. First, the government's ability to restore order as early as 1985 showed the extent to which it was able to 'control' domestic opposition and challenges. This was further demonstrated by the fact that the government continued to proceed with its plan to pass the Asas Tunggal Bill in the DPR without effective resistance from political Islam. Second, the Tanjung Priok Affair highlighted the danger to the regime of relying exclusively on a 'security approach' in maintaining stability and securing legitimacy. This raised the question whether the reliance on the strategy of 'stability for development' was still beneficial to the regime in the long run (this point will be discussed in more detail in the next section). In retrospect, the Tanjung Priok Affair and subsequent government insistence - and success -on imposing its will on political life can be seen as a watershed in the New Order's long process of

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depoliticising the society, eliminating overt challenges and curbing dissidents; hence establishing stability and securing legitimacy in its own eyes. The fact that the government's position was unchallenged and that 'stability' had been sustained under Indonesia's New Order after 1985 was summed up well by Professor Mackie in late 1988: the political scene has been amazingly unruffled and outwardly calm over the last twelve months or so, considering that the country is now in its third year of very slow growth, declining real incomes for many people, and the most severe economic difficulties it has suffered in nearly twenty years. Public service salaries were frozen in this year's budget for the third time, unemployment rates are rising, inflation has been running at about 8–9 percent per annum over the last three years…Yet there has been remarkably little public protest about any of this, very little rhetoric of the conventional economic-nationalist kind against the deregulatory, market-oriented economic of the technocrats…and fewer manifestations of Islamic discontent than we saw in the early 1980s, when the economy was booming.10 It should be noted, however, that a stable domestic situation did not necessarily mean a total absence of challenge to the New Order government. Indeed, as a leading Indonesian scholar has demonstrated, the legitimacy of the New Order government has been consistently contested throughout its 30 years of rule.11 What had changed over the years was the nature of the challenge and the government's response to it. If from the early 1970s until the mid-1980s the government tended to bring up the question of a communist threat in coping with challenges to its legitimacy, by the end of the 1980s such a cry was not often heard. Moreover, challenges from outside the regime have begun to take a new form in which new issues such as democratisation and human rights provided a ground for challenges posed by emerging societal forces such as Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs). However, challenges from these groups did not yet develop into a serious political threat to the government until after the early 1990s. The Chinese minority problem With regard to one problem directly related to the normalisation of relations with China, namely that of the ethnic-Chinese minority, the government seemed to have been successful in dealing with this issue. As discussed in the previous chapter, Indonesia’s foreign policy elite agreed that the question of the ethnic-Chinese minority constituted a significant stumbling block in the process of normalising Indonesia-China relations. It was commonly argued that the ethnicChinese minority problem posed a great risk for Indonesia’s internal stability if normalisation were to be carried out before this problem had been resolved. The majority of Indonesia’s leaders, either within DEPLU or ABRI circles, were suspicious that the domestic Chinese would act as the main channel through which Communist China might direct its subversive activities, especially in an attempt to help rebuild the defunct Indonesian Communist Party (PKI). This view was reinforced by a deep-rooted suspicion among Indonesia’s elite that the majority of the ethnic-Chinese minority, including those who had become Indonesian citizens, still maintained cultural links with China.

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Since the presence of the ethnic-Chinese minority was deemed to present a serious problem to internal security, the government was forced to take a series of policy steps aimed at two aspects of this problem: clarifying the citizenship status of the ethnic-Chinese minority and stepping up their integration into the wider Indonesian society. With regard to the first aspect, an effort was made in 1979 when the State Prosecutor’s Office conducted a ‘re-registration’ of both Indonesian citizens of Chinese descent and alien Chinese. This action was followed in 1980 by more concrete efforts to solve the ethnic-Chinese problem when President Suharto issued two measures; one a Presidential Instruction (Instruksi Presiden) no. 2/1980 clarifying the bases of proof of citizenship for Indonesian nationals of Chinese descent, and the other a Presidential Decree (Keputusan Presiden) no. 13/1980 granting easier opportunity for alien Chinese to obtain naturalisation as Indonesian citizens.12 The mass naturalisation measures gradually showed an impressive result. Despite the fact that the procedure was still complicated, long and costly, many alien Chinese took the opportunity to become Indonesian citizens. Since there has never been an official census of the ethnic-Chinese minority in Indonesia, the exact number of persons who have already opted for Indonesian nationality and those who have not remains a matter of guesswork. The most one can do is to offer an estimate. In May 1984, for example, an estimate by a prominent Chinese Indonesian leader H. Junus Yahya revealed that of five million ethnic Chinese in Indonesia, only one million still retained Chinese nationality or were ‘stateless’. 13 Another estimate by the Indonesian government revealed that by 1987, there were only 273,000 Chinese citizens in the country.14 In January 1989, Yahya again estimated that only around 500,000 people have not opted for Indonesian citizen ship.15 In short, it can be said that the introduction of INPRES and KEPRES in 1980 helped to eradicate the confusion and uncertainty surrounding the legal status of the ethnic-Chinese minority for both Indonesian and Chinese governments. Moreover, the decline in the number of alien Chinese might also have given Indonesia’s government a sense of confidence in dealing with the perceived external security aspect of the issue. In this regard, it was believed that a decline in the number of alien Chinese would reduce the possibility of China interfering on their behalf as it had done in the past. With regard to the second aspect of the issue—the integration of the ethnic Chinese minority into the wider Indonesian society—there had been a significant development that also affected Indonesia’s government’s view of this ethnic minority. The policy of assimilation (pembauran) adopted by the government had resulted in changes in the outlook, attitude and identity of the ethnic-Chinese in Indonesia. The majority of ethnic Chinese had developed a new identity more closely reflecting Indonesian rather than Chinese cultural traits. One study examining the changing identity of the ethnic Chinese in ASEAN states, including Indonesia, has concluded: It is a fact that the majority of the Chinese in the region have undergone a ‘SoutheastAsianization’ process and are in a sense more inclined to lean towards their own country of residence and birth. Given the present international situation, though it is unlikely that Beijing would want to mobilize the Overseas Chinese, it is improbable that China would succeed in making them work towards its goals.16

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Besides these two measures, another policy, which had been introduced since the early years of the New Order government, also contributed significantly to the changing perception of the ethnic-Chinese minority. Since the rise of the military to power in 1966, the government had moved decisively to deprive the ethnic Chinese from playing any direct political role. As Coppel has observed: one could have said that Chinese politics, as it had been known in the past, was dead. Certainly the dominant style of political activity amongst the WNI Chinese in the pre-coup period, whether in the form of a mass organization on a communal basis like Baperki or in the form of a consciously anticommunal movement like the LPKB, seemed to be a thing of the past. In the New Order it was no longer regarded legitimate for the Chinese to organize themselves politically as Chinese.17 Those who were still interested in politics, however, could join GOLKAR or the two other political parties.18 Such a policy, which also included their general exclusion from civil bureaucracy, ‘contributed to the lack of a social base solid enough for [the ethnic-Chinese minority] to be considered a distinct political or social group’.19 In turn, this development might have helped to reduce the government’s suspicion that they remained a potential political threat. As one of the major obstacles to normal Indonesia-China relations had been brought under control, the ethnic-Chinese problem should no longer have been an impediment to the restoration of diplomatic relations between the two countries. The basis for continued suspicion of links between the ethnic Chinese and Communist China no longer obtained. Developments in this area provided solid ground for the New Order government to be more confident that the ethnic-Chinese minority, despite its continued strong economic position, was now under firm control and no longer posed a significant threat or political risk to internal security. The relative success of the government’s policy of ‘neutralising’ what had been perceived as a potential security threat by the ethnic-Chinese minority had significantly reduced the government’s fear of the so-called ‘fifth column’. Such confidence was conveyed by President Suharto in his autobiography published in 1989: I also see. that the Chinese capital develops quickly here. And they also have skill. We employ this for the interests of our national economic development. Do not get it wrong! The government has the power to utilise and control them [the ethnic Chinese]. Why be afraid?20 It should be noted, however, that despite the decline in the fear that the ethnic-Chinese minority could provide a potential link to China’s perceived subversive threat, the overall result of the government’s efforts to cope with the ethnic-Chinese minority problem was still mixed. This problem still persists in Indonesian society, albeit in different forms. The main issue was not so much any suspected ideological link between the ethnic-Chinese minority and Communist China, but the question of the economic position of the ethnic Chinese in Indonesian society and its political consequences. This study is not an appropriate place to discuss this issue any further.21 It suffices to say that the question of the ethnic-

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Chinese minority in Indonesia has always been—and still is—a delicate issue as demonstrated by incidents of ethnic violence as recently as April 1994.22 What is important for this study is that, in relation to the question of Indonesia-China relations, the ethnic-Chinese minority issue no longer seemed to be as valid as it was in the past. By the end of the 1980s, a clear distinction had been drawn in Indonesia between ‘the Chinese problem’ and ‘the China problem’; the former referring to problems concerning the position of Indonesians of Chinese descent in Indonesian society at large; the latter referring to the question of China’s role in South-East Asia.23 This suggests that the presence of an ethnic-Chinese minority in Indonesia was no longer tightly conceived in terms of threats of the kind which had prevented normalisation with China for more than two decades. Indeed, as Professor Robert Tilman observed in 1984: It seems surprising that today the ‘fifth column’ allegation is seldom heard unless it is brought up by the interviewer, and even little concern is likely to be voiced. This is certainly in marked contrast to the situation of a decade or more ago when the ‘Chinese problem’ dominated most discussion.24 From the above discussion, it can be argued that if prior to 1985 normalisation of diplomatic ties with China was made difficult by factors such as continuous challenges to regime legitimacy, threats to internal security, and a suspicion of the ethnic-Chinese minority as potential ‘agents’ of Communist China in Indonesia, after 1985 such factors had become less and less dominant. In this regard, the decision to normalise in February 1989 may be seen as an expression of a growing confidence on the part of the New Order government in dealing with the internal dimension of the ‘China threat’, namely the ethnic-Chinese problem. Moreover, the nature of the problem of stability had changed. The problem of domestic stability was no longer merely political. The relative success of development had added an economic dimension to the problem of internal security. As mentioned earlier, this was reinforced by the outbreak of the Tanjung Priok Affair in September 1984. The Affair showed how economic problems could be easily fuelled by religious radicalism, and then turned into an anti-government riot. Such issues could serve as a new form of threat to regime legitimacy, because they could be used by opposition as a new ground upon which attacks against the government could be based. Therefore, there was a need for the New Order government to reconsider the relationship between stability and development after two decades of its rule. This dimension of change in Indonesia’s domestic politics had a significant implication for Indonesia’s normalisation policy. The changing foundations of legitimacy: from ‘stability for development’ to ‘development for stability’ For most of Indonesia’s leaders, domestic political stability continued to be seen as the most significant condition if the New Order regime was to strengthen its legitimacy. However, as demonstrated by the outbreak of social unrest such as the Tanjung Priok Affair, internal stability could no longer be preserved by resorting to repressive political means alone. It could be maintained only if the New Order regime remained capable of sustaining progress

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in economic development and improving people’s living conditions in concrete terms. These prerequisites were imperative if the New Order government was to avert potential problems that might upset political stability, such as growing injustice and a widening of the social-economic gap. Inevitably, the success of the New Order’s policies led to the restructuring of domestic policies beginning in the mid-1980s. It bred the view that the economy must continue to develop if Indonesia was to remain stable, and that economic stagnation could jeopardise internal stability. Failure to sustain economic growth would in turn threaten regime legitimacy. In other words, economic success was now seen as a determinant of stability and a prime source of regime legitimacy and survival. In one respect, the government’s decision to push further policy adjustment measures aimed at diversifying Indonesia’s manufacturing and export base away from oil and gas towards non-oil exports, which had been initiated since the early 1980s, reflected such a shift in the relationship between stability and economic development. In the early 1980s, the government had encountered serious difficulty in sustaining the rapid economic growth which Indonesia had experienced during the period of 1968–1981. During this period, Indonesia’s economy enjoyed an average annual rate of growth over 7 per cent.25 Beginning in 1982, however, the average rate of GDP growth began to drop considerably. A sharp decline in oil prices in the international market from 1982 seriously affected the government’s revenues. The most obvious reason for this was found in the structure of Indonesia’s economy itself. As it entered the 1980s, Indonesia’s economy was still heavily dependent on oil and gas resources. By 1981–1982, this sector accounted for over 80 per cent of Indonesia’s total exports, and more than 70 per cent of the government’s revenues. Meanwhile, the non-oil manufacturing sector accounted for only 8 per cent of GDP.26 With the fall in oil revenues, it was estimated that in 1983–1984 Indonesia suffered a loss of income of 2.9 per cent of GNP.27 Given the worldwide economic recession and the imposition of OPEC quotas (which reduced the volume of oil output),28 Indonesia’s government was left with no other feasible choice than to initiate a series of policy adjustments in order to restructure the country’s economy. Promoting non-oil commodity exports, as a means of reducing undue dependence on oil and gas as the basis for state revenues, was one aspect of such economic restructuring. Consequently, there was a greater need for market diversification. In 1982 the government issued Government Regulations (Peraturan Pemerintah), no. 1/1982 specifying various facilities for promoting non-oil exports. Initially, this measure was directed at markets in East European countries. But, as oil prices continued to decline, China as a potential market for Indonesia’s nonoil exports became more attractive to the government. Moreover, as mentioned earlier, there had also been growing pressure from the business community that Indonesia should seize opportunities which arose from China’s economic reforms and open door policy. The enthusiasm for gaining access to China’s markets revived among the business community. The rise in the value of Indonesia’s exports to China since 1981, even in the absence of direct trade relations, encouraged such enthusiasm.29 By late 1984, Indonesia’s government began to submit to the view that China’s economic development since the introduction of the open door policy in 1978 would indeed provide tremendous opportunities for Indonesia which needed new sources of national revenue in order to maintain continuous economic development. This view was reflected in Foreign

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Minister Mochtar’s statement before the Parliament in October 1984 that the time had come for Indonesia to resume direct trade with China if it did not want to be left behind by Malaysia and other countries in benefiting from the potential of China’s market.30 A month later, Mochtar stated that the government was studying seriously the possibility of resuming direct trade.31 After he had met with President Suharto in early December, Mochtar announced that the idea of direct trade could now materialise and that KADIN was expected to play a leading role in the process.32 When the official resumption of direct trade took place in July 1985, China was finally acknowledged as an important market in Indonesia’s attempt to boost non-oil exports. There were two other elements in Indonesia’s decision to resume direct trade with China that should be mentioned. First, the resumption of direct trade was meant to circumvent the role of Hongkong and Singapore as the middle men in Indonesia-China trade. As a KADIN official stated, ‘direct trade [with China], instead of through Hong Kong or Singapore, would bring more profits.’33 Foreign Minister Mochtar also acknowledged that indirect trade, ‘besides benefiting Hong Kong people, made Indonesia’s businessmen less flexible to sell their products to China’.34 Second, and more interestingly, the resumption of direct trade was also meant to cover up the fact that ‘certain Indonesian parties’ had in fact begun to sell some commodities such as oil directly to China since the early 1980s, even though direct trade relations had not yet officially been resumed. In order to ‘save’ Indonesia’s face, Foreign Minister Mochtar pushed for the resumption of direct trade with China.35 Therefore, there is a reason to suggest that, besides a consequence of changes in Indonesia’s economic policies from the early 1980s, the resumption of direct trade with China was also made possible by, and related to, the interests of some business groups in Indonesia. Whatever the true story behind the event, what was important was that the resumption of direct trade gradually changed the climate of Indonesia-China relations. As Indonesia’s government continued to emphasise the promotion of non-oil exports, the resumption of direct trade from 1985 allowed trade between Indonesia and China to increase rapidly. The total value of Indonesia-China trade increased from US $232.1 million in 1984 to US $1.4 billion in 1988. More significantly, as Dr Hadi Soesastro has observed, ‘since 1985 bilateral trade has been in favour of Indonesia with the surplus growing from less than US $100 million to over US $300 million in 1988.’36 He even estimated that if the oil and gas trade data were incorporated in the value of Indonesia’s export to China, it was likely that Indonesia had accumulated a trade surplus of more than US $ 1 billion during the 1985– 1989 period.37 Such progress in trade pointed up the merits of improving relations with China to the Indonesian government. Indeed, trade played an important role in the promotion of Indonesia-China relations in general. As Dr Soesastro has pointed out, ‘trade has become the spearhead’38 in improving the atmosphere of Indonesia-China relations. Even though Indonesia’s growing exports to China cannot be said to have fulfilled all of Indonesia’s needs for foreign earnings, they constituted an important part of Indonesia’s overall drive to seek non-oil sources for national revenue. More importantly, direct trade not only served as a parameter within which Indonesia’s government could evaluate domestic views of future Indonesia-China relations but also helped both countries to begin the process of building

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mutual trust. As China’s Foreign Minister Wu Xueqian revealed after his meeting with Foreign Minister Mochtar Kusumaatmadja during his visit to Indonesia in April 1985 for the 30th Anniversary of the Bandung Conference, both sides agreed to ‘develop mutual trust through trade relations’.39 This factor was certainly taken into account by Indonesia’s government when in February 1989 it decided to restore diplomatic ties with China. In summary, it can be said that the pressing need to sustain economic development, as a foundation of domestic political stability, forced Indonesia’s government to restructure its economy from being primarily an oil-based economy into one with a growing manufacturing sector. Within this context, the importance of China as a potential market for Indonesia’s exports had also increased gradually. In turn, it helped to create a favourable condition for the improvement in Indonesia-China relations. At this point, it is important to reiterate that the re-ordering of domestic priorities from ‘stability for development’ to ‘development for stability’—as a means to maintain regime legitimacy—helped encourage Indonesia to reassess the significance of resuming diplomatic ties with China for Indonesia. Even though domestic political stability and the economic importance of China alone had made the restoration of diplomatic ties with China attractive, they were not yet sufficient in themselves to justify a decision to normalise. As discussed in Chapters 4 and 5, constraints on normalisation came not only from domestic factors, even though they constituted the most significant elements in Indonesia’s resistance. There were also external factors that had been seen as justifiable reasons to delay normalisation. In this respect, China’s policies towards the Overseas Chinese residing in South-East Asia and towards regional communist parties in particular, and towards South-East Asia in general, also constituted major constraints on the restoration of diplomatic relations between Indonesia and China. Therefore, for Indonesia’s leaders, normalisation could be fully justified only if, first, there were changes in such external factors, and second, there were foreign policy interests that could be served by such a decision. Such requirements, which constituted the external dimensions of normalisation, were to be found in the rise of a new mood of assertiveness in Indonesia’s foreign policy, and apparent changes in China’s policy towards the Overseas Chinese and regional communist movements in particular and South-East Asia in general. The changing external context Along with the domestic environment, the external dimension bearing on Indonesia’s normalisation policy had also undergone gradual change. Unlike the 1970s, when events in the external environment were seen by the New Order government as reasons for justifying its resistance to normalising diplomatic relations with China, developments since 1985 had presented new challenges for the regime. First, the conduct of Indonesia’s foreign policy under the New Order government during the previous two decades had created an impression that Indonesia was unduly close to the West. This impression in turn affected Indonesia’s image as a country espousing a free and active foreign policy which was harmful especially at a time when it was eager to assume the chairmanship of the Non-Aligned Movement. Second, at the regional level, Indonesia’s role had been characterised by ambivalence; its struggle to reconcile form and substance in that role had resulted in mixed success. On the one hand, Indonesia had always seen itself as exercising some sort of regional

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entitlement. Many of Indonesia’s leaders felt that as the largest and most populous country in South-East Asia, it was entitled to play a leading role in regional affairs. However, the course of the protracted conflict in Cambodia, in which Indonesia sought to play an important role, had showed its difficulty in matching aspirations to achievement. And the absence of diplomatic ties with China was, at times, identified as a major factor contributing to such difficulty. Growing self-confidence from successful economic development had turned the attention of Indonesia’s political elite to the New Order’s foreign policy, especially with regard to its role in the NAM and within South-East Asia. Since the mid-1980s, the New Order’s foreign policy had come under strong attack from various quarters charging it with having ‘too low a profile’. As a result, the issue of whether or not the New Order government was really determined to improve Indonesia’s international role began to be raised among domestic constituencies together with the demand that the government reassert Indonesia’s identity and role as a leading player both in the NAM and in South-East Asia. In this regard, many argued also that the restoration of diplomatic ties with China would contribute significantly to realising such an objective. Developments in China’s policies towards South-East Asia, which previously had been seen—by Indonesia’s leaders as major obstacles to normalisation, matched such expectations. Even though China’s policies towards the Overseas Chinese and regional communist parties—two major obstacles to Indonesia-China normalisation—had undergone significant changes since the mid-1970s, it was only by the end of the 1980s that they began to have a positive effect on Indonesia’s attitude towards China. It was then that Indonesia began to feel a growing confidence that China’s intention to improve relations with South-East Asia in general and Indonesia in particular was genuine. Accordingly, if the relationship with China was construed as significant for facilitating Indonesia’s desire to reassert its national identity and role as a non-aligned country and as a leading player in South-East Asia, and China itself had showed significant changes in its policy towards SouthEast Asia, the continued absence of diplomatic ties with the country could no longer be justified. It was at this convergence of a new mood of assertiveness in Indonesia’s foreign policy with evident changes in China’s South-East Asia policy that the normalisation of diplomatic ties with China found its renewed justification. The rediscovery of assertiveness in Indonesia’s foreign policy In a monthly panel discussion organised by GOLKAR’s Department of International Affairs on 19 February 1988, which was attended by Foreign Minister Mochtar Kusumaatmadja, a senior military official, the Assistant to Commander of ABRI for General Planning Air Vice-Marshal Teddy Rusdy, launched a forthright attack on the New Order’s foreign policy. Rusdy criticised what he called ‘the weaknesses of a low profile attitude [of the New Order] in a tough international environment’. While admitting the economic success gained from implementing such a low profile foreign policy over the past two decades, he maintained that such an attitude had ‘driven many developing countries to keep a distance from Indonesia’, and ‘decreased Indonesia’s image as a country which has always fought for freedom and independence [negara pejuang kemerdekaan]’ because ‘many developing

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countries regarded Indonesia as only pursuing its own interests and losing solidarity to developing nations.’ He also cited the failure of Indonesia to be elected as the host for the Ninth Non Aligned Movement Summit and the additional failure of an Indonesian as the Director-General of UNESCO as two recent examples of the result of being ‘low profile’. After stressing that the New Order’s ‘low profile’ foreign policy did not mean that Indonesia was a ‘coward nation’, Rusdy urged the country to ‘formalise a new attitude in facing new international challenges’ and ‘stand more upright [tegak] and speak louder [lantang] in international relations’.40 In his response to this attack, Foreign Minister Mochtar did not directly deny the substance of Rusdy’s criticism. He maintained that ‘if DEPLU leaders were too vocal, there is a possibility that this will not be accepted by Indonesia’s society’. Mochtar also stated that ‘even though Indonesia conducted the free and active foreign policy with a low profile attitude, it still undertook active diplomacy’. What he regretted in conducting such an active diplomacy was ‘the lack of financial resources’ which have ‘become a constraint for DEPLU’. Moreover, Mochtar also pointed out that ‘even though Indonesia was not vocal...it is the only country in the world which conducts the most open foreign policy’ because ‘DEPLU gives a regular weekly press conference, something which no other countries in the world had ever done’.41 Irrespective of its validity, Mochtar’s response indicated a tacit acknowledgement that Indonesia has assumed ‘too low a profile’. In July 1985, for example, Mochtar admitted openly that he was not yet satisfied with DEPLU’s achievements in conducting foreign policy. On that occasion he also warned diplomats ‘not to be passive such as in the past when we were criticised, we resorted to “‘diplomasi kebatinan’” (mystical or meditation diplomacy), that is, silence’.42 More importantly, Rusdy’s criticism in fact reflected the general feeling among the majority of Indonesia’s foreign policy elite. Such criticisms of the conduct of Indonesia’s foreign policy under the New Order had become common phenomena from the mid-1980s. The fact that the criticism was voiced by a senior military figure such as Rusdy indicated the extent to which the widespread dissatisfaction had become felt among Indonesia’s foreign policy elite; it even began to bother the main party which was itself a strong supporter of a low profile. ABRI, as an observer put it, had always ‘cautioned against striking a high profile in the region and beyond’.43 With ABRI itself expressing its dissatisfaction, it might be said that the demands on the government that Indonesia play a more active role had now come from almost every segment of foreign policy elite. Such demands culminated on 2 September 1988 when Indonesia’s Foreign Ministry and the University of Gadjah Mada jointly convened a seminar commemorating the 40th anniversary of the promulgation of the Republic’s bebas-aktif foreign policy by Mohammad Hatta in September 1948. The seminar was unusual because it was the first time such a commemoration had ever been celebrated in Indonesia. It also became a venue for an unprecedented gathering of Indonesia’s foreign policy elite. The seminar was attended by recently appointed Foreign Minister Ali Alatas, his immediate predecessor Mochtar Kusumaatmadja and other surviving former foreign ministers such as Roeslan Abdul Gani and Anak Agung Gde Agung, senior officials of DEPLU, over 20 former ambassadors, senior military leaders, members of Parliaments, leading scholars, editors and journalists. The seminar was aimed at searching for a new interpretation of the bebas-aktif foreign policy.44

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The seminar did not waste too much time discussing fundamental foreign policy issues. It reaffirmed what had been regarded as the continuous relevance of bebas-aktif as the guiding principle of Indonesia’s foreign policy. Indeed, as discussed in Chapters 2 and 3, this principle has always been regarded by the majority of Indonesia’s foreign policy elite as ‘never changing’. However, in addressing the more practical question of Indonesia’s role at international and regional levels, despite the somewhat narrow focus on the Republic’s role in the NAM and in South-East Asia, the substance of the discussion was significant. The underlying theme of the seminar was in fact dissatisfaction over past foreign policy achievements and the desire to see a more active and assertive Indonesia in world affairs. Various views raised by the speakers, discussants and participants during the seminar conferred a very clear message: it was time for Indonesia to exert a ‘more assertive’ posture in conducting foreign policy both in the international and regional arenas. With regard to Indonesia’s international role, the unanimous view was expressed that Indonesia had the potential to be the leader of the NAM, because, as a leading journalist put it, ‘[f]orty years of being a non-aligned country justifies that’.45 What Indonesia should do, the seminar concluded, was ‘to be more vocal, more assertive’. On Indonesia’s position and role in South-East Asia, the expressed views reflected a strong, deep-rooted feeling among Indonesia’s foreign policy elite of what Professor Michael Leifer had called ‘a sense of regional entitlement’,46 namely, ‘the conviction that Indonesia was entitled to play a leading role in the management of regional order within South-East Asia’.47 Such feeling was clearly exemplified by editor Sabam Siagian’s remarks. Quoting Professor Leifer, he demanded that Indonesia exert a more forceful posture by becoming ‘the prime manager of regional order’, and disagreed with Professor Leifer who, according to Siagian, had accorded that title to Singapore.48 The seminar also raised the question of restoring Indonesia-China diplomatic relations. Former Foreign Minister Roeslan Abdul Gani, for example, asked ‘is it not time yet for the Minister of Foreign Affairs to reconsider [the restoration of] Indonesia-China relations as Pak Hatta had done in the past?’49 Some participants argued that the restoration of diplomatic relations with China constituted a criterion by which the implementation of Indonesia’s bebas-aktif foreign policy would be judged. For example, by asking whether Hatta’s opinion that it was difficult for Indonesia to implement the bebas-aktif foreign policy without establishing diplomatic relations with China was still applicable at present, Sabam Siagian indirectly questioned how Indonesia could conduct the bebas-aktif foreign policy as long as formal diplomatic ties with China were still frozen.50 He also stated that Indonesia ‘simply cannot live with an unstable South-East Asia’, and that, among others, required ‘the normalisation of Jakarta’s official diplomatic relations with the People’s Republic of China’.51 Almost all views and expectations expressed during the seminar received a positive response and open support from Foreign Minister Ali Alatas, except on the question of the restoration of diplomatic ties with China. Alatas maintained that ‘we have long underestimated our geo-strategic position’, and declared that it was time for Indonesia ‘to become more forceful in its external affairs’52 and ‘play a bigger role’.53 He also stated that ‘in line with the present international developments and the current phase of struggle by non-aligned and other developing countries, a more active and assertive role to be played

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by Indonesia will be in accordance with our national objectives and interests’.54 Given such an enthusiastic response from the Foreign Minister himself, the gathering would seem to have been the most important national foreign policy forum since Mohammad Hatta’s speech forty years ago. Indeed, it marked the clearest manifestation of the rediscovery of a new mood of assertiveness in Indonesia’s foreign policy which had begun in early 1985. During the seminar, Foreign Minister Ali Alatas failed to make any statement which publicly acknowledged the significance of diplomatic ties with China. However, as discussed in Chapter 4, there was some evidence to suggest that by that time Indonesia’s government, advised by DEPLU, was increasingly aware of various constraints arising from the absence of full diplomatic relations with China on its foreign policy initiatives in South-East Asia, particularly in seeking a solution to the Cambodian conflict. For example, his predecessor, Mochtar Kusumaatmadja, in April 1985 had stated that the absence of diplomatic ties with China was a ‘missing link’ in Indonesia’s attempt to play a role in Cambodia.55 More importantly, in August 1986 Mochtar’s remark that Indonesia would continue to have a dialogue with China over the Cambodian conflict56 had reflected the government’s changing underlying attitude towards China. Without the government’s approval, of course, it would have been difficult for DEPLU to undertake any direct dialogue with China. Previously, Indonesia’s government seemed to keep its contacts with Beijing at as low a level as possible, including those on Cambodia. For example, in June 1983 Mochtar had stated that he was prepared to visit Beijing to help find a solution for Cambodia as ASEAN’s ‘interlocutor’.57 In May 1984, however, he disclosed that President Suharto had disagreed with such a visit.58 Since the absence of diplomatic ties with China had not yet been strongly felt as a constraint on Indonesia’s initiative in the Cambodian conflict, it was not surprising that the government found DEPLU’s argument about the merits of those ties less than convincing. But, when the government began to feel a growing confidence at playing a more active role in international affairs, and the absence of diplomatic ties with China had become more evident as a constraint to that end, then the significance of those ties for Indonesia’s foreign policy interests was increasingly pointed out. Indeed, given the strong evidence of support from the foreign policy elite for Indonesia to play a bigger role, it would not be difficult for the government to justify restoring diplomatic relations with China with reference to such a new mood of foreign policy assertiveness, once it wished to do so. In other words, a new mood of foreign policy assertiveness provided a favourable condition for such a decision to be made. And, it was in such a condition that the decision to normalise diplomatic relations with China was taken by President Suharto in February 1989. The impression was conveyed that the decision was a logical consequence of, and justified by, a growing domestic drive to enhance Indonesia’s role in international affairs. Changes in China’s foreign policy towards South-East Asia Indonesia’s desire to play a more active international role—in order to reclaim its national destiny—corresponded with the emergence of new and favourable conditions in SouthEast Asia emanating from changes in China’s foreign policy in the region. For more than two decades, China had been viewed with suspicion by many of Indonesia’s leaders because of its alleged complicity in the abortive coup attempt in September 1965. In addition, there

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were two standard problems that had blocked Jakarta-Beijing relations: Indonesia’s suspicion of China’s policy towards the ethnic-Chinese minority and the regional communist movements in particular and towards South-East Asia in general. China’s policy towards the Overseas Chinese The presence of a large ethnic-Chinese minority in South-East Asian countries had more often been a liability than an asset in the relationships between China and regional countries. There had always been a suspicion among South-East Asian countries that China would exploit the ethnic-Chinese minority for its own interests.59 Indeed, as discussed in previous chapters, the extent to which Indonesia regarded this issue as fundamental to the process of restoring diplomatic ties with China was striking. Indonesia’s government in particular and the foreign policy elite in general—whether they were in favour of, or opposed to normalisation—were quite sensitive to what they perceived as Beijing’s intention to maintain ties with the ethnic-Chinese minority and protect their interests; an act considered as an interference in Indonesia’s domestic affairs. For Indonesia, the underlying problem was how to gauge China’s true intentions towards the ethnic-Chinese minority in SouthEast Asia, including that in Indonesia. During the years after the 30 September abortive coup, Indonesia strongly believed that China continued to practise a policy of maintaining its ties with the ethnic-Chinese minority in South-East Asia, including those residing in Indonesia. China’s oppressive policy towards the Returned Overseas Chinese (quiqiao) during the period of the Cultural Revolution and after (1966–1976), the ‘Ten Years’ Disaster’ (shinian haojie) as the Chinese have called it, 60 did not seem to eradicate Indonesia’s suspicion. Indonesia’s negative perception of China and the Chinese left over by experiences during 1949–1965, which also had its roots in the colonial era, was not affected by the drastic changes in Beijing’s policies towards the Returned Overseas Chinese during 1966–1976. The fact that the PRC’s 1975 Constitution contained a clause on China’s intention to protect the rights and interests of the Chinese abroad probably also contributed to Indonesia’s continued suspicion of China’s ultimate intentions towards the Overseas Chinese. In fact, the revival of Beijing’s interests in the Overseas Chinese from mid-1977 seemed to confirm Indonesia’s conviction that China’s government would never abandon the use of the ethnic-Chinese minority for its national interests. The reemergence of Deng Xiaoping and the introduction of his ‘Four Modernisations’ programme (Si Xiandaihua) were two main factors contributing to Beijing’s renewed attention to Overseas Chinese affairs.61 To achieve the goals of the Four Modernisations, China’s government needed trained people and capital. In this regard, Deng Xiaoping and his group believed that the Overseas Chinese possessed such qualifications.62 As a result, the question of the Overseas Chinese once again re-entered China’s political agenda, and it was expected that Beijing’s government would soon change its policies towards the Domestic Overseas Chinese and the Chinese minority abroad.63 What such a change would precisely entail began to emerge by early January 1978 with the publication of an editorial and an article by former director of the Overseas Chinese Affairs Commission (Qiaoban)64 Liao Chengzi on the subject of the Overseas Chinese in

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Renmin Ribao on 4 January 1978 and in Peking Review on 20 January of the same year.65 The official policy statement on this issue was then made by the Chairman of the Chinese Communist Party Hua Guofeng on 26 February 1978 at the National People’s Congress and also published in Peking Review.66 In fact, there was nothing new in the policy because: it re-stated the view that ‘Overseas Chinese’ should be encouraged to take local citizenship and that these Chinese were no longer citizens of China. In fact, such Chinese already form the majority of all ethnic Chinese in the region. It also stated that those who were still Chinese citizens should obey local laws, live in harmony with the local people, and contribute to the development of the economy and culture of these countries.67 However, there were two other main elements of the policy which raised doubts in SouthEast Asian capitals about China’s real intentions towards the Overseas Chinese. First, the policy as outlined in the editorial of Renmin Ribao maintained that while those who became foreign nationals were no longer citizens of China, ‘they are still our kinfolk and friends’. 68 Second, the editorial appealed to the South-East Asian governments to ‘protect the legitimate rights and interests of Overseas Chinese and respect their national tradition[s], custom[s] and habits’.69 The trouble was that China did not clarify whom it considered as ‘Overseas Chinese’. According to Professor Suryadinata, the policy was in fact a revival of the preCultural Revolution policy in which China declared that Overseas Chinese were part of the Chinese nation.70 Therefore, the two elements could be interpreted as a call from Beijing for all Chinese overseas not to forget their cultural identity and motherland. Worse, the policy also ‘leaves the impression that China expects “Overseas Chinese” to be “patriotic” towards the Chinese motherland’.71 Such a policy might have reflected Beijing’s insensitivity to the ASEAN governments’ feeling on the question of the ethnic-Chinese minority in their respective countries. However, there was some doubt as to whether Beijing was prepared to commit itself to its declared policy; it had not done so during the preCultural Revolution period. Professor Suryadinata, for example, argued that the policy was 'merely rhetoric' because 'after the release of the policy statement in January 1978, Beijing had not done anything to protest against or stop…assimilationist policies, at least in the ASEAN countries'.72 He also suggested that China's government became more aware of the sensitivity of this issue in South-East Asia after Deng Xiaoping's visit in 1978 to three ASEAN countries. After that visit, unlike during the previous period, China's leaders began to distinguish clearly between the Overseas Chinese who were Chinese nationals and those who had become foreign nationals. This significant change was reflected in the official use of specific terms referring to different groups of Overseas Chinese. For example, they used huaqiao to refer to Overseas Chinese who were Chinese nationals, and huaren for ethnic Chinese who were local citizens.73 However, changes in China's policy and in its leaders' attitudes concerning this issue did not result in an immediate change in the Indonesian elites' perception. Indeed, post-1976 China's Overseas Chinese policy was viewed by many Indonesian leaders as a renewed attempt to maintain close ties with Chinese abroad. Beijing's attempt to persuade the

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Overseas Chinese to invest in China annoyed Indonesia's leaders.74 For them, China's policy towards the Overseas Chinese remained unclear and ambiguous.75 Moreover, China's reaction to Vietnam's treatment of its ethnic-Chinese minority was taken as further evidence of China's true intention towards the Chinese minority. In March 1978, Vietnam launched what it called 'the socialist transformation of South Vietnam' which inevitably deprived thousands of families of businessmen - overwhelmingly ethnic Chinese — of their possessions and livelihoods. By summer 1978, this policy had caused a massive exodus of Chinese residents from Vietnam to China. For China, the Vietnamese act represented an 'arrogant' challenge by Hanoi to its new Overseas Chinese policy and also to its claim as a regional power. The massive exodus of Chinese Vietnamese deepened Beijing's anger which responded by sending two ships to 'bring home persecuted Chinese'.76 This event might have prompted Indonesia's Foreign Minister Mochtar, during a visit to Singapore in July 1978, to draw the parallel between what had happened in Indonesia in 1959-1960 and what was happening between China and Vietnam, and state that China's policies there 'had made us [Indonesia] cautious'.77 Indonesia's wariness was strengthened when in February 1979 China attacked Vietnam following Hanoi's invasion of Cambodia which toppled Beijing's close ally, Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge, from power. However, there had not been other evidence to suggest that China was still committed to maintaining ties with the ethnic-Chinese minority in South-East Asia, especially in Indonesia. For example, China had not reacted to the naturalisation programme carried out by Indonesia's government in early 1980. It had also refrained from making any comment, let alone interfering, in the wake of outbreaks of anti-Chinese rioting in Indonesia in 1980 and in 1982, and then again in 1984—1985 in the context of the Tanjung Priok Affair. There was strong evidence to suggest that China had come to value its developing relationship with ASEAN countries, and tried not to allow its policy towards these countries to be dictated and affected by the ethnic-Chinese minority issue. The fact that China was eager to normalise diplomatic ties with Indonesia might have contributed to Beijing’s willingness to adopt a low profile over the ethnic-Chinese minority issue. And such an attitude proved to be useful in abating the disruptive aspect of the ethnic-Chinese problem in the overall process of normalisation of relations. Besides demonstrating that China no longer maintained ties with the ethnic-Chinese minority, Beijing’s low profile had also made it difficult for those in Indonesia who might have still wished to use this issue to delay the normalisation further. By the end of the 1980s, even though the ethnic-Chinese minority remained a sensitive issue in China-ASEAN relations, it was no longer as dominant as it had been before in Indonesia’s calculations in restoring diplomatic ties with China. For Indonesia’s leaders, China’s policy of maintaining ties with communist parties in South-East Asia seemed to be more fundamental to the prospect of normalisation. Such a policy was closely associated with a continuation of Beijing’s inclination to interfere in the internal affairs of other countries. Indeed, this issue was often brought up by Indonesia’s leaders, including President Suharto, when they spoke of conditions for restoring Indonesia-China diplomatic ties.

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China’s policy towards communist insurgencies and China’s changing role in South-East Asia. China’s policy towards the ethnic-Chinese minority in South-East Asia was not the only delicate problem which had obstructed the normalisation of Indonesia— China diplomatic relations. As discussed in Chapter 4, China’s policy towards communist parties in SouthEast Asia in general and the defunct PKI in particular also stood as a major issue. The fact that some former PKI leaders were living in China and had been given political asylum there was often cited as evidence of China’s continued support to the Party. As a corollary, it was also said that China had not given up its intention to help rebuild the PKI. Therefore, Indonesia’s government demanded that China officially declare and promise not to assist the PKI as one condition of restoring diplomatic relations. Some military leaders even demanded that China acknowledge its involvement in the 30 September abortive coup, and apologise for it. At a wider level, China’s policy towards communist movements in SouthEast Asia was also seen as a major constraint on normalisation. For Indonesia, therefore, the termination of what was called China’s ‘dual track diplomacy’ in South-East Asia constituted another major condition for normalisation.78 It is not difficult to understand why China’s ‘dual track’ policy of cultivating intergovernment relations, on the one hand, and maintaining party-to-party relations, on the other, was unacceptable to Indonesia’s government. Indonesia’s leaders found China’s wish to improve inter-state relations insincere, because at the same time Beijing continued to support PKI remnants in waging an armed struggle against the New Order government. As one journalist asserted, ‘this is an odd way of fostering good inter-state relations’.79 Moreover, the fact that China continued to maintain links with communist movements in Thailand and Malaysia even after establishing diplomatic ties was not lost on Indonesia’s government. Despite the dual track practice, a number of analysts have stressed that since the end of the Cultural Revolution, there were signs to suggest that such a policy had been effectively abandoned by Beijing in favour of a policy of improving state to state relations with ASEAN countries.80 Such positive signs became more evident after the resumption of power of Deng Xiaoping by 1978. Heaton, for example, has argued that ‘since 1975…a number of significant changes created a challenge to dual track diplomacy with the result that China has gradually reduced its ties with insurgencies in favor of strengthening governmental ties’. 81 According to him, the reasons for the change were the rise of moderate leadership in postMao China, China’s growing ties with the West, and the growth of Soviet and Vietnamese ‘hegemonism’ in South-East Asia. Therefore, he maintained, ‘China has progressively disassociated itself from the communist-led insurgencies in South-East Asia because of a perceived need to secure ASEAN support on the Indochina question’.82 The reduction of media reports on insurgent communist activities, and the downplaying of messages of greeting from these parties were seen by Heaton as two important symbols of Beijing’s changing policy towards communist parties in South-East Asia.83 Another scholar, Michael Yahuda, also maintained that ‘there is evidence of a decline in communist insurgency activities in the Asean countries and there are no publicly available indications to suggest that the Chinese have resumed material assistance to the communist insurgents.’84

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Indeed, most analyses suggest that if during the period of Cultural Revolution until the mid-1970s, China maintained a degree of support for communist armed insurgencies in the region, that was intended to deny Vietnam and the Soviet Union the opportunity to exert greater influence over them. In other words, such a policy was more a result of China’s conflict with Moscow and Hanoi than a genuine attempt to subvert ASEAN governments. Since late 1978, it became clear that Beijing had been trying to win ASEAN’s confidence. During his tour of three ASEAN countries (excluding Indonesia) in November 1978, for example, Deng Xiaoping assured the host governments that China was not a threat to their countries because Beijing had no intention of interfering in the internal affairs of other countries. In the case of Indonesia, however, Deng’s attempts had not been very successful. The New Order government’s view of China’s long-term intention remained fundamentally unchanged. Such a view was then sustained by the fact that until the mid-1980s, statements by China’s leaders remained fraught with ambiguity. For example, even though Deng promised that China would not interfere in other country’s internal affairs, he also maintained that China’s ties with communist parties could not be cut off ‘without very serious international implications for China’.85 Deng’s remarks on China’s non-interference were reiterated by China’s Prime Minister Zhao Ziyang during his visit to four ASEAN countries in August 1981. But, he also stated that ‘relations between China and communist parties were just moral and political relations’.86 Again, when attending the Commemoration of the 30th Anniversary of the Bandung Conference in Indonesia in April 1985, China’s Foreign Minister Wu Xueqian was reported to have admitted that China continued to maintain ‘moral relations’ with other communist parties, although such relations would never be used to interfere in internal affairs of other countries.87 In this respect, China seemed to have overlooked how the meaning of China’s support to communist parties for regional governments was conceived by the New Order government in Indonesia. For Indonesia, the nature and the degree of that support was not important. What was important was that it still showed the fact that China did support communist parties in South-East Asia. In Indonesia’s view, it was the matter of China’s present priority that determined why the nature and degree of China’s support took the form it did. In other words, Indonesia’s government-believed that there was a strong possibility that the so-called ‘moral’ support would change into political or military support should the need arise. In the eyes of Indonesia’s government such a policy seemed to show only a shift in the emphasis in the dual track diplomacy; from party-to-party to governmenttogovernment relations. There was a strong suspicion that such a shift was only temporary, because China’s interest at the time—especially in the context of Sino-Soviet rivalry and Sino-Vietnamese conflict—forced the country to emphasise governmental rather than party-to-party relations. Therefore, a public statement from China stating that it would no longer support communist parties in the region became a matter of principle for Indonesia’s government. This was repeatedly reiterated by President Suharto and other military and civilian figures. Indeed, statements by China’s leaders on this subject received a great deal of attention in Indonesia. Asked by a journalist when the government had begun to see changes in China’s attitude towards Indonesia, the Minister of State for the State Secretariat, Moerdiono,

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recalled ‘Since quite a long time. We have seen (signs of change in China’s attitude) from various statements by China’s leaders on the relationship with Indonesia.’88 And when such a promise was said to have been given by China during the meeting between President Suharto and Foreign Minister Qian Qichen in Tokyo in February 1989, then Indonesia declared that it was prepared to restore diplomatic ties with China. Policy justification and perception of the elite: has Indonesia really changed? From the above analysis of changes in the domestic and external environment, it is clear that Indonesia’s official reasons for refusing to restore diplomatic relations with China had become more and more irrelevant. First, Indonesia refused to normalise diplomatic ties with China because the New Order government believed that Beijing continued to support the cause of communist insurgency in South-East Asian countries, including Indonesia. However, from the mid-1970s, it had been difficult to prove that China still pursued such policies. Second, normalisation had been difficult because Indonesia believed that China had not given up its intention to use the ethnic-Chinese minority for its own national interests. Changes in China’s policies towards this minority in fact showed that such an intention was not the case anymore. Third, the problem of national security in relation to the question of normalisation with China had also undergone significant changes. It can be said that by the end of the 1980s, the problem of the communist revival and the ethnicChinese minority no longer posed a significant threat to Indonesia’s internal security. More importantly, objective domestic conditions had become favourable for normalisation. If normalisation was previously constrained by the government’s concern with maintaining political stability in order to secure legitimacy, by 1985 that paramount objective had largely been achieved. The New Order government had succeeded in controlling various challenges to its legitimacy. By 1989, for the first time since the suspension of diplomatic ties in 1967, concurrent domestic and external conditions provided an opportunity for normalisation to materialise. If there was still a reason that prevented normalisation, it was a historical one which could not be changed, namely, Indonesia’s conviction of China’s involvement in the 30 September 1965 abortive coup. However, there was a strong sense on the part of policy makers that continuously clinging to this issue would be counter-productive for Indonesia’s image, because such an attitude would reveal the naïvety of Indonesia for allowing its foreign policy to be continuously dictated by history. Seen from such a perspective, it can be said that the prospect for restoring diplomatic relations with China became more evident due to three developments; namely, the official reasons used to resist normalisation had lost touch with reality; the emergence of favourable domestic conditions characterised by the absence of internal challenges to regime legitimacy; and Indonesia’s conviction of China’s acceptance of Indonesia’s conditions for normalisation. In other words, by early 1989 domestic and external constraints to normalisation, upon which Indonesia’s resistance had been founded for 23 years, were no longer in place. It is these considerations that led the normalisation decision to be taken by Indonesia’s government. As Minister Moerdiono stated in February 1990, five months

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before the official restoration of diplomatic relations took place, ‘as of today there is no reason that prevents normalisation of relations between the two countries from materialising.’89 Such considerations were reflected in the way Indonesia’s government justified and presented the normalisation decision to its domestic audience from the normalisation decision in February 1989 until August 1990 when diplomatic ties were officially restored. Of course, the broader framework within which such a decision was justified had been that of ‘national interests’. However, there were five discernible themes which were often brought up by Indonesia’s government in this regard. First, it was said that the decision to normalise diplomatic ties with China was in accordance with the objective of Indonesia’s economic development. The most obvious reason, as discussed earlier, was to gain wider access to the growing market in China; hence to promote Indonesia’s non-oil exports. Minister of Industry Tungky Aribowo, for example, asserted that ‘the increasing role of non-oil and gas commodity [in Indonesia’s exports] entails an excellent potential in improving the trade between Indonesia and China’.90 Even the Coordinating Minister for Security and Political Affairs Admiral Soedomo, who had been a strong opponent of normalisation, believed that ‘the restoration of diplomatic relations [with China] will be significant for increasing the welfare of the [Indonesian] people’.91 Second, normalisation should be considered natural since China was a major power in the region, and, more importantly, its attitude and policy had changed in many respects. Foreign Minister Ali Alatas, for example, pointed out in an interview with TEMPO magazine that: China, no matter what, is a big country. It is big in terms of its population, and it plays a big role as a developing country. So is Indonesia. We live in the same region. And, this region is experiencing turbulence, in the process of rapid change. Indonesia and China are two most active and important actors.92 Minister Moerdiono considered that normalisation was possible because China’s attitude had softened by ‘agreeing to take follow up measures based on the Dasa Sila Bandung [Ten Bandung Principles] and five other principles [five principles of co-existence]’. He also maintained that ‘this is a big change, because so far China had always regarded ethnicChinese abroad as its citizens’.93 In a response to a query by journalists on his way back to Indonesia from Tokyo, President Suharto stated that ‘perhaps, there have been reforms in China so that they can now accept what we have wanted from the beginning’.94 Third, normalisation was necessary if Indonesia was to play a more assertive international role as prescribed by the principle of bebas-aktif foreign policy. In a hearing before the DPR in February 1990, Minister Moerdiono argued that ‘[i]n accordance with the bebas-aktif foreign policy, there is no reason at present for the two countries, which have experienced new developments during this 23 years, not to have good relations'.95 He also maintained that given the restoration of diplomatic ties with China, Indonesia’s foreign policy would be more energetic (lincah).96 Fourth, the government stressed that domestic political conditions had been supportive for such a decision to be made, especially in terms of ‘threat to ideology’, ‘internal security’

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and ‘political stability’. For example, Minister of Defence and Security General Benny Moerdani stated that ‘if we fear that our ideology will be rubbed out [tergeser], just because we establish a relationship with China, that means we doubt the strength of our own ideology. We do not have to worry about the de-freezing of those ties. Because, our ideology is quite strong [tangguh]’.97 Commander of ABRI, General Try Sutrisno declared that ‘at present, Indonesia has been quite stable [kokoh] so that there is no need to be scared of those who attempt to spread their ideology’.98 He also stated that from a security perspective, there is no need to worry about the restoration of diplomatic ties with China because ‘Indonesia’s national resilience is already strong [mantab]’.99 Fifth, it was said that China had accepted the conditions set by Indonesia. Of most significance in this respect was the promise from China that it would adhere to the principle of non-intervention both in state-to-state and party-to-party relations, and no longer maintain links and support communist insurgency movements in the South-East Asia region. On the principle of non-intervention, after the Tokyo meeting Minister Moerdiono stated: ‘The [Chinese] Foreign Minister defined that the principle of non-interference means no interference of a state in another state’s affairs and no interference of a party in another party’s affairs in the respective countries.’100 He also stated that ‘I felt that I have received a guarantee that either China’s Communist Party or China’s government will not maintain a relationship with the PKI, let alone support it’.101 On China’s links with regional communist parties, President Suharto maintained that ‘finally China’s government adopted an attitude that it will no longer support the remnants of G-30-S/PKI, [and this is] in line with the conditions that we set up’.102 Do such justifications reflect a complete turn-about in Indonesia’s foreign policy elite perception of China? On the contrary, the resumption of diplomatic ties has not been contemplated as the disappearance of the so-called ‘China threat’ in the country. Although various domestic developments had been favourable to normalisation, and China’s attitude had also undergone significant changes, a degree of distrust of China among Indonesia’s leaders has remained discernible. Indeed, the foreign policy elite’s reactions to President Suharto’s decision were mixed. It is interesting to note that very few members of the political elite took a straightforward stance on the issue, while no-one embarked on direct opposition against the decision. A positive response was generally expressed by civilian politicians within GOLKAR circles, the business community and, of course, DEPLU bureaucrats. They tended to welcome the decision by emphasising the political and economic advantages that could be gained by Indonesia from a normal relationship with China.103 Others, while welcoming President Suharto’s decision, tended to adopt a reserved position and used vague language in expressing their views. However, it was not difficult to identify that such attitude was generally taken by antinormalisation forces, and this represented the majority view among the foreign policy elite. They were not happy with the decision, and called for the government to be cautious and vigilant. After the Tokyo meeting, ABRI and other antinormalisation forces remained antagonistic to the idea of restoring diplomatic ties with China, and therefore tried to delay it, albeit in a moderate tone. Such reactions reflected the fact that despite changes in China’s policies towards

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regional communist parties and the Overseas Chinese, the majority of Indonesia’s elite, especially the military, still perceived China as a potential threat.104 However, the threat was now defined in much broader terms and took on a new dimension to include the notion of China as a potential threat to regional security as well. China is seen as a power which still harbours the ambition to bring South-East Asia under its influence and domination. For example, a leading ABRI intellectual General Sayidiman Suryohadiprojo, former Governor of LEMHANAS, warned that China should not be trusted easily. He also expressed the fear that the success of China’s modernisation programme would enhance the country’s military capability.105 Many expressed concerns that changes in international and regional politics, especially the perceived decline of the American and Russian roles in Asia-Pacific, would strengthen the prospect for realising China’s hegemonic ambition. China’s attitude in dealing with territorial conflicts in the South China Sea, for example, was quickly brought up by Indonesia’s elite, military and civilian, as the most obvious manifestation of such ambition.106 Such a view held by ABRI is of importance for this study if we are to understand the deeper structural circumstances of Indonesia’s decision to normalise diplomatic relations with China. As argued in the previous chapter, the dominant position of ABRI in the power structure constituted one factor that had made normalisation difficult. ABRI took the strongest stand against an ‘early normalisation’. Therefore, its reactions to President Suharto’s decision suggests an interesting political development: even though ABRI was not happy with the decision, it did not oppose it directly. As a senior DEPLU official put it, ‘ABRI’s position was that of disagreement to but not opposition to it’.107 This suggests that despite the government decision, the structure of foreign policy debate among the foreign policy elite had not changed significantly. However, the anti-normalisation groups had to accept the fact that the protracted debate was finally resolved with the government’s decision to restore diplomatic ties with China; a decision that DEPLU and KADIN had been waiting for. Arguments used by the government to justify the decision were indeed arguments which had long been advocated by pronormalisation elements in DEPLU and KADIN circles. One tentative conclusion is that ABRI was no longer the same constraint on Presidential decision making. Conclusion This chapter has examined changes in the domestic and external environments that had created a favourable condition for the restoration of diplomatic ties between Indonesia and China. From the domestic perspective, factors that previously worked to prevent the normalisation were no longer in place. Two major obstacles to normalisation—the threat from the PKI remnants and the problem of the ethnic-Chinese minority—had been more or less removed. The domestic political condition had also become more favourable to normalisation. Challenges to regime legitimacy and survival, which often carried antiChinese tones with them and, therefore, served as a constraint preventing the New Order government from moving towards normalisation with China, had not been as significant and effective as they used to be. Therefore, by the end of 1980s the negative domestic

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implications of any move towards restoring diplomatic relations with China were no longer as great as they had been in the past. Moreover, the rise of new challenges to sustain economic development—as a prime basis of regime legitimacy—had forced Indonesia’s government to reassess the merits of restoring diplomatic ties with China. The relative success of economic development led to the restructuring of the domestic priority from ‘stability for development’ to that of ‘development for stability’. However, economic difficulties from the early 1980s as a result of the continuing decline in oil income forced Indonesia’s government to restructure its economy. Indonesia began to boost non-oil exports, and China was seen as a potential market for Indonesia’s non-oil commodities. The resumption of direct trade between the two countries in July 1985 helped to create a better atmosphere for normalising diplomatic ties. From the external perspective, the significance of having diplomatic ties with China found its renewed justification due to the rise of a new mood of assertiveness in Indonesia’s foreign policy. The New Order government began to feel that it was time for Indonesia to reclaim its entitlement to play a more active role in regional and international affairs. Within this context, the restoration of diplomatic ties with China was seen as necessary for Indonesia if it were to play such a role. This was reinforced by changes in China’s policy towards the ethnic Chinese minority, and the decline in Beijing’s links with regional communist parties, especially with the PKI. In fact, such changes in China’s policy had occurred even since the late 1970s, but it was the Indonesian government’s recognition of those changes at the end of the 1980s that really mattered. As mentioned above, the normalisation decision came after Indonesia’s government felt that China had finally given an assurance that it would no longer maintain links with, and support for, communist parties in South-East Asia. The discussion in this chapter has also sought to reveal that many ABRI leaders were not happy with the government’s decision to restore diplomatic ties with China. They have continued to perceive China as a threat. President Suharto’s decision in February 1989 was received with mixed reactions. Despite ABRI’s official position in lending support to the decision, some circles within the anti-normalisation group continued with their opposition. Therefore, there are some questions that should be examined if we are to understand the complete picture of Indonesia’s decision to normalise diplomatic ties with China. If ABRI was still not happy with the government decision, how did normalisation continue to take place? If Indonesia’s resistance to normalisation until February 1989 was a result partly of ABRI’s dominant position in the New Order political configuration, did the decision to normalise mean that ABRI as a corporate entity was no longer dominant? Had there been significant changes in the nature of New Order’s domestic politics which enabled President Suharto to override military objections to normalisation? Indeed, as will be discussed in the next chapter, it seems that the underlying reason for Indonesia’s restoration of diplomatic ties with China was that the policy of resistance had lost its capacity to fulfil its previous domestic functions due to a significant development in domestic politics; namely, the decline of ABRI’s role and influence in policy making and the rise of President Suharto to whom the ability to ‘safeguard’ Indonesia from a communist threat no longer constituted a primary basis for legitimacy. In the context of such a significant change in the power structure, normalisation with China, instead of a continued resistance,

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helped to serve new domestic requirements of the ruling regime; namely, to seek international recognition of the success of Suharto’s leadership in Indonesia, to display the supremacy of President Suharto in domestic politics and policy making, and consequently, to bolster his legitimacy. Notes 1 See President Suharto’s state address in August 1967 in Soeharto, Amanat Kenegaraan I 1967– 1971 Jakarta: Inti Idayu Press, 1985), p. 11. 2 Ridwan Saidi, Golkar Pasca Pemilu 1992 (Jakarta: Grasindo, 1993), p. 13. 3 The five bills were: the political parties and GOLKAR bill, the election bill, the DPR/MPR bill, a referendum bill and the mass organisation bill. 4 Richard Robison, ‘Indonesia: Tension in State and Regime’, in Kevin Hewison, Richard Robison and Garry Rodan, eds, Sautheast Asia in the 1990s: Authoritarianism, Democracy, and Capitalism (St Leonards: Allen & Unwin, 1993), p. 44. 5 The introduction of Asas Tunggal significantly reduced the power base of the PPP and PDI. The PPP could no longer claim to represent the interest of the Muslim community which traditionally constituted the party’s main power base. The PDI had to give up its credence as representing nationalist aspirations. This provided an opportunity for the ruling party, GOLKAR, as the main beneficiary of Asas Tunggal, to broaden its claim as a political organisation which represented all elements in society, including Islamic and nationalist. 6 See M.Rusli Karim, Nuansa Gerak Politik Era 1980-an di Indonesia (Yogyakarta: Media Widya Mandala, 1992), p. 55. 7 R.Eep Saefulloh Fatah, ‘Manajemen Konflik Politik dan Demokratisasi Orde Baru’, Ulumul Qur’an, Special Edition, vol. V, nos. 5–6 (1994), pp. 142–145. 8 R.William Liddle, ‘Indonesia in 1986: Contending with Scarcity’, Asian Survey, vol. XXVII, no. 2 (February 1987), p. 213. 9 TEMPO, 17 March 1994. 10 Jamie Mackie, ‘Indonesian Political Developments, 1987–1988’, in Hall Hill and Jamie Mackie, eds, Indonesian Assessment 1988 (Canberra: Australian National University, 1989), p. 14. 11 See Mochtar Pabotinggi, ‘Indonesia: Historicizing the New Order’s Legitimacy Dilemma’, in Muthiah Alagappa, ed., Political Legitimacy in Southeast Asia: The Quest for Moral Authority (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1995), pp. 224–256. 12 Charles A.Coppel, Indonesian Chinese in Crisis (Kuala Lumpur: Oxford University Press, 1983), pp. 156–157. 13 H.Junus Yahya, ‘Sudahkah Kita Berdakwah di Kalangan Keturunan Tionghoa?’ [Have We Preached among Chinese Descendants?], Merdeka, 18 May 1984. 14 TEMPO, 4 March 1989. 15 H.Junus Yahya, ‘Catatan Seorang WNI: Kenangan, Renungan & Harapan-12' [A Diary of an Indonesian Citizen: Memory, Reflection, and Hope, no. 12], Pelita, 14 January 1989. 16 Leo Suryadinata, China and the ASEAN States: The Ethnic Chinese Dimension (Singapore: Singapore University Press, 1985), p. 139. 17 Coppel, Indonesian Chinese, p. 167.

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18 For an account of the political participation of Indonesia’s Chinese, see Leo Suryadinata, ‘Patterns of Chinese Political Participation in Four ASEAN States’, Contemporary Southeast Asia, vol. 15, no. 3 (December 1993), pp. 294–297. 19 Reuben Talana Mondejar, ‘Two Determinants for a Stable Relationship between the ASEAN States and China: The ASEAN-Based Ethnic Chinese and the Kampuchean Conflict’, Masters thesis, Faculty of Arts and Sciences, Harvard University, 1988, p. 56. 20 Soeharto, Pikiran, Ucapan, dan Tindakan Saya [My Thought, Words, and Deeds], autobiography as told to G.Dwipayana and Ramadhan K.H. (Jakarta: Citra Lamtoro Gung Persada, 1989), p. 380. 21 For a discussion of the position of the ethnic-Chinese minority in early 1990s Indonesia and problems surrounding it, see Adam Schwarz, A Nation in Waiting: Indonesia in the 1990s (St Leonards: Allen & Unwin, 1994), especially Chapter 5. For a study that covers an earlier period, see Coppel, Indonesian Chinese. 22 For an analysis of the incident in April 1994 and its implications for Sino-Indonesian relations, see Rizal Sukma, ‘Recent Developments in Sino-Indonesian Relations’, Contemporary Southeast Asia, vol. 16, no. 1 (June 1994). 23 Interview with General Benny Moerdani, 16 February 1995. See also Harry Tjan Silalahi, ‘Cina dan Permasalahannya’ [On the Question of China], paper presented at Indonesia’s Institute of National Defence (Lemhanas), Jakarta, 13 April 1994. 24 Robert O. Tilman, The Enemy Beyond: Threat Perceptions in the ASEAN Region (Singapore: ISEAS, 1984), p. 35. 25 Anne Booth, ‘Introduction’, in Anne Booth, ed., The Oil Boom and After: Indonesian Economic Policy and Performance in the Soeharto Era (Singapore: Oxford University Press, 1992), p. 1. 26 Veena Mishra, ‘Indonesia: Adjustment in the 1980s’, in Pradeep Agrawal et al., Economic Restructuring in East Asia and India (London: Macmillan Press, 1995), p. 106. 27 Ibid. 28 Booth, ‘Introduction’, p. 19. 29 For example, Indonesia’s recorded export to China rose from US $8.3 million in 1981 to US $27 million in 1983. See Hadi Soesastro, ‘Hubungan Indonesia-Cina: Tenang di Semua Front’ [Indonesia-China Relations: Quiet in All Front], Analisa (CSIS), vol. XVI, no. 11 (November 1987), p. 995. 30 Suara Karya, 16 October 1984. 31 Kompas, 12 November 1984. 32 Kompas, 6 December 1985. 33 See statement by Deputy Secretary-General of KADIN, Chris Walean, in TEMPO, 15 December 1984. 34 Kompas, 12 November 1984. 35 Interview, 14 February 1995. 36 Hadi Soesastro, Aspects of Sino-Indonesian Economic Relations after the Resumption of Diplomatic Relations’, in Hadi Soesastro and Ji Guoxing, eds, SinoIndonesian Relations in the Post-Cold War Era (Jakarta: CSIS, 1992), p. 137. 37 Hadi Soesastro, Indonesia-China Relations in the 1990s: Trade and Beyond, Mimeograph no. 36/ 90, June (Jakarta: CSIS, June 1990), p. 15. 38 Ibid, p. 20. 39 Kompas, 25 April 1985. 40 Kompas, 20 February 1988. 41 Merdeka, 20 February 1988. 42 Merdeka, 22 July 1985.

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43 Michael Vatikiotis, ‘Indonesia’s Foreign Policy in the 1990s’, Contemporary Southeast Asia, vol. 14, no. 4 (March 1993), p. 358. 44 See, for example, Sabam Siagian, ‘Peringatan Lima Windu Dicanangkannya Politik Luar Negeri Bebas Aktif’ [The 40th Anniversary of Independent and Active Foreign Policy], Kompas, 2 September 1988. See also Manuel Kasiepo, ‘Setelah 40 Tahun: Diperlukan Penafsiran Baru terhadap Prinsip Bebas Aktif’ [After 40 Years: The Need for a New Interpretation of the Independent and Active Principle], Kompas, 3 September 1988. 45 The Jakarta Post, 6 September 1988. 46 Michael Leifer, Indonesia’s Foreign Policy (London: Allen & Unwin, 1983), p. 140. 47 Ibid., p. xiv. 48 The Jakarta Post, 6 September 1988; and Suara Pembaruan, 6 September 1988. See also Siagian, ‘Peringatan Lima Windu’, Kompas, 2 September 1988. Siagian might have quoted Professor Leifer wrongly. 49 See Kompas, 3 September 1988. 50 Suara Pembaruan, 6 September 1988. 51 The Jakarta Post, 6 September 1988. 52 Ibid. 53 The Jakarta Post, 3 September 1988. 54 Kompas, 3 September 1988. 55 Sinar Harapan, 25 April 1985. 56 The Jakarta Post, 23 August 1986. 57 The Jakarta Post, 10 March 1984. 58 The Straits Times, 15 May 1984. 59 See Rizal Sukma, ‘Indonesia Toughens China Stance’, FEER, 5 September 1996. 60 The Returned Overseas Chinese (guijiao) refers to those Overseas Chinese who returned to live in China after residing abroad. It also included their families (yu qiaojian) and the Overseas Chinese students (huaqiao xuesheng). This group lived better than the indigenous Chinese and adopted a different lifestyle and values. They were not fully integrated into Chinese society at large, and indeed became the target of envy and jealousy. During 1966–1976, the Returned Overseas Chinese became victims of radical changes in China’s domestic politics. They were regarded as ‘bourgeois, parasite, spies, and counter revolutionaries’, suspected, and even beaten up and detained. For a comprehensive discussion of this subject, see Suryadinata, China and the ASEAN States, especially Chapter 3. See also Stephen Fitzgerald, China and the Overseas Chinese: A Study of Peking’s Changing Policy 1949–1970 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1972). 61 For a detailed analysis of factors contributing to renewed Chinese interest in the Overseas Chinese, see Wang Gungwu, ‘China and the Region in Relations to Chinese Minority’, Contemporary Southeast Asia, vol. 1, no. 1 (April 1979), pp. 36–50. 62 Suryadinata, China and the ASEAN States, p. 68. 63 For a detailed account of events in China symbolising Beijing’s renewed interest in Overseas Chinese, see C.Y.Chang, ‘Overseas Chinese in China’s Policy’, The China Quarterly, no. 82 (June 1980), pp. 281–303. 64 This Commission, which oversaw the Overseas Chinese affairs, both Domestic Overseas Chinese and the Chinese abroad, was dissolved in 1968. See Suryadinata, China and the ASEAN States, pp. 65 and 79. 65 Ibid., p. 69. 66 See Peking Review, no. 10 (10 March 1978). 67 Wang Gungwu, ‘China and the Region’, p. 36.

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68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75

76

77 78

79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103

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Peking Review, no. 3 (20 January 1978), p. 16. Ibid. Suryadinata, China and the ASEAN States, p. 71. Wang Gungwu, ‘China and the Region’, p. 41. Suryadinata, China. and the ASEAN States, p. 71. Ibid., pp. 3–4. See Sinar Harapan, 7 January and 24 April 1978; Merdeka, 28 March 1978; Kompas, 25 April 1978; and TEMPO, 25 February 1978 and 29 March 1980. See, for example, Foreign Minister Mochtar’s statements in Kompas, 7 December 1979 and 27 March 1980. See also Jusuf Wanandi, ‘Peranan Cina di Asia Tenggara’ [China’s Role in Southeast Asia], Analisa (CSIS), vol. XVI, no. 11 (November 1987), p. 984. For an illuminating account of this event in Sino-Vietnamese relations, see Nayan Chanda, Brother Enemy: The War after the War: A History of Indochina since the Fall of Saigon (Orlando, Fla.: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1986), especially Chapter 8. The Straits Times, 21 July 1978. For a more comprehensive discussion and background information on China’s relations with insurgent communist parties in the region, see in particular Jay Taylor, China and Southeast Asia: Peking’s Relations with Revolutionary Movements, second edition (New York: Praeger, 1976) and J.D. Armstrong, Revolutionary Diplomacy: Chinese Foreign Policy and the United Front Doctrine (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1977). David Bonavia, ‘China and Southeast Asia’, Asian Perspective, vol. 1, no. 2 (Fall 1977), p. 158. Wanandi, ‘Peranan Cina di Asia Tenggara’, p. 984. William R. Heaton, ‘China and Southeast Asia: The Decline of Dual Track Diplomacy’, Asian Survey, vol. XXII, no. 8 (August 1982), p. 780. Ibid., p. 781. Ibid., p. 796. Michael Yahuda, The China Threat (Kuala Lumpur: ISIS, 1986), p. 26. Quoted in ibid. Antara, 10 August 1981. Asiaweek, 10 May 1985, p. 30. Editor, 4 March 1989. Angkatan Bersenjata, 7 February 1990. Antara, 18 December 1989. Merdeka, 10 February 1990. TEMPO, 4 March 1989. Interview with Minister Moerdiono in Editor, 4 March 1989. Suara Karya, 27 February 1989. Angkatan Bersenjata, 7 February 1990. Merdeka, 14 September 1990. Angkatan Bersenjata, 2 March 1989. Antara, 8 February 1990. Antara, 4 July 1990. The Jakarta Post, 24 February 1989. Suara Pembaruan, 24 February 1989. See also interview with Minister Moerdiono in Editor, 4 March 1989. Antara, 27 February 1989. See, for example, statements by leading members of the GOLKAR faction in the DPR in Suara Karya, 4 July 1990; and Antara, 14 July 1990.

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104 Dewi Fortuna Anwar, Indonesia and the Security of Southeast Asia (Jakarta: CSIS, 1992), p. 46. 105 Sayidiman Suryohadiprojo, ‘Hankam Tahun 2000’, Teknologi dan Strategi Militer, vol. III, no. 26 (August 1989), pp. 11–20. 106 This view was raised by the majority of military and civilian figures in interviews conducted by the author during field research in Indonesia, July 1994-March 1995. 107 Interview, 14 February 1995.

7 Indonesia’s normalisation decision and the role of President Suharto

In the previous chapter, it had been argued that by the end of the 1980s, a number of changes in Indonesia’s domestic and external environments had provided the New Order government with an unprecedented opportunity to restore diplomatic ties with China. In the domestic domain, the absence of serious political challenges to the regime’s legitimacy since 1985, the relative success of the New Order’s policy of bringing the ethnic-Chinese minority under the control of Indonesia’s ruling elite (but not necessarily into a wider Indonesian society), and the changing basis of regime legitimacy from stability to development (one that forced the New Order’s government to restructure its economic strategy), all contributed to the emergence of favourable conditions for normalisation with China. Along with such changes, there had been a growing demand in elite circles that Indonesia play a greater role in international and regional affairs. Indeed, after more than two decades of the New Order rule, economic and political achievements had bred a new mood of assertiveness in Indonesia’s foreign policy which, in turn, justified further the need for restoring diplomatic ties with China. In the external environment, evident changes in China’s policy towards the ethnicChinese minority and regional communist parties, especially towards the Indonesian Communist Party (PKI), helped to speed up the pace of the normalisation process. In short, by the end of 1980s, a number of factors that were previously depicted as the main external constraints to normalisation by Indonesia’s government and foreign policy elite were no longer evident. This summary analysis of the emergence of favourable conditions for the removal of ‘official’ constraints to normalisation does not offer an account of the decision itself, however. Any analysis of foreign policy making cannot be complete without an analysis of how the foreign policy decision—as the final phase of the foreign policy making process— is actually made. To understand fully Indonesia’s decision, it is necessary to analyse the political context within which the normalisation decision was made. In this respect, one important question arises: how was the decision made to normalise diplomatic ties with China, by whom, and through which structures and process? As discussed in Chapters 5 and 6, during the 23 years of ‘frozen’ relations, the military (ABRI) stood as the main opponent to normalisation. After the decision to proceed with normalisation was taken by President Suharto in February 1989, ABRI’s attitudes and views on the issue had not changed completely. Nor had the views of other anti-normalisation forces. Many ABRI leaders remained cautious and continued to harbour the view of China

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as a potential threat. Despite the fact that ABRI refrained from expressing outright opposition to President Suharto’s move, there is evidence to suggest that some ABRI leaders did try to delay the process of normalisation. That attempt failed; the official resumption of diplomatic ties between Indonesia and China took place on 8 August 1990. If ABRI, as the dominant force in Indonesia’s politics and policy making after President Suharto, had succeeded in preventing normalisation for more than two decades throughout the 1970s and 1980s, why did it fail in 1990? Why did President Suharto still proceed with normalisation even though ABRI, which had been his power-base, was clearly unhappy with such an initiative? Such questions require an analysis of the decision-making process itself as a critical context within which the decision on normalisation was taken by Suharto’s government.1 A consideration of the above questions, which is the main objective of this chapter, is of crucial importance in understanding Indonesia’s decision to restore diplomatic ties with China in particular, and the nature of foreign policy making in Indonesia’s New Order in general. It will be argued that the decision to normalise diplomatic ties with China was made possible by three significant changes in the nature of Indonesia’s policy-making system: the decline of ABRI’s role, the unrivalled position of President Suharto, and his growing interest and confidence in foreign policy matters. The interaction of these three developments, and their impact on Indonesia’s foreign policy making, made it possible for President Suharto to take a critical decision without worrying too much about any possible reactions that might weaken his political position and legitimacy. Such a decision demonstrated further his supreme authority over important policy issues in Indonesia, including foreign policy. The analysis in this chapter is divided into three sections. The first section examines the position of ABRI in the New Order’s power structure at the time the decision was taken. It shows that a significant change in the New Order’s power structure had in fact begun to take place since the mid-1980s, in which ABRI’s corporate role was in gradual decline while the President’s rose in the ascendancy. The second section analyses how such a significant change in domestic politics was reflected also in the way in which foreign policy making had become a new domain of interest for President Suharto. The third section examines the significant role played by President Suharto in ‘de-freezing’ the diplomatic ties with China. It analyses how the decision to normalise diplomatic ties with China was actually made and through which structures and process. The changing political structure: the decline of ABRI’s role and the ascendancy of President Suharto On the way back to Jakarta after attending the funeral of Japan’s Emperor Hirohito in Tokyo, during which he took the surprising decision to normalise diplomatic relations with China, President Suharto admitted that the government was aware of the fact that some segments in Indonesia still worried about the initiative.2 ‘However,’ he argued, ‘of course we should remain vigilant. Towards other countries, we also keep our vigilance.’3 Such remarks indicated that Suharto knew that his decision would not make every domestic constituency happy. Moreover, subsequent reactions from some ABRI leaders calling for

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normalisation to be postponed were, of course, not lost on the President. If that was the case, why did he continue to proceed with his initiative? Had President Suharto ignored the fact that ABRI, which had been his main power-base since the advent of the New Order government in 1966, was the most strident opponent of normalisation? It would seem that President Suharto had judged that his decision, albeit sensitive, would not provoke overt opposition from the military. Suharto had not miscalculated. As events following the decision suggest, the two most senior ABRI leaders, Commander of ABRI General Try Sutrisno and Minister of Defence and Security General Benny Moerdani, were soon to register their support that ‘ABRI was ready to back-up the government’s decision and safeguard the normalisation process’.4 Despite the fact that the majority of Indonesia’s elite still harboured a deep-seated suspicion of China, no-one seemed prepared to express direct opposition to the government’s decision. As Dr Dewi Fortuna Anwar has rightly suggested, ‘those opposed to having closer ties with China have generally voiced their criticisms in moderate tones, since no one wanted to be seen as opposing the president.’5 Some disgruntled ABRI leaders went only to the extent of issuing warnings about the possible risks of the undertaking; a reaction which cannot be characterised strictly as direct opposition. The degree and form of ABRI’s reactions and their impact on the President’s decision in 1989 were quite different from those, for example, in 1978. In that year, there was speculation that President Suharto was receptive to the idea of improving ties with China and was even prepared to take the necessary steps towards normalisation. Indeed, in his address before the MPR (People’s Consultative Assembly) on 11 March 1978, President Suharto stated boldly that Indonesia’s Government ‘is taking preparatory measures to enable the restoration of diplomatic relations with the People’s Republic of China’.6 A few days earlier, interim Foreign Minister Mochtar Kusumaatmadja had reportedly disclosed to the press that Indonesia was making ‘preparations to normalise relations with China’, even though he was quick to add that ‘Indonesia has always been careful in its preparations’.7 Such gestures from two of Indonesia’s top leaders, especially from the President himself, indicated that normalisation with China was high on the government’s foreign policy agenda. However, strong reactions from anti-normalisation groups, especially from ABRI leaders and Muslim politicians, apparently forced the government to abandon the idea.8 Moreover, as discussed in Chapter 5, the domestic situation at the time precluded the government from pursuing such an unpopular policy. It seemed that President Suharto was concerned not to add another sensitive issue that could easily be used by opposition parties to undermine his government's credibility any further. The episode also indicated the presence of some structural constraints faced by the government and President Suharto in the decision-making process. The political climate in 1989—1990 was very different from that in previous years. By this time, President Suharto presided over a power structure which had undergone a significant change since the mid-1980s. In the first two decades of New Order, Suharto's position in the political structure owed much primarily to strong support from ABRI as an institution. Indeed, it would be difficult to draw a clear institutional line between the President and the military at that time. However, by the end of the 1980s, it became clear that Suharto had succeeded in building his own power base to the extent that he had become

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a political force quite independent of ABRI. David Jenkins had observed signs of this trend as early as 1984 when he wrote: 'Suharto stood at the apex of the pyramid; his appointees sat in each of the key executive, legislative, and judicial branches of government'.9 A leading Indonesian expert on military issues, Dr Salim Said, has also asserted that '[ABRI's] political activities are determined by the President. This is the fact that cannot be denied.'10 It is important to recognise, however, that the rise of President Suharto to an unrivalled position did not necessarily mean a total decline in ABRI's power and influence as a prominent political force in Indonesia. ABRI's position within the state and society has remained strong, but it is significantly weak only when it comes to Suharto. As President Suharto's power became unassailable, his role in foreign policy making also grew larger. Meanwhile, ABRI's role in this area had undergone a gradual, but steady, decline, as had ABRI's overall role in the policymaking process at the national level. The decline in ABRI's role in policy making was partly a result of Suharto's success in promoting his position separate from and, more importantly, above any other political institutions in Indonesia. The changing relationship between Suharto and ABRI in the power configuration of the New Order had brought about significant implications for the foreign policymaking process in Indonesia, especially with regard to the decision on normalising diplomatic ties with China. Suharto's changing relationship with ABRI Albeit indirectly, the question of how and why Suharto has been able to occupy an unrivalled position in the New Order's power structure has been extensively discussed by many scholars.11 It is beyond the scope of this study to examine in detail why Suharto succeeded in sustaining and also increasing his power over more than two decades. What is relevant for it is the fact that the New Order has witnessed a steady rise of President Suharto's power and influence as a political force in his own right. One may disagree with accounts of the sources of Suharto's power and the nature of his rule. However, few would disagree that by the mid-1980s, 'President Suharto was then very clearly the pre-eminent figure on the stage, having edged aside all possible challengers to his authority, from within the Armed Forces or elsewhere.’12 Indeed, at the time of writing this, Suharto’s position(contrary to speculation in some western quarters that his hold on power has been diminished by recent events), in the words of ABRI Chief for Social and Political Affairs, has been pronounced ‘absolutely strong. Who can shake [the position of] Pak Harto?’13 It is this fact , and how it influenced the decision-making process, that is relevant for explaining why Suharto succeeded in overriding ABRI’s objection in the case of normalisation with China. The rise of President Suharto to an unassailable supreme position can be divided into four distinct periods. The first is the period of collective consolidation (1966–1973). During this period, Suharto derived his power primarily from ABRI, and his position was that of primus inter pares among the core of ABRI leadership. He regularly consulted other members of ABRI leadership on important policy issues. During this period, Suharto and his core aides within the military leadership worked to consolidate ABRI’s internal unity. ABRI expanded its role and influence in every aspect of national political life at the expense of

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other forces. This period marked ABRI’s search for an ‘all-out’ implementation of the dwifungsi doctrine. The second period is the period of personal survival (1974–1978). As the civilian political forces felt more alienated, and dissatisfaction among students who saw the ruling elite as becoming corrupt was growing, a series of protests and demonstrations broke out. As mentioned earlier, thses demonstrations culminated in the outbreak of a series of violent riots in Jakarta on 15 January (the socalled Malari Affair). The Malari Affair marked the beginning of a more repressive period in the New Order’s Indonesia. The government moved to reduce the strength of opposition forces which paved the way for the establishment of a more authoritarian government. Even though Suharto survived this event, his position remained shaky as his indecisive handling of the Pertamina case annoyed some military leaders.14 As the 1978 presidential election was approaching, there was speculation at the time that the ABRI leadership was reluctant to help him be re-elected.15 However, Suharto managed to secure ABRI’s backing and get himself elected as president for a third term in 1978. The third is the period of personal consolidation (1978–1985). After the 1978 election, Suharto moved to strengthen his position. He pushed aside critics, and managed to curb the most open challenge posed by the Petition-50 group formed by retired military officers and civilian leaders during 1980–1981. The evident results of economic development silenced those who had doubted the merits of the development strategy which Suharto had supported. A sense of ‘performance legitimacy’16 created in the previous years was strengthened during this period. The 1983 presidential election was relatively an easy one for Suharto to secure a fourth term. The years 1984 and 1985 saw the success of Suharto’s political strategy when his political agenda of ‘regulating’ social and political forces was finally accepted (the acceptance of Five Political Bill in 1985). The Muslim community attempted to resist the policy, but Suharto managed to secure their compliance, though in some cases he had to resort to coercive and repressive measures (selectiv coercion). Reflecting on the episode, Suharto stated the ‘we should be happy because we have contributed something fundamental to the continuity of our nation’s life…by deciding Pancasila as the only asas [principle]…Our objective is only to integrate all layers [of society], groups, forces, and generation of our nations.’17 However, in the words of an Indonesian writer, die imposition of Asas Tunggal means ‘all political forces and mass organisation have been successfully tamed’.18 The fourth period is that of supreme authority which began roughly from 1986 to the present. Given the acceptance of the Asas Tiaiggal, there had been no further significant challenge for Suharto. Even the largest Muslim organisation, the Nahdlatul Ulama (NU), accepted Asas Tunggal and declared that its acceptance of Pancasila was driven by religious, not political, motivation; thus conferring Islamic legitimacy on the New Order government’s attempt to ‘integrate’ all political and social forces within a single ideology. 19 Hein describes Suharto’s position well in 1986: Working steadily and deliberately to consolidate and institutionalise his authority in all important aspects of government and politics, he has achieved a position of preeminence and a subsequent degree of independence of action that Sukarno could

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only have dreamed of, the foreign policy included. Suharto is, quite simply, alone at the top of the policy-making pyramid, widi no competing center of political power that can effectively challenge his decisions.20 Suharto’s growing power and influence since the mid-1980s was accompanied by another significant change in the New Order’s power structure, namely, the decline of ABRI’s power. This was in part due to the strategy of ‘civilianisation’ pursued by Suharto so as to legitimise his rule through civilian mechanisms such as general elections and die appointments of more and more civilian politicians as members of his cabinet. If there were still military men in the cabinet, they were no longer retained on active service and had retired before they were appointed to take up positions in the cabinet. Consequently, as Suharto gradually moved to the top of the pyramid of power, it became evident that ABRI was no longer in the position to exercise its institutional influence over the President. By the end of the 1980s, Max Lane observed that ‘ABRI has become increasingly an instrument carrying out general policies which it has no say in formulating’.21 An initial sign of the changing Suharto—ABRI relationship, though not yet clear at the time, emerged in February 1988 when the President removed General Benny Moerdani from his position as ABRI’s Commander. Suharto’s decision was quite surprising, because the replacement took place only one month before the newly formed MPR convened to elect die President and Vice-President and when it was conventional to make such a senior military change. Suharto appointed General Try Sutrisno, his former adjutant and Army Chief of Staff, to replace General Moerdani. The fact that the dismissal came only shortly after General Moerdani’s period of active service had been extended for another year by President Suharto in October 1987 indicated that there was another reason than just a ‘tour of duty’ for the decision. Speculation began to circulate that the decision reflected growing tension between ABRI and President Suharto due to the former’s determination to have a greater say in determining the result of the MPR session. It was also widely believed that General Moerdani had begun to voice ABRI’s concerns over the possible implications of the business activities of Suharto’s children and the question of presidential succession.22 Then, it was also announced in early September 1988 that the powerful KOPKAMTIB would be abolished and replaced by a new body, BAKORSTANAS (Coordinating Body for the Enforcement of National Stability).23 If the KOPKAMTIB had come to symbolise the unlimited power of the military in national political affairs, the creation of BAKORSTANAS marked its downgrading. Even though the new organisation was still headed by the Commander of ABRI, many of its previous functions were transferred to the police such as the right to intervene in civic matters such as student demonstrations and Muslim protests. 24 More importantly, the fact that BAKORSTANAS was required to report directly to and under the direct command of the President suggests that its creation was intended to reduce not only the power of former ABRI Commander General Moerdani but also the autonomy and civil power of the military as a corporate institution. In the end, the replacement of KOPKAMTIB by BAKORSTANAS strengthened the President’s power further. However, it was only during the 1988 presidential election that the decline of ABRI’s power and influence vis-a-vis Suharto, and the differences between them, became more public. During the 1988 presidential election, some elements within ABRI for the first time

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expressed disagreement with Suharto publicly. While supporting the re-election of Suharto for the fifth time, ABRI opposed Suharto’s decision to choose Lieutenant-General (ret) Sudharmono as his VicePresident. Sudharmono, who spent most of his career in administrative and military-related legal works, was never regarded as a ‘real’ military man by many ABRI leaders. He was perceived by ABRI as working against its corporate interests during his tenure as state secretary during which he succeeded in elevating the State Secretariat (Sekrwg) as a new power centre of the New Order, which in turn reduced Suharto’s dependence on the support of ABRI.25 During the MPR proceeding, a member of the ABRI faction in the Parliament (DPR), BrigadierGeneral Ibrahim Saleh, stormed the podium and interrupted the election proceeding complaining about Suharto’s choice. Even though ABRI’s leadership attempted to portray the outburst as Saleh’s ‘personal view’, not that of ABRI as an institution, there was speculation that Brigadier-General Ibrahim Saleh spoke in fact on behalf of his less courageous fellow military ofiicers, and reflected the general mood among ABRI. This speculation was strengthened by the circulation of rumours depicting Suharto’s choice for Vice-President was ‘not environmentally clean’26 (tidak bersih ling/cungari). The spread of this rumour was thought to be the work of some elements in ABRI out to undermine Sudharmono’s credibility.27 However, the degree of Suharto’s power and influence over ABRI became more evident when the Chairman of the MPR General Kharis Suhud, went ahead to proclaim that Sudharmono was officially elected as the Vice-President of the Republic for the period 1988–1993. This incident marked the beginning of a significant change in the Suharto ABRI relationship. It is true that differences between Suharto and other ABRI leaders had occurred in the past. However, such differences mainly existed between Suharto and retired military leaders and more on a personal basis. Moreover, as Max Lane has observed, ‘discontent in the armed forces [prior to 1978] was not yet reflecting institutional tension with the regime.’28 The current differences, which were in part reflected in the incident during the 1988 election of the Vice-President, suggested the nature of the changing Suharto—ABRI relationship on the basis of the separation of ABRI and Suharto as two separate political forces. Therefore, discontent among ABRI since the end of 1988 has marked the presence of problems, if not friction, between ABRI as an institution, on the one hand, and Suharto, on the other. Thus, by the end of the 1980s, the relationship between Suharto and ABRI was rather strained with the former more powerful-than the latter. The growing dissatisfaction of ABRI with Suharto’s choice for Vice-President continued to manifest itself following the 1988 election. In its attempt to consolidate its place in the centre of national political life, ABRI then moved to concentrate on the GOLKAR Congress scheduled for November 1988. ABRI was apparentiy worried that Sudharmono, the incumbent chairman of GOLKAR, would be re-elected for a second time. Therefore, ABRI wasted no time in re-establishing its strong position within the GOLKAR leadership. In the lead up to the GOLKAR Congress, ABRI managed to secure over 70 per cent of the regional representatives to the national Congress.29 This development brought about some speculations that ABRI wanted to place its own man as Chairman of GOLKAR. However, the issue was resolved when President Suharto nominated another retired general, Wahono, to be the only candidate for the position. The nomination was accepted by the ABRI leadership.

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The year 1988, therefore, clearly witnessed how the pre-eminent position of President Suharto was expressed in practice. However, why Suharto has been able to emerge to such a strong position would be better understood if one also considers another question: why was ABRI not able to rival Suharto’s position, influence and power? The important question to ask in this respect is not only why Suharto became so strong, but also why there was noone capable of challenging him. Or, more specifically, why has ABRI been so weak vis-avis Suharto? ABRI’s position and dilemma During the first two decades of New Order, it was difficult to draw a clear distinction between Suharto and ABRI. Suharto’s power was derived mainly from ABRI’s support, and from the fact that ABRI was strongly unified under his command. Moreover, Suharto was primus inter pares within the core of ABRI leadership. However, as mentioned earlier, since the early 1980s Suharto’s position had gradually become more powerful, while the decline of ABRI’s influence and power vis-a-vis Suharto was becoming more evident. As Schwarz has observed, ‘if in the first fifteen years of the New Order, Abri and Soeharto were practically synonymous, their relationship has grown more distant since the early 1980s.’30 By the end of the 1980s, the trend towards the separation of Suharto and ABRI as two distinct political forces had become more discernible. Dr Harold Crouch, for example, observes that signs of the separation between the Suharto government and ABRI, which also meant the weakening of ABRI’s position in national decision making, began in the early 1980s when a new generation of ABRI officers —the Magelang (military academy) Generation—began to hold key commands in ABRI. A separate identity between the government and ABRI became more evident by 1988 when the power gap between Suharto and ABRI grew wider after the removal of General Moerdani as Commander of ABRI. Though there were still military men in the cabinet, their positions were due to President Suharto’s power of appointment not because of militaiy backing or their military background.31 While Suharto’s power grew stronger and unrivalled, ABRI began to lose the basis for legitimacy upon which it could assert its continued dominance in national political life. As discussed in the previous chapters, the legitimacy of ABRI was founded on its claim to be (1) the guardian of the state at a time of crisis; (2) the provider of order and stability; and (3) the agent of national development. However, after being the backbone of the New Order government for more than 20 years, the focus of legitimacy of the New Order government shifted from an emphasis on its ability to provide and ensure stability, order and unity to the ability to deliver the results of economic development. In this regard, credit for successfully improving the national economy went largely to Suharto—instead of ABRI as an institution—through the exercise of what Professor Liddle has called ‘performance legitimacy’.32 In this regard, ABRI faced a major difficulty in competing with Suharto on the issue of who should receive the credit as the most important player in promoting economic development. By implication, therefore, ‘legitimacy’ which was based on an ability to deliver economic goods accrued largely to Suharto instead of ABRI. The result

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was unpleasant for ABRI; it had to face a major problem of maintaining the relevance of its political role.33 This factor constitutes the fundamental cause for the emergence of a new power structure in the New Order which saw the strengthening of Suharto vis-à-vis ABRI as an institution. Initially, ABRI took part and, indeed, played a substantial role, in promoting the current success of the New Order, but at the end it was President Suharto (as the core of the New Order government) who benefited most from that success. In other words, after 20 years of rule, Suharto has himself become the supreme political force in Indonesia, meanwhile other forces including ABRI—only constitute major players in a game where no-one but Suharto exercises complete control over the rules. As events during the 1988 presidential election demonstrated, when Suharto simply overrode ABRI’s objection to LieutenantGeneral Sudharmono being elected as Vice-President, ABRI leaders realised that their power and influence was less than they had assumed.34 ABRI’s power and influence was also undermined by the rise of new power centres, especially in the bureaucracy. The role of Sekneg, especially since the appointment of Sudharmono in 1982 as the Minister of State for the State Secretariat, was thought to have been instrumental in this regard. As an agency through which presidential power over the apparatus of state—including ABRI —was exercised, Sekneg was given the responsibility for controlling the allocation of contracts relating to government projects.35 ‘A most important consequence of this,’ Robison points out, ‘was the exclusion of the military from key sources of patronage and economic influence.’36 More generally, the emergence of new economic players, such as President Suharto’s children, has also supplanted the role of ABRI in business.37 The generational gap between the new ABRI leaders and President Suharto also played an important role in undermining further its role and influence in decision making. The quality and credibility of leadership of ABRI as an institution was seen to have eroded with the passing of the 1945 generation from the national political scene. ABRI leaders at the end of the 1980s were different from those of the 1970s. They comprised military officers who since 1960 had graduated in the main from the national military academy in Magelang, a small town in Central Java—the so-called Magelang Generation. This generation differed from the previous one in two important respects. First, they had not participated in the revolution against the Dutch during 1945–1949. Second, unlike members of the older generation who earned their military reputation through direct participation in the War of Independence, the new generation was trained professionally and conventionally in a military school.38 The implications of such a generational gap for power relations in Indonesia’s political context was obvious. First, leaders of the new ABRI did not possess the same level of expertise and experience as that of Suharto and leaders of ABRI’s older generation either in dealing with general issues or in managing political afFairs and statecraft, not to mention the legitimacy gap mentioned earlier. Admiral Soedomo, former Commander of KOPKAMTIB, once remarked that the lack of experience of younger ABRI officers was the result of rapid promotion.39 Second, seen in the context of Javanese culture, this generational and expertise gap also worked to the disadvantage of ABRI, since no-one in Indonesia was prepared to openly challenge and confront their elders. Third, the

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professional training received by the new generation had assured a changed outlook of the officers’ corps towards politics and ABRI’s place and role within it. Lasdy, and no less significant, there were fewer military thinkers among the new ABRI compared to the older generation. If during the 1970s until the mid-1980s ABRI was known as ‘the house for influential political and military thinkers’ (gudang pemikir), by the end of the 1980s that reputation had already waned.40 The call by Minister of Defence and Security General Benny Moerdani in mid-1988 for a special school devoted to training potential leaders was believed to have reflected ABRI’s dissatisfaction about the capabilities of its younger generation.41 One indication of the weakness of ABRI vis-à-vis President Suharto was reflected in the way ABRI leaders expressed their feelings about this issue. For example, ABRI leaders tended to avoid straightforward ways of expressing their dissatisfaction with the distribution of power. They complained about the exces sive concentration of power in ‘the presidential office’ (lembaga kepresidenan) rather than ‘in the hands of the President’ (di tangan Presiden). This example suggests that no-one was courageous enough to refer to Suharto as a person. Seen from within Indonesia’s cultural domain, this shows the extent to which Suharto was so influential as a political force that public criticism was unlikely. It is important to note, however, that some die-hard opponents of Suharto such as Lieutenant-General (ret) Ali Sadikin and other members of the Petition-50 group have been an exception to this constraint. ABRI’s inability to reassert its power vis-à-vis President Suharto to the level it once used to enjoy stemmed from ABRI’s own dilemma in responding to the problem with which its leaders were confronted. On the one hand, ABRI clearly resented the fact that its power and influence had been reduced and downgraded. And, some military leaders believed that it was the president himself who had worked systematically to undermine that power. And this belief opened up greater opportunity for societal forces to question the validity of the dwifiingsi doctrine, thus undermining further the already shaky foundation of ABRI’s legitimacy and its prerogative right to play a dominant role in all aspects of political and economic life. Aware of the implications of this trend for their future role, some segments within ABRI’s leadership embarked upon a struggle to regain their influence as an important political force, as clearly demonstrated in die events following the 1988 presidential election discussed above. On the other hand, however, ABRI was constrained by ‘the rules of the game’ laid down by Suharto’s New Order government, to which it had been a significant contributing party. The most signiiicant ‘rule’ was a strict adherence to ‘constitutional’ means of conducting politics. For example, ABRI always maintained that a change in leadership or government should be effected through constitutional means, namely, through general elections and a presidential election. A military coup was out of the question since such an action, while obviously unconstitutional, would not confer any legitimacy on ABRI. Suharto himself has set the precedent by acting within the bounds tolerated by the Constitution in managing the transition of power from Sukarno to himself. It took two and a half years from October 1965 before Suharto was confirmed as Indonesia’s second President in March 1968.42 Therefore, ABRI had no other choice but to accept its subordinate position while struggling to sustain its previous dominant position vis-à-vis other political forces except

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the President. There was speculation, however, that some elements within ABRI had tried to undermine Suharto’s credibility, for example, by forging an alliance with other forces outside the elite, and by raising the question of the business activities of Suharto’s family. 43 It is beyond the scope of the present study to discuss the nature of the struggle between Suharto and some ABRI leaders over political supremacy. What is more important is that as Suharto’s power grew stronger by the end of the 1980s, ABRI’s role and influence in policy making was no longer as strong and dominant as it had been before. Indeed, as one scholar has observed, ‘it had become clear that ABRI was no longer a centre of power that set the policy agenda but, increasingly, the bodyguard of the regime.’44 Such a change in power structure placed Suharto in a position of personal pre-eminence in the structure of policy making, barely constrained by outside forces. Moreover, with political stability securely established, he was freer in taking what he thought as right decisions in all fields, including foreign policy. And, with the rise of his interest in foreign policy affairs, Suharto soon demonstrated that he was also the pre-eminent actor in deciding in which direction Indonesia’s foreign policy should or should not move. Suharto and foreign policy making: the discovery of a new ‘appetite’ If President Suharto had enjoyed a prominent position since the mid-1980s, why then did he wait until 1989 before he decided to normalise diplomatic ties with China? It has been argued in Chapter 6 that Suharto had scored an important victory in 1985 in his attempt at ‘restructuring’ (menata kembali) Indonesia’s domestic politics, whereby Islamic groups finally submitted to his demands that they accept Pancasila as their sole principle. Therefore, it may be suggested that Suharto did not want to put further pressure on the Muslim community by taking a decision which could be construed as another blow to their political views and interests. In this regard, a decision on normalisation with China would have become an additional factor in strengthening the Muslim’s sense of grievance against Suharto’s regime. Seen from the role played by President Suharto in policy making, it may be argued that the significance of normalisation with China began to receive greater attention from President Suharto with his growing interest in foreign policy issues. A change in his attitude towards the question of restoring diplomatic ties with China coincided with the change in his interest in foreign policy matters. Around the mid-1980s, for example, DEPLU’s arguments in favour of normalisation based on Indonesia’s international position were still less attractive than economic arguments for Suharto. During that time, in shaping the conduct of foreign policy, Suharto’s primary attention was still on the economy. It was his concerns over domestic economic difficulties due to the sharp decline in national revenue, rather than the desire to assert a more active foreign policy role, that had contributed to his decision to resume direct trade with China in 1985. This suggests that Suharto’s personal preference clearly served as a significant factor in determining not only the outcome of foreign policy debate but also the state of Indonesia-China relations. Suharto’s personality and his style of leadership is marked and imbued by the principle of acting ‘step-by-step’ and ‘slow but sure’ (setahap demi setahap and lamban tapi pasti).

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Suharto himself, as early as 1971, has stated: ‘I have been abused as a “slow but sure” Javanese, ajavanese who is like a walking snail, like a snail whose shell is too big and heavy for its body. Never mind.’45 His role and involvement in foreign policy making in Indonesia also reflected such attitude. Hein succinctly describes this pattern when he writes: the years since the start of the New Order have seen a step-by-step progression in the President’s own level of experience and expertise in foreign affairs, in his level of personal hands-on involvement in the field, and even the degree to which he ‘feels comfortable’ handling foreign policy matters.46 Initially, Suharto rarely voiced his opinion on foreign policy issues.47 His interest in and appetite for foreign policy issues were limited to those which assumed an immediate relevance to national economic development at home and to stability in South-East Asia. Suharto believed that internal consolidation should be given top priority before Indonesia should undertake meaningful foreign policy initiatives. In a speech on 16 August 1969 Suharto stated clearly that ‘we shall only be able to play an effective role if we ourselves are possessed of a great national vitality’.48 It is obvious that for Suharto, ‘the basic foreign policy impulse is one of pragmatism, toward a national interest defined largely in terms of economic development.’49 He clearly believes that all foreign policy initiatives should be carried out within the framework of what benefits they could bring to Indonesia’s economic development.50 The proceeding years then had seen Indonesia’s active foreign policy in retreat, and it was consequently charged with being ‘low profile’. The waning of Indonesia’s role and influence in world politics had become the main consequence of the conduct of the New Order’s foreign policy which was directed to domestic economic interests. Critics maintained that it was Suharto’s lack of interest in foreign policy issues that caused the waning of Indonesia’s influence on the international stage. Supporters of the regime, on the other hand, refuted the charge arguing that Indonesia should be internally strong before it could play a more active international role, and that despite various constraints and limitations Indonesia had actively carried out foreign policy initiatives relevant to such an objective. As Fuad Hassan, then head of the Agency for Research and Development of DEPLU, has argued, ‘it certainly will be misleading to conclude that, owing to those limitations and constraints, we are completely deprived from taking any initiative pertaining to international events.’51 However, such a practice began to change in 1985 when Suharto began to entertain new interests in foreign policy and international issues. The discovery of a new appetite for foreign policy began roughly in April 1985 when President Suharto received an invitation from the United Nation’s Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO) to deliver a speech on behalf of the developing world at its meeting in Rome in November that year. The FAO praised Suharto for the success of his government in bringing Indonesia to self-sufficiency in food production52 and awarded him an FAO Ceres award. The inclusion of this event in his autobiography suggests that it was a proud moment for Suharto. More importantly, the event seemed to raise Suharto’s self-confidence precisely because he valued such recognition from the international community.

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The earliest expression of such a desire to play a more active international role on the part of President Suharto came in April 1985 when Indonesia hosted the commemoration of the 30th Anniversary of the Bandung Conference. The event, despite the conspicuous absence of leading figures from Non-Aligned countries such as Rajiv Gandhi of India and its mixed results, was regarded by many Indonesians as the first step by Indonesia to becoming active again in international affairs. Indeed, as Richard Nations has put it, ‘the commemoration is thought to have been timed to shed a floodlight on Indonesia’s New Order which—after 20 years in relative seclusion to concentrate on internal consolidation —can now be proudly displayed.’ More importantly, he also observed that despite the fact that the event was devoid of any concrete result, ‘lndonesia’s 1955 Bandung conference commemoration places Suharto on the world stage.’53 Suharto’s growing interest and involvement in foreign affairs was also reflected in an increase in his travels abroad. In October 1985, Suharto travelled to Eastern Europe for the first time to open up a new chapter in Indonesia’s relations with communist countries. Foreign Minister Mochtar Kusumaatmadja, in his 1986 end of the year press statement, noted that by 1986 ‘there has been an increase of [foreign] visits on [sic!] both the Head of State and the Foreign Minister level’.54 Such visits clearly indicated the emergence of new enthusiasm on the part of Suharto to expand Indonesia’s international role beyond a traditional preoccupation with an ASEAN-focused diplomacy. Again, it should be emphasised that Suharto’s personal views and involvement were significant in this regard. Until the early 1980s, for example, a former foreign minister believed that ‘basically, Suharto doesn’t like foreign policy’,55 and his reluctance to participate in various international summit meetings was widely known.56 Indeed, after his experience at the NAM Conference in Lusaka in 1970, Suharto had never been to any of the Movement’s subsequent summits despite the fact that Indonesia was a leading founding member of the Movement. However, in 1986 after he had gradually become more interested in reestablishing Indonesia’s credentials as a leading Non-Aligned country,57 Indonesia formally offered to host the Ninth Non-Aligned Summit in 1989.58 While in the past where his meetings with members of the cabinet were mainly preoccupied widi national development issues, by the late 1980s, Suharto began more often to discuss foreign policy and international issues with his ministers. For example, former ABRI Commander and Minister of Defence and Security General Benny Moerdani also recalled that Suharto’s interest in foreign affairs became more evident during 1988–1989. Moerdani remembered that if previously Suharto had devoted most of his time to discussing various problems in economic development, it seemed that from the end of the 1980s the President showed more interest in foreign policy issues.59 Towards the end of the 1980s, Suharto’s view on how Indonesia’s foreign policy should be executed during the 1990s took concrete form. Following his visit to Moscow in 1989, Suharto reiterated his view that ‘lndonesia will have a say in the world only if it has successfully addressed its domestic challenges’.60 The next year, in his August 1990 national day address, Suharto declared that such challenges had been met so that it was the time for Indonesia to play a greater international role. Indeed, from the end of the 1980s it had become clear that Indonesia had begun to implement what Suharto had promised at the beginning of his rule: a greater international role after it possessed a ‘national vitality’ to do so.

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It is difficult to gauge the true degree of Suharto’s determining role and involvement in foreign policy making. Indeed, very few studies have been made of this important issue.61 However, it is possible to infer a picture of a kind from specific cases. Suharto’s central role in foreign policy making, for example, can be observed from cases which were characterised by the presence of elements of rivalry between two important foreign policy actors—ABRI and DEPLU—in securing presidential approval for their respective positions. In this regard, the case of Indonesia’s policy towards Vietnam after Hanoi’s invasion of Cambodia in 1978 provides a good illustration of the significant role played by Suharto in formulating foreign policy. In addition, die degree of Suharto’s role in foreign policy making can be roughly assessed also by looking at what foreign policy issues received most attention from President Suharto, and how such issues became manifest in the conduct of Indonesia’s foreign policy. In the case of Indonesia’s policy towards Vietnam, there was an impression that Indonesia had pursued a ‘dual track’. On the one hand, Indonesia’s policy was in line with that of ASEAN’s in forging a political coalition against Vietnam’s invasion of Cambodia. Indonesia subscribed to ASEAN’s goal of pressuring Vietnam to withdraw from Cambodia. For ASEAN, Vietnam by violating Cambodia’s national sovereignty was seen as an obstacle to the Association’s attempt to achieve its regional objectives of establishing stability in the region and containing extraregional interference. In the case of Cambodia, Vietnam’s invasion had provided a ‘justification’ for China and the Soviet Union to play a large role in determining the shape of regional politics. On die other hand, however, Indonesia also appeared to be sympathetic to Vietnam’s security predicament especially with reference to China, and tended to cultivate separate relations with Hanoi. This tendency was at odds with the general orientation of other ASEAN countries. In fact, this dual track policy reflected a degree of divergence in approach between two main foreign policy actors in Indonesia: DEPLU and ABRI. In this regard, DEPLU was more concerned with the unity of ASEAN in managing regional order, and therefore went along with its position which depicted Vietnam’s policy in Gambodia as aggressive and unacceptable. However, on the other hand, ABRJ insisted that Vietnam was not a threat, and tried to bring Indonesia to follow a course of policy independent of ASEAN and to cultivate good relations with Hanoi. In advocating this view, ABRI argued that Vietnam’s security interest in Cambodia should be respected, because Hanoi’s invasion of Cambodia was the result of the threat posed by China. This implied that for ABRI, Vietnam would serve as a ‘buffer’ against China in South-East Asia. On more than one occasion, the different positions between DEPLU and ABRI brought about contradictory initiatives on the part of Indonesia in its attempt to seek solutions to the Cambodian conflict.62 Interestingly, unlike the case of normalisation with China, DEPLU’s view prevailed over that of ABRI in the sense that it was DEPLU’s position diat Indonesia officially adhered to. ABRI, even though certainly the most dominant voice in foreign policy making, was not able to ‘hijack’ Indonesia’s policy to the extent it had hoped for. Only occasionally was ABRI able to pursue its own initiatives in making conciliatory gestures to the Vietnamese. ABRI’s inability to translate its Vietnam policy into Indonesia’s official policy was particularly curious because in security-related issues, such as the question of Vietnam and China, ABRI’s view usually prevailed over DEPLU’s. In this regard, Suharto’s position

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played a key role in resolving the differences. Suharto was believed to have sided with DEPLU because of his personal preference in valuing unity within ASEAN above other interests. Indeed, as Maclntyre has observed, ‘the story of Indonesian diplomacy toward Kampuchea makes clear that when differences of approach do emerge between the two [DEPLU and ABRI], it is always Suharto’s preference that resolves the issue.’63 Indonesia’s role in the NAM was a favourite theme of foreign policy for Suharto. He was keen to show the world, especially to members of NAM, that his strategy of making domestic economic development his main priority could be used as a model for other developing countries. Many believed that Suharto’s personal experience during the NAM Conference in Lusaka contributed to this interest. Indeed, according to Foreign Minister Alatas, President Suharto told him that the Lusaka Gonference left an unpleasant impression on him. Suharto was not comfortable with the rhetoric of radicalism and conflict surrounding NAM at the time. Moreover, according to Alatas, many of our friends, who did not understand recent developments in Indonesia, asked many questions to him [Suharto], such as: Has Indonesia changed its orientation or is it still a Non-Aligned country? If so, Why did Indonesia disband the PKI and move closer to the West? Even diough we have given the true answers to such questions…they still misunderstood. Therefore, according to Pak Harto, he came to the conclusion that there was little use trying to convince them just by words. What we had to do was to show them with concrete works, namely, by taking care of our own house…Only after we had done this, that we, and also other NAM countries, will have actual leverage to provide a concrete contribution to the Movement’s goals, and make our voice heard by developed countries.64 Alatas’s story clearly suggests that Suharto preferred to lead by example. He also noted that 19 years after the Lusaka Conference, when Suharto attended his second NAM Summit in Yugoslavia in 1989, ‘our friends no longer asked: “Where is Indonesia going to, what are you doing?” but the questions they asked now sounded like: “How did you do it?”’ In this regard, Alatas seemed to believe that the success of Indonesia’s economic development had changed international opinion about the Republic.65 And, in light of this story, it is understandable why Alatas’s predecessor, Mochtar, in a press conference at the end of 1986, stated that by offering to be the Chairman of NAM in 1989, Indonesia wanted to contribute something to the Movement, in line with Suharto’s own thinking about Indonesia’s role in the NAM. It also reflected the domestic mood that the time had come for Indonesia to realise what Suharto had promised before.66 In fact, as early as 1966, Suharto had promised that ‘foreign policy in the phases to come shall be directed to improving international relations in Asia-Africa, including non-aligned countries’.67 And, Indonesia’s persistence in seeking to become the Chairman of NAM from 1986 constituted one manifestation of his attempt to fulfil that promise. President Suharto was also known to have entertained the idea of Indonesia playing the role of a ‘peace maker’, ‘honest broker’, ‘mediator’, or ‘solution facilitator’ in various conflicts. For example, a former aide recalled that Suharto had expressed his interest in

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helping to find a solution to the Moro problem in the Philippines. The same aide also remembered that Suharto was interested in seeking solutions to the India-Pakistan conflict and the Rohingya problem in Myanmar.68 Of these conflicts, the Cambodian conflict was at the top of Suharto’s agenda, perhaps due to the geographical proximity and, more importandy, the widely shared conviction that Indonesia was entitled to play a leading role in the South-East Asia region. In 1968, soon after he assumed executive power, Suharto chose Cambodia for his first overseas tour.69 The ill-fated Jakarta Conference on Cambodia in 1970 constituted an initial attempt to implement such a role. While the actual link is uncertain, the resurgent assertiveness in Indonesia’s foreign policy from the mid-1980s saw the inclusion of some of these issues in Jakarta’s foreign policy agenda. Above all, despite all the frustrations and mixed diplomatic achievements, Indonesia never lost its enthusiasm for bringing the Cambodian conflict to an end. Such enthusiasm had in part been displayed through its initiative to host a series of informal meetings on Cambodia known as the Jakarta Informal Meeting (JIM). How, then, has President Suharto’s role in foreign policy making been exercised, and through what structure and process? In his path-breaking study of Indonesia’s foreign policy, Hein found that ‘one of the most intriguing issues concerning the structure and process of foreign policy making in Indonesia is [the] question of the role of personal relationships, as opposed to institutional ones, in determining eventual foreign policy outcomes’.70 He also noted that even though ‘President Soeharto has in recent years placed greater emphasis on the need for a more institutionalised…style and form of organizational behavior’,71 it would be too early to suggest that ‘institutional relations have replaced personal links as the key factor in foreign policy decision making’.72 Within this framework, Hein argues further, Suharto ‘not only makes the ultimate policy decision from among the many personal and institutional sources of foreign policy inputs he commands, but also sets the tone and the parameter for the whole discussion’.73 Such a description of the nature of foreign policy making in Indonesia’s New Order suggests that President Suharto tends to work through informal and personal networks. Indeed, the record of Suharto’s involvement in foreign policy, which dates back to the years before the birth of the New Order itself, confirms this tendency. The case of the ending of confrontation between Indonesia and Malaysia is quite illuminating in this regard. When konfrontasi was still underway, as Commander of KOSTRAD (Army Strategic Reserve) Major-General Suharto, without President Sukarno’s knowledge but with the blessing of Army Chief of Staff General Achmad Yani, secretly sought peaceful ways of ending the conflict with Malaysia. For this purpose, he used KOSTRAD’s OPSUS (Special Operation) 74 consisting of his trusted aides like Ali Moertopo, Benny Moerdani and A.Rachman Ramli, to establish contacts with Malaysia’s authorities as early as September 1964.75 Initial attempts at making contacts were conducted through Indonesian businessmen involved in trading activities in Jakarta, Kuala Lumpur and Singapore.76 Later on, when Suharto assumed effective political power, this informal effort proved to be a factor that made it easier for both countries to end die conflict peacefully. The fact that Suharto continued to use OPSUS, in addition to the Foreign Ministry, in the negotiation process with Malaysia until the formal re-establishment of Jakarta—Kuala Lumpur diplomatic relations in August 1967 indicated Suharto’s tendency to work through informal channels in dealing with

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sensitive matters. And the case of the restoration of diplomatic ties with China provides another example of Suharto’s tendency to work through informal means before employing a formal one. Suharto and the making of the normalisation decision As mentioned earlier, President Suharto’s interest in and influence on foreign policy grew along with developments in domestic politics and his position in it. In this regard, his attention to and involvement in the question of normalisation with China also grew stronger in accordance with his growing interests and attention towards foreign policy issues. However, it is important to note that such attention has always been conceived within the framework of what Suharto thought to be in Indonesia’s interests, and more importantly, in the domestic interests of his own regime. His position regarding the debate between DEPLU and ABRI on the merits of normalisation with China is illustrative. Initially, he sided with ABRI and Muslim forces on the issue. This stand was in line with the prime political interest of his regime at the time, namely, the need to maintain stability in order to secure and strengthen political legitimacy. However, when the internal political situation and the basis of political legitimacy changed, there was nothing that prevented him, as the pre-eminent decision maker, from pursuing a different course of policy which he saw fit for the current situation and domestic requirements. In other words, the President’s personal feelings and calculations also had a strong imprint on particular policy decisions. In his study of Indonesia’s foreign policy, Hein observes that the question of the normalisation of relations with China constituted one issue over which Suharto’s personal feelings have played an important, and even a decisive role. As one of Hein’s respondents stated, ‘Suharto is very hardheaded on this issue, not just because of specific fears about future subversion or theoretical arguments against communism, but because they killed his comrades.’77 Suharto himself has on more dian one occasion mentioned this ‘bitter past experience’ with China in his speeches. In his speech before MPR on 11 March 1978, for example, Suharto stated that Indonesia was ‘taking necessary preparations that make normalisation with the People’s Republic of China possible…but we should always increase our vigilance against all possibilities in light of our bitter experience in the past’.78 Even when he was receiving China’s Prime Minister Li Peng in Indonesia on the occasion of the official restoration of diplomatic ties in August 1990, Suharto indirectly reminded his guest when he stated that ‘there is no wound that cannot be healed’,79 a clear reference to Indonesia’s long-standing conviction of China’s complicity in the 1965 abortive coup during which six generals were brutally murdered. If personal feelings had such a strong influence on Suharto’s view of China, then it is reasonable to say that normalisation of relations with Beijing would have also depended to a considerable degree on Suharto. As a leading scholar remarked, ‘normalisation with China would not have taken place if Suharto had not wanted to do so’.80 However, Suharto was not a rigid man totally swayed by his own feelings. He was also a pragmatic man who was prepared to change his mind and views if he thought that such a change was necessary and would bring about significant results. Suharto’s view about the significance of diplomatic ties with China had also undergone a gradual change over time. The key factor which

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influenced his changed view on this issue was his own view of the implications of such a change for Indonesia. And, such implications were always measured within the context of Indonesia’s domestic political situation. Therefore, in order to understand the decisionmaking dimension of Indonesia’s normalisation decision, and Suharto’s pre-eminent role in it, it is important to understand how he presided over the making of Indonesia’s normalisation policy. The most significant change in Suharto’s view on the merits of normalising relations with China came in early 1985 when Indonesia agreed to resume direct trade relations with China. Suharto and his government were extremely concerned with the sharp decrease in oil prices on the world market and its devastating impact on Indonesia’s economy. Due to the growing economic difficulties, he strongly supported deregulation measures advocated by the technocrats in the cabinet to boost non-oil exports. Suharto’s commitment and personal endorsement was manifest in his personal involvement to diversify Indonesia’s trade to socialist countries, as indicated by his decision to send Foreign Minister Mochtar to Moscow for the first time in early 1984, and later his own visits to Hungary and Romania in September 1985. Suharto’s attention to seeking alternative funds for sustaining economic development through a change in economic strategy might also have been prompted by domestic political considerations. At the time, he was facing strong opposition from the Muslim community over the imposition of Asas Tiinggal. President Suharto was probably aware that if the country’s economic problems could not be solved immediately, it would be more difficult for him to deal with such a political problem. And the policy of diversifying international trade relations to promote non-oil and gas exports constituted one solution for the difficulties in the economic sector. As the door to socialist countries began to open, some Indonesian businessmen presented China as a promising market for Indonesia’s non-oil exports. They argued that in order to benefit fully from China’s market, direct trade relations with the country should first be resumed. However, ABRI was not very happy with the idea, since it worried that direct trade relations widi China would entail political risks. The proposal was also opposed by those who profited from the role of third party in Indonesia—China indirect trade relations. Moreover, ‘the Taiwan Lobby’ constituted another important factor to consider, since this group was believed to have a close connection widi some prominent figures in BAKIN.81 Therefore, Suharto was faced with the problem of how to find a ‘balance’ between economic needs and political interests. And the most visible option in this regard would be to resume direct trade relations but without having to resort to a formal restoration of diplomatic ties. The opportunity to pursue this option presented itself. Suharto found die solution in KADIN’s interest, represented by its Chairman Sukamdani Sahid Gitosardjono, in opening up business relations with China. KADIN under the leadership of Sukamdani had previously participated actively in supporting the government’s attempt to cultivate business relations with members of the Eastern Bloc, such as the Soviet Union, East Germany and Poland. Sukamdani’s interest in establishing direct trade relations with China grew stronger when, during a visit to Taiwan in August 1984, he learned that many Taiwanese and businessmen from odier countries had begun to turn their attention to China.82 Upon his return, Sukamdani began to seek an opportunity to realise his plan of resuming direct trade widi China. Aware of die sensitive

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nature of Indonesia’s relations with China, Sukamdani first sought Suharto’s approval. However, Suharto did not respond immediately to the proposal. According to Sukamdani’s account, it was only after he had met with Suharto for a third time on 8 November 1984 that Suharto finally gave his approval to Sukamdani’s plan. However, Suharto clearly warned him diat such an attempt should be stricdy private in nature widiout any link with political and diplomatic matters between die two countries which remained ‘frozen’.83 With Suharto’s personal approval in hand, Sukamdani began to establish contacts, especially with business people in Hongkong and Singapore, to pave die way for the resumption of direct trade relations with China. Through an arrangement made by an Indonesian businessman living in Singapore, Tong Djoe, on 28 January 1985 Sukamdani met witii China’s Foreign Minister Wu Xuqian, who happened to be in Singapore.84 The meeting marked die beginning of die resumption of direct trade, and Wu assigned China’s Trade Office in Singapore as the party with which KADIN could discuss the matter further. A new chapter in Indonesia-China relations was opening up. However, Suharto’s personality and style of favouring a step-by-step approach once again determined how any improvement in Indonesia—China relations should be carried out. After his meeting widi China’s Foreign Minister Wu Xueqian in Singapore on 29 January 1985, Sukamdani intended to meet again with Wu when he visited Indonesia in April 1985 to attend the Commemoration of the 30th Anniversary of Bandung’s Asia-Africa Conference. However, when he expressed die plan to Suharto, die President’s answer was firm: ‘there is no need to be in a hurry.’85 Suharto’s objection to Sukamdani’s plan to meet Wu did not mean that the process of resuming direct trade would also face a delay. Only at this time, it seemed diat Suharto wanted to shift the initiative to another party, namely, DEPLU. On 13 April 1985, its Director General of Foreign Economic Relations (HELN) Atmono Suryo announced that the government had asked KADIN to postpone the process of formulating a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) until after the Commemoration of the 30th Anniversary of the Asia-Africa Gonference, and also to postpone its planned visit to Beijing until November 1985.86 Sukamdani, despite feeling that he was being ‘rebuffed’ (digebuk), was obliged to say that KADIN would follow the government’s wish.87 Previously, KADIN had intended to send a delegation to China to discuss the content of the MoU at the end of April.88 In fact, what happened was, after his meeting with Wu on 24 April, Foreign Minister Mochtar disclosed to the press that he and Wu had agreed to take measures towards the resumption of direct trade relations between the two countries, in which Indonesia would be represented by KADIN and China by the CCPIT. It was also announced that the two organisations would soon sign a Memorandum of Understanding.89 This created an impression that it was DEPLU which had taken the lead in the resumption of direct trade links.90 However, control over the initiative soon went back to KADIN, and on 5 July Indonesia-China direct trade relations were resumed. Despite DEPLU’s advice that KADIN visit Beijing in November, a large delegation visited Beijing in the same month from 26 July until 5 August. The episode suggests that it was quite possible that Suharto did not want only one party to claim credit as the initiator of such a significant policy. By shifting the role between KADIN and DEPLU, Suharto clearly intended to distribute a ‘fair’ share between the two. However, such a manoeuvre also suggests that the real initiative came in fact from Suharto.

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Moreover, Suharto’s tactic also effectively ironed out differences which emerged during talks between KADIN and CCPIT, in which China demanded that KADIN first secure an official authorisation from Indonesia’s government.91 Such a demand clearly indicated that China, by expressing its doubt over KADIN’s status, had tried to secure a more direct involvement on the part of Indonesia’s government, thus linking the whole process with the political and diplomatic aspects of Indonesia-China relations. However, after Mochtar’s announcement, China’s demand was no longer heard because such a statement, albeit indirectly, clearly indicated Indonesia’s government’s authorisation to KADIN. It took almost 18 years before Suharto agreed to resume direct trade with China, and five more years before he decided fmally to restore diplomatic ties. This fact clearly reflected his step-by-step approach. As mentioned earlier, President Suharto must have considered the objective political conditions in the domestic domain before he undertook a particular decision, especially such a sensitive one. With regard to Indonesia-China relations, the differences of opinion between ABRI and DEPLU, especially after the confusion surrounding the abortive meeting between Suharto and China’s Foreign Minister Wu Xueqian during the latter visit to Indonesia in April 1985, were not lost on the President (discussed in Chapter 5). It was possible, therefore, that this factor also contributed to Suharto’s decision to take the lead by himself in supervising the resumption of direct trade relations, and later, the normalisation process itself. And, again, his inclination to utilise an informal network of trusted aides, instead of working through official or institutional channels such as DEPLU or the Ministry of Trade, indicated that it was President Suharto who played the key role in the whole process of normalising relations with China. As we have seen earlier, Suharto’s direct involvement in Indonesia’s policy towards China became more visible as both countries began to probe the possibility of resuming direct trade relations. Besides letting Sukamdani explore the way through private channels, Suharto first instructed Junior Minister of State/ Secretary for the Cabinet (Menmud Sekkab), General (ret) Moerdiono, to help and coordinate KADIN’s efforts on his behalf, and later after the signing of the MoU officially appointed him as the Coordinator for the Implementation of Direct Trade Relations between Indonesia and China. Through these appointments, it seemed that Suharto wanted to monitor directly and closely the whole process. For example, Sukamdani admitted that he regularly reported his activities to Moerdiono, and Moerdiono reported back to President Suharto.92 Moerdiono also asked Sukamdani to consult him on the issue.93 The fact that Suharto worked with only a few close confidants also indicated Suharto’s direct involvement. Presidential Instruction no. 9/1985 (INPRES) issued on 23 July 1985, less than three weeks after direct trade was resumed, was illustrative. The INPRES set out regulations and procedures on how the direct trade agreement should be carried out. According to Sukamdani, the Minister of Trade Rachmat Saleh himself knew about the INPRES only on the date it was issued.94 Meanwhile, the INPRES constituted an instruction from the President to six ministers—Saleh was among them—and ABRI Commander, Chief of BAKIN, and Governor of the Central Bank, asking them to help facilitate KADIN’s efforts in promoting trade with China.95 For those still opposed to any improvement in Jakarta-Beijing relations, it was clear that the INPRES indicated Suharto’s greater attention to, and direct involvement in the endeavour.

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Such an informal and personal mode of action was repeated when Suharto took the initiative to meet China’s Foreign Minister Qian Qichen in Tokyo in February 1989. The meeting was arranged by Moerdiono, who had become Minister of State for the State Secretariat. The fact that Suharto continued to work with and dirough Moerdiono on the question of normalisation with China, even though he no longer occupied die position as Junior Minister of State/ Secretary for the Cabinet as he was during die resumption of direct trade relations, demonstrated that for Suharto it was the person who really mattered, not his status or official position. As mentioned earlier, the INPRES no. 9/1985 clearly stated that it was Moerdiono who acted as the Coordinator in implementing the direct trade agreement, while odier Ministers—including the Minister of Trade—were only charged with the task of dealing with ‘technical aspects’ (aspek-aspek tehiis).96 General Moerdani also acknowledged that Moerdiono was ‘the champion’ of the normalisation of diplomatic ties between Indonesia and China.97 Evidence of President Suharto’s strong personal stamp on die normalisation process can also be seen from the extent to which the question of ‘face’ and ‘national pride’ were significant in determining the substantive outcome. Those who were close to Suharto strongly believed that this question played a significant role for the success of Suharto-Qian talks. In this regard, China’s promise that it would cease its support for communist movements was of paramount importance for Suharto, because it was on this ground diat Suharto had refused previously to normalise diplomatic ties with Beijing. One source revealed that, prior to the Suharto-Qian talks, Indonesia had repeatedly tried to convince the Ghinese side of how important this issue was for Suharto.98 Asked about the significance of this factor, former Foreign Minister Mochtar explained: Symbolism is very significant. I was told by Pak Harto that if there was a rapprochement, that should come from the Chinese side…because, the suspension of diplomatic ties in 1967 was the result of China’s mistake. Here, the question of symbolism was very important… It was the question of who started first… For Pak Harto, as a Javanese, the question of symbolism was extremely important.99 Another event in 1978 also illustrated the importance of this factor. In his speech before the MPR on 11 March, Suharto indicated the willingness of his government to begin probing the possibility of normalisation. Suharto stated that his government ‘is taking preparations to normalise diplomatic ties with the People’s Republic of China’.100 As discussed earlier, there was no follow-up to Suharto’s statement partly due to strong opposition from ABRI and other anti-normalisation forces. However, another factor can be added here. A few months after the speech, China’s leader, Deng Xiaoping, during his visit to Kuala Lumpur in early November that year, stated that Beijing would not cease its support of communist insurgent movements in the South-East Asian region.101 Indeed, such a statement was in conflict with what Suharto had consistently insisted on as the prime condition for normalisation, namely, Beijing’s assurance that it would not support communist movements in Indonesia and South-East Asia. Thus, the two episodes clearly suggest the extent to which Suharto’s personal feelings influenced his decision, and therefore, should not be overlooked. After his meeting with

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Qian Qichen in February 1989, for example, Suharto disclosed that he felt that he had received the guarantee that Indonesia had been waiting for from China. It was claimed that Qian finally promised that Beijing would not support communist movements in Indonesia and in other South-East Asian countries. Such an assurance from Ghina, according to Suharto, made it possible for Indonesia to move towards restoring diplomatic ties with that country102 The fact that Suharto’s meeting with Qian, and the subsequent agreement between the two parties to begin the normalisation process, took other actors in the domestic constituencies by surprise also demonstrated further the central role played by President Suharto. General Benny Moerdani, at time Minister of Defence and Security, admitted that he ‘had little knowledge’ about the Tokyo Meeting. Moerdani’s positive response to Suharto’s decision, after consultation with ABRI Commander General Try Sutrisno, was prompted by his obligation to ‘synchronise’ ABRI’s position with Suharto’s decision as the Head of State. He also admitted that ABRI’s approval ‘did not necessarily mean that we were suspicious (of China) in the past, and now we are not. But, ABRI had to help explain to the people that the re-establishment of diplomatic relations with China was indeed necessary.103 The extent to which DEPLU was aware of the meeting in advance is not clear. According to some accounts, DEPLU was ill-informed about the meeting. However, since China’s request to meet with Suharto was made through Indonesia’s Ambassador to the UN, Nana Sutresna, himself a senior DEPLU official and close to Foreign Minister Alatas, it was unlikely that DEPLU did not know about the meeting beforehand. Moreover, a high official of DEPLU has maintained that Foreign Minister Alatas knew about the meeting.104 What is clear is that Alatas was not among those who accompanied President Suharto to Tokyo. The main reason why Alatas could not come was that at the same time he was busy organising an important meeting among Cambodia’s warring factions, the Jakarta Informal MeetingII. Whatever the reason, the fact that it was Moerdiono who played a leading role in the meeting, instead of Alatas, demonstrated the personal authority of President Suharto on the making of the normalisation decision. Perhaps, the DPR was the most ill-informed of all. As discussed in Chapter 5, only the GOLKAR faction lent its support to the decision without demanding further explanation from the government. The Muslim-backed PPP and PDI factions warned the government to be careful with the plan. They demanded that the DPR should be involved in the normalisation process. The ABRI faction went even further to the extent of demanding that Foreign Minister Alatas explain the government’s decision, ‘because there are some preparations to be setded first’.105 A PDI leader in the DPR at that time recaUed that the ABRI faction was not ‘very happy’ with the decision. He also confirmed that the DPR only played a role as a ‘lip-stick’ in the normalisation process.106 However, since die decision was taken by the highest political authority in Indonesia, and due to Suharto’s pre-eminent position in Indonesia’s national political life, no-one was prepared to launch direct or outright opposition to it. As discussed earlier, by the time the decision was made, Suharto was already in a strong position to override ABRFs objection. More importantly, Suharto’s decision was based on a rationale which was difficult for ABRI to refute. If Suharto’s endorsement of the resumption of direct trade relations with

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China in 1985 was primarily driven by economic considerations, his decision to restore diplomatic ties was construed as an attempt to promote larger interests which ABRI itself had pushed for, namely, the need for Indonesia to play a larger international role. As discussed in Chapter 6, from early 1988 some ABRI leaders, and indeed the majority of foreign policy elite, had begun to voice dieir dissatisfaction widi Indonesia’s performance on the world stage. Indonesia’s failure to win enough support to be elected as chair of NAM for die period 1989–1991 was seen as an embarrassment for a country which had helped found the Movement.107 A more forceful demand was made at a conference to celebrate the anniversary of die promulgation of Indonesia’s ‘independent and active’ foreign policy in Yogyakarta in September 1988, which was attended by Foreign Minister Ali Alatas and other members of Indonesia’s foreign policy elite. At this seminar, participants agreed that Indonesia should play a more active international role, especially by becoming the chairman of the NAM. And normalisation with China constituted one important condition for realising such an objective.108 President Suharto, already interested in bringing Indonesia once again to the world stage, was convinced by such arguments. Moreover, his closest confidants at the time occasionally raised the issue with Suharto, especially on the need to improve Indonesia’s international profile to clear the way for the Republic, and Suharto himself to be elected as chair of NAM in 1992.109 As mentioned earlier, Indonesia’s leadership in NAM constituted an important agenda item for Suharto. More importantly, such a position would bring him two important advantages. To the outside world, he could demonstrate diat his strategy of prioritising domestic economic development could be used as a model for other developing countries. To die domestic audience, he could demonstrate the merits of his leadership and ‘burnish his qualities as a statesman’.110 Indonesia’s decision to restore diplomatic ties with China in 1989 came at the time when Suharto’s government was attempting to boost Indonesia’s credentials as a leading member of NAM. Within this context, it is not difficult to understand why President Suharto readily accepted the idea that normalisation with China would be significant for enhancing Indonesia’s image as a truly non-aligned country. Widi the suspension of diplomatic ties with China in 1967, some members of NAM took Indonesia’s absence of diplomatic relations widi China as evidence diat Indonesia had sided with die West. Moreover, since die breakup of the Sino-Soviet alliance in early 1960s, China had managed to maintain its credentials as an important Third World country independent of both Superpowers. Therefore, by placing normalisation with China within Indonesia’s larger international interests, Suharto managed to present a strong justification for his decision in February 1989 which could not be easily refuted by antinormalisation forces, especially ABRJ. Given that they diemselves had demanded that Indonesia play a greater international role, and that normalisation widi China was depicted as a prelude to such a role, then some die-hard opponents of normalisation could only try to delay die process. However, by October 1989, preparations for the official restoration of diplomatic relations were already underway. At diis stage, DEPLU played a larger role in implementing Suharto’s decision, especially in negotiating technical aspects of normalisation such as problems of repaying Indonesia’s debt to China, the opening of embassies, and the status of ethnic-Chinese residents in Indonesia. In February 1990, Alatas disclosed that the

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negotiations on technical aspects between Indonesia and China were almost complete,111 while Moerdiono stated that the official normalisation of relations would take place in the same year or in early 1991.112 Untiljune 1990, Alatas had not yet set the exact date for normalisation.113 In fact, according to a senior DEPLU official, it was President Suharto himself who decided the time when he told Alatas, who was about to leave for Beijing for final preparations, that he had no objection if Indonesia-China relations were restored before 17 August 1990.114 In Beijing, Alatas and his counterpart Qian Qichen agreed that the normalisation of diplomatic ties between the two countries would take place on 8 August 1990 in Jakarta. In retrospect, Suharto’s direct involvement, and die way he supervised the normalisation process, brought about at least five advantages to the entire endeavour and to himself. First, the gradual approach adopted by Suharto enabled him to carefully plan the next move which fitted his overall strategy. For example, by resuming direct trade relations before die actual normalisation of diplomatic ties, it is likely that Suharto wanted some time to evaluate the impact of, and reactions towards, the move. During that time, the differences among the elite were, of course, not lost on Suharto. Through such a gradualist approach, Suharto wanted-to cultivate some sort of consensus widiin national constituencies before embarking on the next step. If Suharto’s preference for ‘leading by example’ is taken into account, it was also likely that Suharto wanted to show anti-normalisation forces the merits of his action, namely, the positive results of direct trade relations with Ghina. Second, with Suharto in charge of the undertaking, he could easily iron out differences and elements of rivalry between ABRI and DEPLU, and at the same time eradicate the impression that one of them had emerged as the ‘winner’ of the long-standing debate on the merit of normalising diplomatic ties with China. With the credit for normalisation going largely to Suharto, he effectively resolved the most contentious issue between ABRI and DEPLU, thus preventing it from deepening a sense of institutional rivalry between diem. Third, since it was President Suharto himself who took die normalisation decision, those who opposed it could not do much to delay the process. As demonstrated in the case of direct trade relations, not all groups within the elite were happy with KADIN’s initiative. Sukamdani himself disclosed that he did not enjoy full support from some governmental bodies. There had also been an attempt to delay the process. For example, some ABRI leaders voiced their objections to the idea. When the process was almost completed, even the Minister of Finance Radius Prawiro reportedly stated on 23 May 1985 that Indonesia would not resume direct trade with China, and asked ‘KADIN’s Chairman to cancel his plan to send a trade delegation to Hongkong to discuss further the results of the [previous] Canton meeting’.115 In fact, according to Sukamdani’s own account, by that time Moerdiono had stated that die government had approved KADIN’s plan to visit China.116 Indeed, such delaying attempts ceased after Suharto gave his personal support to the plan in the form of a Presidential Instruction. As we have seen, it was also largely due to Suharto’s personal involvement that Indonesia-China diplomatic ties were officially restored in August 1990 without any serious attempt by anti-normalisation forces to delay the process. Fourth, through the decision to normalise diplomatic ties with China, Suharto was able to demonstrate his skill in managing delicate foreign policy and international issues. More importantly, whether intended or not, the decision also helped Suharto to demonstrate his

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power and influence over ABRI. As we have seen, ABRI stood as the strongest opponent to any attempt at normalising diplomatic ties with China, and frequentiy warned of the danger of the ‘China direat’ if relations were restored. By doingjust that, Suharto simply overrode ABRI’s objection. This sent a further signal to ABRI leaders that it was President Suharto, not ABRI, who was in charge of all important issues in Indonesia, including foreign policy. Lasdy, and perhaps more importandy, die decision helped to demonstrate the merits of President Suharto’s leadership to a wider domestic audience. Normalisation of relations widi China boosted Indonesia’s image as an important regional actor which, in turn, helped enhance its image as a leading member of NAM. To the domestic audience, Indonesia’s chairmanship of tiie Movement entailed a significant symbolic meaning. It helped enhance die legitimacy of Suharto’s government as a regime whose success at the national level received international recognition and appreciation. In other words, Indonesia’s leadership in the NAM could be taken as evidence of the international community’s acknowledgement of the success of the New Order’s leadership in Indonesia. And normalisation with China constituted one important means through which such a recognition could be achieved. More importantly, the decision to restore diplomatic ties with China was also framed within die framework of the revival of Indonesia’s active role in managing wider regional affairs. President Suharto’s interest in boosting Indonesia’s regional leadership has already taken its form through an initiative to host a series of semi-official workshops on the management of conflict in die Soudi China Sea to which China was an important party. The strategic significance of China in this issue was certainly not lost on Indonesia’s leaders. It seems that President Suharto and his key foreign policy advisers understood well diat China’s participation, as demonstrated in the process of solving the Cambodian conflict, constituted a significant factor to die process of conflict resolution in South-East Asia. Indeed, in retrospect, die normalisation of diplomatic ties widi China has made Indonesia’s role in seeking solutions to regional problems more flexible, as demonstrated by China’s participation in the Indonesia-led workshops on the South China Sea since 1991. In November 1994 in Bogor, Indonesia hosted a meeting of leaders of Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) of which China is an important member. Without die prior normalisation of diplomatic ties widi China, it would have been difficult for Indonesia to have played such an active role in a regional forum which involved and required China’s participation. Conclusion In Chapter 6, it was argued that changes in Indonesia’s internal and external environments presented the New Order government with favourable conditions for restoring diplomatic ties widi China. However, it is argued also that an examination of those changes alone does not present a complete picture of how Indonesia came to the normalisation decision. It does not provide a satisfactory answer to the question of why President Suharto was able to override ABRI as the dominant force in the structure and process of foreign policy making in Indonesia. This chapter has sought to show that Indonesia’s decision to normalise diplomatic ties widi China was made possible by significant changes in the domestic power

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structure of the New Order with implications for the foreign policy decision-making process. Two developments are of paramount importance in this respect. First, since the early 1980s, Indonesia’s politics saw the rise of President Suharto to unparalleled political ascendancy while at same time ABRI’s influence and power began to wane. By the mid-1980s, Suharto was secure at the top of the New Order’s pyramid of power. With the rise of Suharto to that supreme position, his relationship widi ABRI also began to change. After 20 years of rule, Suharto emerged as a political force quite independent of ABRI’s backing. Some friction also began to develop between Suharto and certain ABRI leaders. ABRI sought to regain its position at the .centre of power and occasionally attempted to influence the course of important political decision, but to no avail. ABRI found itself unable to regain its influence vis-à-vis Suharto, let alone challenge the President’s supreme position at the apex of the New Order’s political system. Moreover, the success of economic development under the New Order gave greater credibility and legitimacy to Suharto as president than to ABRI as the most significant pillar sustaining the regime. ABRI’s influence and power was weakened further widi the significant shift in the basis of regime legitimacy; from its ability to maintain internal stability for the sake of economic development to that of sustaining economic development as a precondition for maintaining internal stability. Since the inception of the military-backed New Order regime in 1966, ABRI’s legitimacy as the most dominant force in all aspect of national political life had been derived largely from its role in ‘safeguarding’ the Republic from ‘externallyinspired rebellion’. Second, as Suharto’s power grew to an unrivalled position, his interest in foreign policy and international affairs also began to develop. With political stability largely secured and under his control and with economic developments producing fruitful results, Suharto believed that the time had come for Indonesia to play a greater international role. In this regard, it is obvious that Suharto believed that it was his duty to bring Indonesia once again onto the international stage. In so doing, his personal and direct involvement in foreign policy making was thought to be necessary. As a consequence of Suharto’s growing interest in international affairs, Indonesia’s foreign policy underwent a corresponding gradual change towards a more assertive posture, both in regional and international affairs. Suharto’s central role in restoring Indonesia’s diplomatic ties with China was in part the result of his growing interest in foreign policy, and made possible by the supreme authority the President commanded over ABRI in decision making. In taking the decision to normalise diplomatic ties with China, Suharto simply overrode ABRFs objections. ABRI leaders, unable to challenge the decision, expressed their support for the initiative. Those still opposed to an ‘early normalisation’ with Ghina only voiced their views in private, because no-one seemed prepared to be seen as opposing the President. From the way the normalisation proceeded, it is clear that Suharto’s role was central in determining the outcome. He carefully planned two main stages that Indonesia should follow in restoring diplomatic ties with China. First, in 1985 he moved to resume direct trade relations between Indonesia-China, while diplomatic ties remained ‘frozen’. Second, four years later, he decided to restore official diplomatic ties. In both cases, Suharto was able to stamp his strong personal imprint because he worked mainly outside formal

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structures and through a personal network of trusted aides. In the case of resuming direct trade in 1985, Suharto placed the responsibility on Minister of State/Secretary for the Cabinet Moerdiono rather than on Minister of Trade Rachmat Saleh. When he decided to normalise diplomatic relations in 1989, instead of involving DEPLU, he preferred to work through the State Secretariat also with Moerdiono as the head of that body. Therefore,—it can be concluded that the normalisation of relations widi China was made possible by President Suharto’s direct involvement at a time when the influence of other dominant forces in decision making—especially ABRI—had waned. The fact that it was the President himself who took the normalisation decision guaranteed that the move would not face strong challenges from antinormalisation forces. Moreover, by overriding ABRI’s and other forces’ objections, Suharto simply demonstrated to his fellow countrymen that he commanded the country’s political heights. By the same token, the decision on such a sensitive subject helped to demonstrate the strength of Suharto’s leadership. His successful determination to bring Indonesia—and himself—once again to the international stage served to confer national prestige which reinforced the legitimacy of the President and his government. Paradoxically, if such a domestic political objective had been served previously in part by suspending diplomatic ties with China, it was now to be secured through restoring them. Notes 1 2 3 4

5 6 7 8 9 10 11

I am indebted to Professor Christopher Hill for drawing this point to my attention. Kompas, 27 February 1989. Antara, 27 February 1989. See statements by ABRI Commander General Try Sutrisno in Kompas, 2 March 1989, and Minister of Defence and Security General Benny Moerdani in Angkatan Bersenjata, 2 March 1989; and also in Kompas, 5 July 1989. Dewi Fortuna Anwar, Indonesia and the Security of Southeast Asia (Jakarta: CSIS, 1992), p. 43. The Straits Times, 12 March 1978. New Nation, 3 March 1978. Michael Leifer, Indmesia’s Foreign Policy (London: Allen & Unwin, 1983), p. 180. David Jenkins, Suharto and his Generals: Indonesian Military Politics, 1975–1983, Monograph Series no. 64 (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University, Modern Indonesia Project, 1984), p. 13. TEMPO, 29 May 1993. There has not been any study which tries to examine specifically the supremacy of Suharto in the New Order’s political system, why it happened and how. David Jenkins’s Suharto and his Generals is an exception, but he offers only one line of argument in explaining Suharto’s supremacy in power and politics, namely, his ability to balance the competing forces around him, and set them against each other if necessary. However, there are a large number of studies which try to explain why the New Order regime, and by implication Suharto, has been able to stay in power for such a long time. From these studies, we can infer the main reasons behind Suharto’s long tenure in power. See, among others, William Liddle, ‘Suharto’s Indonesia: Personal Rule and Political Institutions’, Pacific Affairs, vol. 58, no. 1 (Spring 1985); Adam Schwarz, A Nation in Waiting: Indonesia in the 1990s (St Leonards: Allen & Unwin, 1994); Michael Vatikiotis, Indonesia’s Politics under Suharto: Order, Development, andPressure for Change,

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12 13 14 15 16 17

18 19 20 21 22 23 24

25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

second edition (London: Routledge, 1992); Benedict Anderson and Audrey Kahin, eds, Interpreting Indonesian Politics: Thirtem Contributions to the Debate, Interim Reports Series, publication no. 62 (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University, Modern Indonesia Prqject, 1982); and Jamie Mackie, ‘Changes in the Power Structure 1965–1989’, paper presented to a Conference on Indonesia’s New Order: Past, Present, Future, Australian National University, Canberra, 4–8 December 1989. Jamie Mackie, ‘lndonesian Political Developments, 1987–1988’, in Hal HiU and Jamie Mackie, eds, Indonesia Assessment 1988 (Canberra: Australian National University, 1989), p. 18. See interview with General Syarwan Hamid in Forum Keadilan, 12 February 1996. See John Bresnan, Managing Indonesia: The Modern Political Ecmomy (New York: Columbia University Press, 1993), Chapter 7. Jamie Mackie, ‘lndonesia: Economic Growth and Depoliticization’, in James W. Morley, ed., Driven by Growth: Political Change in the Asia-Pacific Regim (New York: M.E. Sharpe, 1993), p. 81. The term is from Liddle, ‘Suharto’s Indonesia’. Suharto, Pikiran, Ucapan, dan Tindakan Saya [My Thought, Words and Deeds], autobiography as told to G.Dwipayana and Ramadhan K.H. (Jakarta: Citra Lamtoro Gung Persada, 1989), p. 409. Rusli Karim, Nuansa Gerak Politik Era 1980-an di Indonesia (Yogyakarta: Media Widya Mandala, 1992), p. 35. TEMPO, 23 February 1985. Gordon Hein, ‘Suharto’s Foreign Policy: Second Generation Nationalism in Indonesia’, Ph.D. diss., University of California at Berkeley, 1986, pp. 30–31. Max Lane, ‘Openness’, Politieal Discontent and Succession in Indonesia: Political Developmmts in Indonesia, 1989–1991, Australia-Asia Paper no. 56 (Griffith: Griffith University, 1991), p. 7. See, among others, Times, 21 March 1988; FEER, 21 April 1988; and R. William Liddle, ‘lndonesia’s New Order: A Stable Authoritarian Regime’, manuscript, 1996, pp. 4–5. FEER, 16June 1988. Richard Robison ‘lndonesia: Tension in State and Regime’, in Kevin Hewison, Richard Robison and Garry Rodan, eds, Southeast Asia in the 1990s: Authoritarianism, Democracy and Capitalism (St Leonards: Allen & Unwin, 1993), p. 51. See Michael Leifer, Dictionary qf the Modern Politus of South-East Asia, new edition (London: Routledge, 1996), pp. 242–243. This accusation implied that General Sudharmono had communist links in the past. Michael Vatikiotis, ‘Breaking New Ground’, FEER, 24 March 1988. Lane, ‘Openness’, p. 3. Ibid, p. 13. Schwarz, A Nation in Waiting, pp. 282–283. Harold Crouch, ‘Democratic Prospects in Indonesia’, Asianjournal of Politital Science, vol 1, no. 2 (December 1993), p. 85. See Liddle, ‘Suharto’s Indonesia’. Vatikiotis, Indonesia’s Politics under Suharto, p. 77. Robison, ‘lndonesia: Tension in State’, p. 51. Vatikiotis, Indonesia’s Politics under Suharto, p. 52. Robison, ‘lndonesia: Tension in State’, pp. 48–49. Schwarz, A Nation in Waiting, p. 283. See Harold Crouch, ‘lndonesia: The Rise and Fall of Suharto’s Generals’, Third World Quarterly, vol. 10, no. 1 (January 1988), p. 164. FEER, 16 June 1988.

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40 For example, until the time of writing, only a few military figures are considered to be influential thinkers. They are, among others, A.Hasnan Habib, Sayidiman Suryohadiprodjo, Soemitro, Subijakto and Benny Moerdani. However, they are all retired generals, and belong to the older generation. 41 FEER, 16 June 1988. 42 See interview with Ulf Sundhaussen, ‘ABRI Ada Banyak Perabahan’ [ABRI has Undergone Many Changes], TIRAS, 23 February 1995, p. 46. 43 For an illuminating discussion on this issue, see E.Aspinal, ‘Students and the Military: Regime Frictions and Civilian Dissents in the Late Suharto Period’, Indomsia, 1995, pp. 21–14. 44 Robison, ‘lndonesia: Tension in State’, p. 51. 45 As quoted in Hein, ‘Suharto’s Foreign Policy’, p. 45. 46 Ibid., p. 50. 47 Interview, 8 February 1995. 48 Leifer, ‘lndonesia’s Foreign Policy’, p. 112, as quoted from The Indowsian Review of Intemational Affairs, July 1970. 49 Hein, ‘Suharto’s Foreign Policy’, p. 44. 50 Soeharto, Pikiran, Ucapan, dan Tindakan Saya, p. 482. 51 Fuad Hassan, ‘lndonesia has Independent Foreign Policy’, Jakarta Post, 2June 1984. 52 TEMPO, 16 November 1985. 53 Richard Nations, ‘Spirit of Compromise’, FEER, 9 May 1985. For a more detailed analysis of the event and its significance for Indonesia, see Justus M. van der Kroef, ‘The Second Bandung Conference: The Utility of a “Non-Event’”, Southeast Asian Affairs 1986 (Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 1986), pp. 32–42. 54 Mochtar Kusumaatmadja, ‘1986 Year-End Press Statement’, Jurnal Luar Negeri, no. 6 (Jakarta: Ministry of Foreign Affairs, April 1987), p. 32. 55 Hein, ‘Suharto’s Foreign Policy’, p. 36. 56 Ibid., p. 43. 57 FEER, 23 May 1985. 58 Kusumaatmadja, ‘1986 Year-End Press Statement’, p. 7. 59 Interview, 8 February 1995. 60 Jakarta Post, 13 September 1989. 61 See, for example, Hein, ‘Suharto’s Foreign Policy’, and, more recently, an attempt by Professor Leo Suryadinata in Indonesia’s Foreign Policy under Suharto: Aspiring to Internatimal Leadership (Singapore: Times Academic Press; 1996). 62 For a more comprehensive discussion of Indonesia’s ‘dual track’ policy towards Vietnam and the Cambodian conflict, see, among others, Andrew J. Maclntyre, ‘lnterpreting Indonesian Foreign Policy: The Gase of Kampuchea, 1979–1986’, Asian Survey, vol. XXVII, no. 5 (May 1987), pp. 515–534; and Leo Suryadinata, ‘lndonesia-Vietnam Relations under Soeharto’, Contempomry Southeast Asia, vol. 12, no. 4 (March 1991), pp. 331–346. 63 Maclntyre, ‘lnterpreting Indonesian Foreign Policy’, p. 532. 64 Ali Alatas, ‘Kemantapan Dalam Keseimbangan’ [Readiness in Balance], in G. Dwipayana and Nazaruddin Sjamsuddin, eds, Di Antara Para Sahabat: Pak Harto 70 Tahun [Among Friends: Pak Harto at 70] (Jakarta: Citra Lamtoro Gung Persada, 1991), pp. 56–57. 65 Ibid, p. 57. 66 Kusumaatmadja, ‘1986 Year-End Press Statement’, p. 7 67 Quoted in Leifer, Indonesia’s Foreign Polity, p. 117. 68 Interview, 8 February 1995. 69 Leifer, Dictionary of the Modern Politics, p. 135.

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70 71 72 73 74

75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90

91 92 93 94 95 96

97

Hein, ‘Suharto’s Foreign Policy’, p. 103. Ibid. Ibid., p. 104. Ibid., p. 8. OPSUS was created by Suharto in 1961 as a ‘combat intelligence’ unit with the task of infiltrating West Irian and creating pockets of resistance during the West Irian campaign. See Peter Polomka, ‘The Indonesian Army and Confrontation: An Inquiry into Functions of Foreign Policy under Guided Democracy’, Masters thesis, University of Melbourne, 1969, p. 176. Ibid., pp. 176–177. Hidayat Mukmin, TNI Dalam Politik Luar Negeri: Studi Kasus Peryelesaian Konfrontasi IndonesiaMalaysia (Jakarta: Sinar Harapan, 1991), p. 116. Hein, ‘Suharto’s Foreign Policy’, p. 91. See also Sukamdani Sahid Gitosardjono, Wirausaha Mengabdi Pembangunan (Jakarta: CV Haji Masagung, 1993), p. 346. See, for example, Sinar Harapan, 28 March 1978. Suara Karya, 8 August 1990. Interview, 18 February 1995. Interview, 14 February 1995. Gitosardjono, Wirausaha Mengabdi Pembangunan, pp. 338–339. Ibid., pp. 345–347. Ibid., p. 352. See also The Straits Times, 5 July 1985. Gitosardjono, Wirausaha Mengabdi Pembangunan, p. 354. Ibid., p. 361. Ibid, pp. 362–363. Ibid, p. 363. Sinar Harapan, 25 April 1985. It is important to note, however, DEPLU, especially Foreign Minister Mochtar, also claimed to have played a significant role in the resumption of direct trade relations between Indonesia and China. As Mochtar himself stated in the interview with the author, ‘the push towards the resumption of direct trade relations between Indonesia and China came from the Foreign Minister. Sukamdani perhaps did not realise this’. In fact, both of them played significant roles according to their own position in the whole process. As discussed earlier, Sukamdani, due to his private capacity as a businessman close to the President, presented an opportunity for Suharto to improve economic relations with China while diplomatic ties were still frozen. On the other hand, Mochtar's role as Foreign Minister in facilitating the process was also needed by Suharto. However, it is quite possible that Mochtar's endorsement to the plan, in addition to his own reasons as discussed in Chapter 6, was also due to Suharto's personal endorsement to Sukamdani's plan. Gitosardjono, Wirausaha Mengabdi Pembangunan, p. 355. Ibid., pp. 374 and 376. Ibid, p. 382. Ibid., p. 384. The Jakarta Post, 25 July 1985. See Annex of [Antara], Instruksi President Republik Indonesia no. 9 Tahun 1985 Tanggal 23 Juli 1985, Pedoman Penyelenggaraan Hubungan Dagang Langsung Antara Indonesia—Cina [Presidential Instruction no. 9, 23 July 1985 on Guidelines on the Implementation of Direct Trade Relations between Indonesia and China], published by Antara, 26 July 1985. Interview, 8 February 1995.

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98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116

Interview, 18 February 1995. Interview, 14 February 1995. Merdeka, 28 March 1978. Merdeka, 14 November 1978. Kompas, 27 February 1989. Interview, 8 Febraary 1995. Interview, 18 February and 14 February 1995. Angkatan Bersmjata, 11 March 1989. Interview, 20July 1994. Kampas, 20 February 1988. See Chapter 6. Interview, 8 February 1995. Michael Vatikiotis, 'lndonesia: A Giant Treads Carefully', in Robert Ross, ed., East Asia in Transitim: Toward a New Regional Order (Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe, 1995), p. 223. Suara Karya, 6 February 1990. Kompas, 1 February 1990. Kompas, 30 June 1990. Interview, 20 July 1994. Berita Tudha, 24 May 1978. Gitosardjono, Wirausaha Mengabdi Pembangunan, p. 372.

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8 Conclusion The functions of diplomatic ties with China

The main objectives of this book have been to explore and illuminate the relationship between the political context and the foreign policy making process in Indonesia under former President Suharto and to assess the functions of diplomatic ties with special reference to the restoration of diplomatic relations with China. To that end, particular attention has been given to the issue of regime legitimacy which was the absorbing priority of Indonesia’s New Order government from its assumption of power in 1966. Correspondingly, the enquiry has been pursued beyond the conventional understanding of the functions of diplomatic ties in order to demonstrate their relevance to domestic political imperatives. The preceding analysis has sought to demonstrate that, in a post-colonial state like Indonesia, regime legitimacy has depended on the extent to which internal challenges have been met by the government. For example, the attainment of economic development may be a significant source of legitimacy. It is important however to recognise that economic success alone is not a sufficient condition for achieving it. This study has attempted to show that in some circumstances, the rupture and withholding of diplomatic ties may be utilised by a regime to serve the cause of political legitimacy. Paradoxically, a restoration of those ties may also serve the same end. Such a restoration could be in the interest of a regime seeking an active international role in order to demonstrate international recognition of its success in economic development as a way of reinforcing domestic legitimacy. This line of argument suggests that legitimacy is not purely a matter of ‘domestic business’; regimes have long managed issues external to the state for their domestic political purposes. Conceived in this way, diplomatic ties may serve as a useful instrument in a government’s attempt to strengthen its right to rule as well as a claim to a role on the international stage. And equally important, playing a role internationally may confer prestige helpful to enhancing and strengthening the right to rule. Therefore, an emphasis on legitimacy and legitimisation opens up the prospect of understanding the functions of diplomatic ties as means with which to promote domestic political interests. At the same time, it may allow us to recognise how domestic political processes and priorities can be influenced by international factors such as the question of diplomatic ties. In the case of Indonesia’s policy towards China, the problem of legitimacy has served as the critical policy context for foreign policy making. This case has also shown that for Indonesia’s government and its foreign policy elite, the question of diplomatic ties was much more than just an issue of reopening channels for dialogue between states or a purely foreign policy matter. Indeed, as argued in the preceding chapters, the question of

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diplomatic ties with Ghina for Indonesia has been, at least, as much a matter of domestic politics as of foreign policy. Like the initial establishment and then the suspension of diplomatic ties with China, the restoration of those ties was closely linked to, and conditioned by, developments in Indonesia’s domestic politics. In other words, Indonesia’s domestic politics set the context for Indonesia’s approach towards the restoration of diplomatic ties with China. The ways in which Indonesia justified delaying normalisation indicated that Indonesia’s refusal to restore diplomatic ties with China was more than just a matter of threat perception. For example, the recurrent demand that Beijing cease its support for communist movements in die region over a decade after diplomatic break raises a question of relevance. From the mid-1970s, and especially after Vietnam’s invasion of Cambodia, China had significantly decreased its support for regional communist movements, and no longer maintained any links with the banned Indonesian Communist Party (PKI). Moreover, other ASEAN countries did not share Indonesia’s concern on this issue. Malaysia had established diplomatic relations widi China in 1974, while Thailand and the Philippines followed suit in 1975. It is precisely this point that previous studies of Indonesia’s normalisation policy have tended to overlook. Indeed, diere has been consensus among scholars about die importance of direat perception in understanding Indonesia’s normalisation policy. It has been argued diat any impetus to normalisation had been obstructed by a wariness of communist subversion, China’s support for die PKI and the ethnic-Chinese minority on the part of Indonesia’s government and elite. Such an explanation, however, has tended to accept die significance of the government’s official pronouncements on what it saw as constraints to normalisation at their face value. The present study has moved a step furdier by attempting to locate under what domestic political circumstances those reasons became relevant and indeed significant. And in die case of Indonesia’s restoration of diplomatic ties widi China, the diree reasons given become meaningful when put within the context of the government’s concern widi cultivating legitimacy within a political system marked by recurrent challenges to the regime’s right to rule. At a general level, diis book has sought to demonstrate, first, that diplomatic relations may have a function beyond a means in inter-state dialogue or as a proof of legal personality and status in international society. Diplomatic ties may also serve die domestic political interests of a ruling regime. As shown in diis book, the promotion of political legitimacy as well as its justification could be undertaken in part through suspending diplomatic ties with a particular country portrayed as a serious threat to internal stability and security. The case in hand has also demonstrated that diplomatic ties, which are generally regarded as an ‘international’ or ‘foreign policy’ issue, can be manipulated to provide a source of domestic legitimacy for a ruling regime. Such a case confirms one of tiiis book’s main underlying contentions that diplomatic relations perform not only external but also domestic functions. Second, this book has sought to demonstrate that when faced with challenges to its legitimacy in the domestic domain, it was difficult for the New Ordef government to take a foreign policy decision that might compromise the basis of that legitimacy, even though implementing that decision might have enabled the regime to play a greater international role. Conversely, even though suspending diplomatic ties with China was obviously less than beneficial for international standing, in that it damaged Indonesia's credibility as a non-

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aligned state, that course of action was pursued in order to uphold a claim to legitimacy among domestic constituencies. Indonesia's policy from 1966 of moving closer to the West, for example, can also be understood from this perspective. It may have damaged Indonesia's credentials as a non-aligned state but that policy helped the regime to consolidate its legitimacy through economic development whose success could only be guaranteed by flows of investment and aid from Western countries and international financial institutions. This book has also sought to demonstrate that for Indonesia, the question of restoring diplomatic ties with China was more complex and 'more domestic' than has been generally recognised. As discussed in Chapters 2 and 3, the course of Indonesia's foreign policy has always tended to reflect various domestic political impulses. During the early years after the proclamation of independence in August 1945, the rise and fall of cabinets were often caused by contentious foreign policy issues, although the main diplomatic concern still revolved primarily around the question of dealing and negotiating widi the Netherlands. The articulation of the bebas-aktif prmciple in September 1948, which serves still as the doctrinal basis of Indonesia's foreign policy, originated from the Hatta government's attempt to seek a compromise between competing political forces over the ideal international identity for Indonesia. The principle of bebas-aktif proclaimed that Indonesia would not commit itself to either bloc in the post-war rivalry between the United States and the Soviet Union. Besides seeking to mitigate domestic differences and rivalries, this position was also intended to prevent international tensions from exacerbating internal disunity. The establishment of diplomatic relations with China in July 1950 was in line with the bebos-aktif principle. During the Parliamentary period from August 1950, the rivalry among contending parties was the main feature of the political system. Until its collapse in 1957, no less than seven cabinets had come and gone. Within such volatile domestic circumstances, foreign policy served as one criterion by which the merits of a government could be measured and discredited. Being charged with being too close to either one of the Superpowers was enough to bring down a cabinet. Therefore, each cabinet was concerned with demonstrating the bebos quality translated in the form of an explicit non-alignment, in its conduct of foreign policy. When President Sukarno repudiated the Parliamentary constitution and introduced Guided Democracy in 1959, Indonesia's political system was transformed dramatically. With the proclamation of a never-ending revolution as Indonesia's main objective, Sukarno sought to radicalise domestic politics which also required a corresponding radicalisation in foreign policy. Indeed, foreign policy continued to function as a means dirough which domestic political interests could be served in a system which was no less competitive than the previous one. In his attempt to remain politically pre-eminent, Sukarno sought to ensure a balance between two principal contending forces, ABRI and the PKI. And a revolutionary foreign policy, which was initiaUy used to promote that goal, brought Indonesia closer to die left internationally at die expense of balanced relations widi the West. The principle of bebas-aktif was, as a result, discarded for a socalled axis with China. As discussed in Chapter 3, foreign policy once again became subject to changes in domestic politics when President Sukarno and his Guided Democracy were replaced by General Suharto and his military-backed New Order. After Sukarno was removed and the

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PKI was liquidated, General Suharto and ABRI sought to consolidate their power by setting up a new political system which projected a strong anti-communism. Radicalism was replaced by pragmatism. Foreign policy was stripped of its revolutionary flavour and was made subjected to domestic political priorities defined in terms of economic development. The result was reflected in an attempt to cultivate warm relations with die West. To the extent that die new regime maintained a strain of continuity with the old, such changes were justified by the claim to be bringing Indonesia's foreign policy back to the principle of bebas and aktif. Indonesia's policy towards China had also reflected such upheavals in domestic politics. First, given a strict commitment to tfie bebas-aktif principle immediately after the period of national revolution, the government had been obliged to establish diplomatic relations widi China in order to manage domestic criticisms and to mitigate internal conflicts. The primary objective was to demonstrate that Indonesia, as a new state which espoused a principle of bebas and aktifin foreign policy, intended to establish diplomatic relations both with Western and Communist countries. Second, during the Parliamentary period, Indonesia— China relations soon proved to be unstable and replete with problems. This period demonstrated that the relationship between the two countries could be easily disrupted by rivalry and conflict among Indonesia's domestic forces, especially between the PKJ and die Muslim political parties. Third, the radicalisation of domestic politics and foreign policy during Guided Democracy provided a greater opportunity for a significant improvement in Indonesia-China relations. However, as demonstrated in Chapter 2, those relations were still replete with problcms and affected by die domestic rivalry between Sukarno and ABRI and ABRI and the PKI. It was only during the later years of Guided Democracy (1963–1965) that Indonesia-China relations grew stronger to the extent of posing a challenge to the international system through the creation of a 'Jakarta-Beijing Axis' and suggesting an alternative to the United Nations. The domestic implications of such a radical course in foreign policy were also evident. Close relations with China gave die PKJ special prestige in winning Sukarno's support in his and their rivalry with ABRI, thus tipping the balance in its favour. As China became Indonesia’s main foreign ally, the PKI became established as Sukarno’s main domestic ally. Finally, dramatic changes in domestic politics after the collapse of Guided Democracy were matched by a fundamental change in Indonesia’s policy towards Ghina. With the emergence of ABRI as the dominant force, communism and the PKI were soon declared illegal. Since China was regarded as the prime external backer of communism and the PKJ, ABRI also felt it necessary to eliminate that country’s influence in Indonesia altogether through the suspension of diplomatic ties. For ABRI, the PKI and China represented ‘two sides of the same communist coin’, and therefore, the elimination of one side required the elimination of the other. Thus, the suspension of diplomatic ties with China reflected ABRI’s determination to eliminate communist influence, domestic and foreign, in Indonesia. Indonesia’s policy towards China since 1967 was then closely linked with the changes in domestic priorities and with the New Order’s attempt to cultivate and maintain domestic legitimacy. The New Order’s claim to legitimacy was based on the twin objectives of maintaining internal stability and security (stabilitas dan keamanan dalam negeri) and promoting economic development (pembangunan ekonomi), and on the perceived threat to

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such goals which was believed to come from China in collaboration with PKI remnants and the ethnic-Chinese minority residing in Indonesia. Such a formulation clearly suggests that the validity of those priorities was sustained by a threat perception which, in turn, determined policies towards China. As discussed in Chapter 4, the question of diplomatic ties with China served as a major point of contention among Indonesia’s foreign policy elite, especially between the Foreign Ministry (DEPLU) and Indonesia’s Chamber of Commerce and Industry (KADIN), on the one hand, and ABRI, die Muslim community and conservative nationalist groups on the other. Even though the majority of Indonesia’s elite agreed with the notion of a China threat, they differed over how to cope with it. DEPLU believed that in terms of foreign policy interests, it was of practical importance for Indonesia to restore diplomatic relations with China. On the other hand, ABRI and other anti-normalisation forces maintained that normalisation with China would not be in Indonesia’s interest because it would threaten and disturb its internal stability. And it was ABRI’s view which prevailed and which was adopted as the official position of Indonesia’s government. The official justification given by Indonesia’s government for not restoring diplomatic ties with China were based on its threat perceptions. The New Order government maintained that normalisation with China was constrained by three main reasons. First, as long as exiled communist remnants remained active and were given protection and supported by Beijing, normalisation with China would open up a greater opportunity for the revival of communism in Indonesia. Second, normalisation would be difficult as long as the problems of the ethnic-Chinese minority residing in Indonesia had not been resolved. Third, as long as China refused to promise to cease its support for communist insurgencies and movements in South-East Asia, Indonesia would not restore diplomatic relations widi China. Official reasons for resisting normalisation were also found in developments in the regional environment. Unlike other ASEAN countries which saw external developments as the main reason to establish or normalise diplomatic relations with China, Indonesia represented them as reasons not to normalise. China’s policies towards South-East Asia, especially with regard to the Cambodian conflict during the 1980s, were suspected as an attempt by Beijing to realise hegemonic ambitions in the region. Indonesia also suspected China of trying to drag ASEAN, and thus Indonesia, into its own conflict with Vietnam. In the event, all these domestic and external reasons came back to the question of China’s threat to Indonesia’s internal stability. For Indonesia’s New Order, the issue of diplomatic ties with China was, above all, a function of national security and stability defined in terms of regime security. Despite the government’s official view, DEPLU did try to promote the restoration of diplomatic ties through a number of initiatives from as early as 1970. Accordingly,-heated debates occurred periodically. DEPLU tried to push for an early restoration of diplomatic relations with China, while ABRI and other antinormalisation forces consistently rejected such a prospect on the basis of the need to maintain internal security and stability. What is striking about the debates is that no matter how credible the arguments put forward by DEPLU, they failed to persuade its opponents. Indeed, the entire effort by DEPLU seemed to make little impact on the New Order leadership’s stance vis-a-vis China for almost two decades, during which ABRI’s views prevailed over those of DEPLU.

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One explanation for die outcome of the debates may be found in the nature of Indonesia’s domestic politics. From 1966, ABRI constituted the dominant actor in national policy making, including foreign policy. Whenever security interests collided with other interests, security always took priority. And normalisation with China was portrayed as a security matter. More importantly, President Suharto sided with ABRI in the case of the restoration of diplomatic ties with China. Therefore, Indonesia’s resistance to normalisation was closely related to ABRI’s dominant position in national politics. And ABRI’s dominance was primarily sustained by its claim to legitimacy as the guardian of the Indonesian state against a communist threat. Any challenge to the regime was seen as having a potential for disrupting internal stability, which in turn, could disrupt the implementation of the regime’s function as the protector of stability and the promoter of economic development. Conflict and instability, in the view of New Order, could easily be manipulated by communist remnants to destroy both stability and economic development. Denying a restoration of diplomatic ties with China constituted one aspect of die New Order’s attempts at cultivating legitimacy based on the twin objectives of stability and economic development. As argued in Chapter 5, this book has sought to demonstrate that die primary reason behind Indonesia’s refusal to restore diplomatic ties with China was domestic in nature, which resulted from die interplay of ideological and political factors. Ideologically, normalisation with China would weaken the foundation of its legitimacy. Politically, normalisation was problematic due to the unfavourable domestic conditions which were marked by challenges to the legitimacy of the New Order from various forces within and without the regime. To counter such challenges, the New Order government made great play of its claim to be the guardian of Indonesia’s state and society against communist threats. This strategy needed continuous justification through relendess attempts to convince society about the presence of a communist threat, real or potential. And China presented a major dimension of such a perceived threat. In such domestic circumstances, normalisation of diplomatic relations widi China did not constitute eidier an attractive or an advantageous option to the regime because it might weaken the foundations of the New Order’s claim to legitimacy. As pointed out in Chapter 6, the fact diat legitimacy concerns served as an important factor or context for die New Order’s policy towards China was evident in the degree of change in Indonesia’s attitude from 1985. Earlier in die decade, Indonesia, facing economic difficulties due to the sharp decrease in oil and gas prices, had beert obliged to diversify its external trade. Accordingly, the potential of China’s markets began to look attractive to die government. Mounting economic difficulties began to put pressure on it to soften attitudes towards Ghina and injuly 1985 the administration took a cautious step to improve ties with China by resuming direct trade relations. ABRI, however, continued to worry about tiie direat from China. Senior officers warned die government about possible security repercussions from direct trade widi the People’s Republic. The fact that the improvement of Sino-Indonesian relations was limited only to the resumption of direct trade was also related to die domestic political situation at the time. Political constraints on normalisation arising from governmental concerns about its legitimacy remained. At the time, the legitimacy of die government had been challenged by Islamic forces which sought to resist its attempt to impose new regulations obliging

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political parties and mass organisations to accept the state’s ideology, Pancasila, as dieir sole ideology. The Muslim community saw this initiative as an attempt by die government to control and curb their political role entirely. In responding to this challenge, die New Order also employed its basic claim to legitimacy; namely, that it was die guardian of the state from a communist direat. It was again argued diat conflicts and disturbances arising from such oppositions would only benefit the communists. Normalisation of diplomatic ties widi China at this time would not only have further offended the Muslims, but would also have weakened the credibility of the government’s claim about die continuing presence of a communist direat and consequendy its claim to legitimacy. When die government’s move to resume direct trade sparked off a new round of heated debate on die signiiicarice of diplomatic ties with China, it was obliged to resist any calls for normalisation. Again, the New Order government justified its resistance on previous grounds; namely, that normalisation would pose a threat to internal stability and security arising from diree factors: domestic communist subversion, die problem of the ethnicChinese minority and China’s continued support for communist insurgent movements in Soutii-East Asia. These three factors were construed as evidence of China’s continued interference in the internal affairs of Indonesia and other SoiUh-East Asian countries. Therefore, in the view of Indonesia’s government, die prospect for normalisation depended on China’s attitude and policies. Indonesia would only change if China changed. A number of developments in Indonesia’s domestic and international environments towards the end of the 1980s discussed in Chapter 6 created more favourable conditions for normalisation. First, the question of a communist revival was no longer as dominant as before. Second, the New Order government believed that the ethnic-Chinese minority no longer posed a political risk, even though the issue remained a sensitive one within society. Third, China’s foreign policy towards South-East Asia had undergone important changes. However, the most important development was that domestic challenges to the regime were not as strong as before and that internal stability has been achieved compared to the mid-1980s. By the end of the 1980s, the New Order regime was in a more secure position. As the result, reasons which were used previously to resist normalisation gradually became less relevant. As argued above, when political constraints on normalisation—i.e. challenges to the regime’s legitimacy—were no longer pressing, or had become less than serious, the need for a continued claim to legitimacy as the guardian of the state against a communist threat also became less credible and necessary. This reduction of domestic challenge removed ideological constraints on normalisation. With the defeat of opposition forces, the New Order no longer faced serious challenges to its rule. After two decades, the New Order had succeeded in broadening the basis of its claim to legitimacy to include its economic performance. The growing relevance of economic performance as a source of legitimacy in turn reduced die significance of the claim to legitimacy based on the government’s ability to maintain stability and security from a communist threat, either from China or the PKI remnants or the ethnic-Chinese minority. However, its success in maintaining stability and promoting economic development did not necessarily mean that the government no longer needed to concern itself with its legitimacy. On the contrary, that success had led to a significant shift in the foundations of the New Order’s legitimacy. During the first two

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decades of its rule, the New Order needed to maintain stability for the sake of economic development. The success of that development brought about a new task of sustaining economic progress as a means to maintain stability. In other words, the bases of the New Order’s legitimacy had shifted from ‘stability for development’ to ‘development for stability’. Impressive economic growth brought with it new demands from domestic constituencies. From the mid-1980s, the foreign policy elite began to demand that the government should translate Indonesia’s economic progress into a more active foreign policy profile. It was widely felt that after more than two decades of having ‘too low a profile’, it was time for Indonesia to reclaim its rightful place in world politics. Such demands were raised by almost all segments of Indonesia’s elite, ranging from ABRI, Muslim groups and intellectuals to nationalist circles and obviously from DEPLU officials. As discussed in Chapter 6, a new mood of assertiveness in Indonesia’s foreign policy became evident by the end of the 1980s. It may be suggested that die emergence of such a new mood reflected a change in the balance between two competing tendencies in Indonesia’s foreign policy; namely, a sense of vulnerability, on the one hand, and a sense of regional entidement, on the other. When the sense of vulnerability was reduced, the sense of regional entidement began to be pursued in die form of a search for a greater international role. Such a development matched die need of the New Order government to establish new grounds for its claim to legitimacy. At diis juncture, international recognition of domestic success seemed to be an attractive option. The argument that international recognition would enhance die credibility of die New Order as a Third World regime which had succeeded in addressing the most difficult task of economic development seemed to be well appreciated. And such recognition could only be secured and demonstrated through a more active and assertive foreign policy role, especially by restoring Indonesia’s status as a leading member of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM). Indeed, tiie objective to seek the chair of die NAM had been put on the agenda of the New Order’s foreign policy as early as 1986. Indonesia’s policy towards normalising diplomatic ties widi China may be better understood within the perspective of diat overall trend in its foreign policy, especially its attempt to cope with the paradox of its national condition by reducing a sense of vulnerability and by asserting a sense of regional entidement. The fact diat Indonesia chose the NAM as a vehicle for raising its international profile might be viewed as a curious one. It demonstrated diat Indonesia’s growing role was expressed beyond the level of regional entidement to diat of ‘world entidement’. The fact that aspiration to a ‘global entidement’ was expressed in a forum such as die NAM which was no longer truly significant in international politics might have been based on a pragmatic domestic calculation. The success of its economic development was more likely to be appreciated in die NAM rather dian in other forums. And, more importandy, such a recognition would confer prestige serving to burnish credibility at home. In order to achieve such an objective, there was a need for Indonesia to restore its status as a leading member of die Movement. If Indonesia wanted to become the chair of NAM, continued ‘frozen’ diplomatic relations widi China would not help its enterprise. Although not a member of the NAM, China represented itself as a leading Third World country. Moreover, China had also claimed diat it intended to seek a better relationship with South-

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East Asian countries and no longer supported communist insurgencies in the region. Within such a context, die restoration of diplomatic ties widi China, even though such a move would not necessarily bring major international benefits to Indonesia, would not bring any disadvantages either. On the contrary, it would help Indonesia’s attempt to seek a higher profile in international affairs which, in turn, could enhance the credibility of the New Order government in the eyes of domestic constituencies. Domestic conditions had also become more favourable for normalisation. Indeed, by the end of the 1980s, changes in Indonesia’s foreign policy interests, favourable developments in domestic politics and changes in China’s policy towards South-East Asia served as facilitating factors for the restoration of diplomatic relations between Indonesia and China. However, favourable domestic conditions and their subsequent impact on the mood of foreign policy were necessary but not sufficient factors for making possible the normalisation decision. This study has sought to demonstrate that actual normalisation was permitted and, indeed, was made possible by significant changes in Indonesia’s power structure and their implications for die foreign policy making process; namely, the rise of President Suharto to a supreme political position and the decline of ABRI’s role in policy making, including foreign policy. As noted in Chapter 7, by the mid-1980s, President Suharto was no longer dependent exclusively on ABRI’s support for his power base. Indeed, by that time, he had emerged as the dominant force in Indonesia’s politics and policy making. Meanwhile, ABRI found itself no longer in the same position to influence the President’s decisions even on important national issues, such as on the question of ‘appointing the VicePresident. This significant change then led to differences in their respective views of the significance of diplomatic ties widi China. Underlying those differences was a divergence over what they saw as the bases of their respective legitimacies as dominant forces in Indonesia’s politics. For Suharto, normalisation with China was no longer a risky political business because his legitimacy no longer rested exclusively on the need to maintain stability from communist threats but rather on the ability of his government to deliver economic goods. That ability would confer more prestige if accompanied by greater international recognition which required a more active international role. Attendant prestige would help die New Order government to bolster its legitimacy at home. Meanwhile, the legitimacy of ABRI’s role as a dominant force in national political life remained to a considerable degree dependent on its claim to be the guardian of the state against a communist threat. ABRI’s resistance to normalisation, even after President Suharto had decided otherwise, is best understood with reference to such a perspective. Since President Suharto had become the pre-eminent actor in politics and policy making, he found no difficulty in imposing his own agenda and overriding ABRFs objections. Viewed in this context, die significance of diplomatic ties with China had two interrelated functions. First, diplomatic relations were restored to one of their traditional functions through which to play an international role. As Indonesia began to seek a higher international profile, diplomatic ties with China assumed a new positive significance. Second, Indonesia’s decision on normalisation with China reflected, and was informed by, domestic political requirements. It constituted one aspect of die New Order’s quest to bolster domestic legitimacy through the conduct of a more active international role in addition to the

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maintenance of stability and economic development. Conceived in this way, diplomatic ties widi China were used to promote both die domestic and die international interests of die New Order. Besides an attempt to understand the functions of diplomatic ties with China, this study has also examined die nature of Indonesia’s foreign policy making in the late Suharto era. As demonstrated in Chapter 7, President Suharto played a central role in supervising, directing and determining die phases of improvement in Indonesia’s relations with China. Two distinct phases may be identified which reflected the direct and personal involvement of the President. In the first phase, Indonesia’s government agreed in 1985 to resume direct trade relations with China, but those relations were kept informal in nature. Second, four years later in February 1989, it was decided that Indonesia should move to restore official diplomatic ties. In supervising these two important developments, President Suharto worked both through an informal network of trusted persons and also through relevant institutional bodies. However, the initial measures were taken through the first vehicle. In the case of the resumption of direct trade relations, President Suharto allowed KADIN, especially its chairman Sukamdani S. Gitosardjono, to establish contacts and to resume direct trade with China. Instead of working through the Ministry of Trade, he worked through the Minister of State/Secretary for the Cabinet, General (ret) Moerdiono, in supervising the implementation of the direct trade agreement between KADIN and its counterpart, China’s Council for the Promotion of International Trade (CCPIT). When he took the decision on normalisation, President Suharto, again, worked through and with Moerdiono, now the Minister for the State Secretariat, and not through the DEPLU. The fact that he worked through and with Moerdiono indicated that President Suharto still preferred to employ personal and informal networks. Such mechanisms proved to be effective in ensuring that everything went according to his plans. For example, the personal and direct involvement of President Suharto guaranteed the absence of outright opposition to the government’s decision either during the resumption of direct trade or the normalisation of diplomatic ties. It also helped to eradicate any impression that there had been a ‘winner’ in the rivalry between DEPLU and ABRI over the issue. More importantly, the decision on normalisation—which was clearly not in the interests of ABRI—conveyed a message that it was the President who commanded the country’s political heights on important and sensitive political issues. In short, this book has sought to demonstrate that the removal of ideological and political constraints on normalisation, the role of economic imperatives and changes in the international environment only served as facilitating or justifying factors in Indonesia’s decision to restore diplomatic ties with China. Meanwhile, the critical change in the domestic power structure with its implications for foreign policy making served as the permissive factor that enabled the decision to be taken. It was this permissive factor which demonstrated that it was President Suharto who played the decisive role in restoring Indonesia’s diplomatic ties with China. The use of informal networks as a vehicle through which decisions were taken provides important evidence of his dominant role. In short, this book has sought to demonstrate that if favourable domestic conditions and external developments constituted necessary factors for normalisation, it was a change in the political

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power structure and President Suharto’s own growing interest in foreign policy that permitted it.

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Official documents Antara (Indonesia’s Official News Agency), Instruksi Presiden Republik Indonesia no. 9 Tahun 1985 Tanggal 23 Juli 1985, Pedoman Penyelenggaraan Hubungan Dagang Langsung Antara Indonesia-Cina (Presidential Instruction no. 9, 23 July 1985 on Guidelines on the Implementation of Direct Trade Relations between Indonesia and China). Departemen Luar Negeri Republik Indonesia [Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Indonesia], Intisari Masalah Luar Negeri, Publication no. 07/IS/1977, November 1977. Jurnal Luar Negeri, published by Alumni, Bandung, for Indonesia’s Ministry for Foreign Affairs, various editions. Ministry of Foreign Afiairs of the Republic of Indonesia, Indonesian Review, vol. I, no. 5 (OctoberDecember 1951). ——Keterangan Pemerintah Mengenai Hubungan Republik Indonesia—Republik Rakjat Tjina Sesudah Gestapu/PKI [Government’s Explanation on the Relationship between the Republic of Indonesia and the People’s Republic of China after Gestapu/PKI], n.d.

Index

‘30 September Movement’ (Gestapu) 46, 47, 120 Abdulgani, Ruslan 57 ABRI (Angkatan Bersenjata Republik Indonesia; Indonesian Armed Forces) 4, 46, 57, 154, 155, 182, 185–3, 196, 201; on Cambodian invasion of by Vietnam 91, 92, 173–1; changing relationship with Suharto 163–73; decline of 161–77; on diplomatic relations with China 3, 61–9, 81, 82, 83, 89–4, 92–9; involvement in DEPLU 76–78; on national security 99–6; as political force 71, 71–5; position and dilemma 167–7; role (1975–78) 106–13; role in foreign policy making 56, 76–78, 79– 4, 93, 143; on trade with China 112, 114, 123–30 Adjitorop, Jusuf 48 Afro-Asian Journalist 48 Agung, Ide Anak Agung Gde 22, 143 aid, foreign 20, 22, 34 Aidit, D.N. 26 Alatas, Ali 58, 119, 120, 121, 123, 123, 143, 143–50, 152, 174, 182, 183, 184 Alimin 24, 25 Amin, Noer 86 Angkatan Bersmjata 46, 83, 90, 108, 121 anti-Chinese riots 30, 57, 104, 110, 147 anti-nekolim 71 Aribowo, Tungky 151 Asas Tunggal 116, 132, 165, 177 ASEAN Solidarity 90–5 Aspri 103

Association of South-East Asian Nations (ASEAN) 2, 38, 63, 81, 90–5, 173, 196–4 August Raid (1951) 25 BAKIN 63, 77–1, 112, 178 BAKORSTANAS 78, 166 Bandung Conference (1955) 26 Bandung Incident 111–19 Bank of China 24 Baperki 136 bekas-aktif 1, 36, 37, 143, 152, 194, 195; origin of 17–20 Berita Yudha 87, 90 Bono 117 Bulletin 48 Caltex Pacific Indonesia 117 Cambodia, problem of 88–7, 118–4, 173–1 CCP (Chinese Communist Party) 20, 121 CCPIT (China Council for Promotion of International Trade) 87, 114, 179, 202 Champa 51 Chen Yi 30–1 Cheng Ho 53 Chiang Kai-shek 20 China threat 42, 49, 51–8; historical dimension 51–6; internal dimension 54–8 Chinese foreign policy; towards communist insurgencies 148–6; towards overseas Chinese 145–4 Chinese News Agency (Xinhua) 49 Christian Partai Kristen Indonesia (Parkino) 73 CONEFO (Conference of the New Emerging Forces) 1, 31

215

216 INDEX

Constitution of 1945 (UUD 1945) 27, 34, 35, 36, 108 coup, September (1965) 1, 32, 37, 56, 60, 63, 151; China’s involvement in 44 Cultural Revolution (China) 32, 60, 81, 145, 149 Daryatmo, General 92 Deng Xiaoping 146, 147, 149, 181 DEPLU (Indonesian Foreign Ministry) 154; ABRI involvement in 76–78; on Cambodian invasion by Vietnam 90–5, 91–6; on direct trade with China 112, 113, 117–4; on ethnic-Chinese minority 86; position on diplomatic ties with China 61, 64–9, 71, 81, 89, 92–9; on normalisation 57–2, 118–4, 173–1, 178– 7, 182, 183, 196, 197; role in foreign policy 56, 57, 74–81, 93 Dharsibi, Lieutenant-General H.R. 109 Dharsono, H.R. 116 Dinas Kontra Esionase 82 diplomasi 17–18, 76 diplomatic ties, functions of 6–11 Djawoto 48 Dual Nationality Treaty (1955) 26, 30 dwifungsi 71, 75 ethnic-Chinese minority; ABRI on 62; business community and 60; Indonesian view of 54–8; links with China 111–16, 123–30; mass naturalisation 135–1; PKI and 29, 49–2; as problem 29, 84–86, 135–3, 198–6; recall to China 30 Fang Fang 30 Fatwa, A.M. 116 FDR (Front Demokrasi Rakayat; Popular Democratic Front) 18 First Five Year Development Plan 60 Four Modernisations Programme (China) 146 Fretilin 133

GALI 110–15 GAM (Free Aceh Movement) 133 Gandhi, Rajiv 172 Gani, Roeslan Abdul 143 Ganyang Malaysia 71 Gitosardjono, Sukamdani Sahid 87, 121 GOLKAR 72–6, 88, 92, 112, 119, 121, 136, 167, 182 Guided Democracy 26, 27–32, 60, 74, 194; collapse of 34, 36, 38, 42; period of (1959–65) 23 Haditirto 112 Han Dynasty 53 Han Wudi (Han Wu Ti) 53 HANKAM 77, 78, 79 Harian Rakjat 46 Harto, Pak 181 Hartono, Brigadier General 104 Hatta, Mohammad 1, 17, 76, 109, 143, 143, 194; resignation of 27; on diplomatic relations 20–4; on foreign policy 18–19 Hirohito, Emperor, funeral of 3, 120, 161 HuYaobang 112 Hua Guofeng 146 Hugeng, General 109 Hunag Hua 92 Hutapea, Oloan 47 Ikatan Pendukung Kemerdekaan Indonesia (IPKI) 73 Indonesia Women’s Movement 46 Indonesian foreign policy 6–11; antinomalisation 61–8; (military 61–7); (Muslim community 64); (Nationalist group 64–8; origins of 17–23, 56–57; pro-normalisation 57–4; (business community 59–4); (DEPLU 57–2) INPRES 135, 180 Iskandar, Amin 88 jajhan 53

INDEX 217

Jakarta-Beijing Axis 31, 33, 74, 195 Jakarta Conference on Cambodia (1970) 175 Jakarta Informal Meeting (JIM) 175 jalan revolusi 27 Ji Pengfei 83 KADIN (Indonesian Chamber of Commerce) 57, 108, 154, 178–6, 184, 196, 202; on trade with China 80, 113, 114, 139; visit to China 60–4, 86–2 Kamaruzzaman, Sjam 117 Kartawidjaja, Djuanda 27 kekaryaan 74 kemerdekaan 17 KEPRES 135 Kertanagara 52 Khmer Rouge 59,65, 147 Khrushchev, Nikita 28 Kimura, Takeo 83 KNIP (Central Indonesian National Committee) 19 Kojok Hitam 47 kolonisai 53 konfrontasi 74, 75 KOPKAMTIB 78, 106, 166 Kosasih, Colonel 29 KOSTRAD 32; OPSUS 175 Kubilai Khan 51, 52 Kuomintang 24 Kuomintang government 21; defeat of 54 Kutjing Hitam 47 Lee Yew 89 legitimacy 6–11; external 10–11; internal 10, 11; unconditional 8, 9 legitimacy dilemma 8, 9 Leifer, Professor Michael 143 Lemhanas 78 LiChiang 87 LiLuye 121 LiPeng 176 Liang Tan Ming 53 Liao Chengzi 146

Liem Sioe Liong 116 Linggajati Agreement 18 Liu Shaoqi 30 Loebis, Aboe Bakar 81 Lon Nol, General 81 LPKB 136 Lu Zubo 33 Magelang Generation 168, 169 Mahmud, Major-General Amir 47 Malari Affair (1974) 105, 107, 164 Malik, Adam 33, 44, 56, 57, 57, 58, 71, 75, 76, 89, 92, 92, 111; on diplomatic ties with China 81–86, 102–8 Mao Zedong 108 Masjumi Party 23, 25 Mawardi, Chalid 64 MCP (Malaysian Communist Party) 90 Merdeka 64–8, 122 Mochtar Kusumaatmadja, Professor 36, 43, 58, 142–8, 147, 173, 177, 181; on Chinese minority 85, 87; (on direct trade with China 111–17, 113, 118, 119, 139–5, 179); on normalization 85–86, 92, 92, 144, 162 Moerdani, General Benny 91, 112, 116, 122, 152, 162, 165, 168, 169, 173, 175–3, 180, 181 Moerdiono 114, 120, 150, 151, 152, 153, 180, 184, 186 Moertopo, General Ali 85, 87, 91, 108, 175 Mononutu, Arnold 26 MPRS (Provisional People’s Consultative Assembly) 33, 35 Muhuajen 87 Mulyomiseno, Rachmat 88 Murba Party 22, 73 Murtono, Major-General Amir 106 Muslim community, diplomatic ties with China and 115–3, 198 Nahdhatul Ulama (NU) 64, 73 Naro, H.J. 122 Nasution, General A.H. 109 National Independence Day 56 Nationalist group 64–8 Natsir Cabinet 25

218 INDEX

Natsir, Mohammad 109 NEFOS (New Emerging Forces) 30, 33 New Order government 1, 2, 3, 4, 17, 33–9; aims of 132–40; characteristics of 33–9; China threat perception 44–7, 45–52, 62, 65–9; domestic politics 71–8; foreign policy making 75–81; structure 76–79; legitimacy 138–6 Nixon, President Richard 81; visit to China 89 Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) 59, 79, 141–7, 174, 183, 185, 200 Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) 134 Old Order 46, 50 OLDEFOS (Old Established Forces 1, 30, 34 OPM (Organisation of Free Papua) 133 Organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC) 79 ORMAS 132 Overseas Chinese 24, 31, 43; Chinese policy towards 145–4 Palembang, King of 53 Pancasila 34, 36, 62, 108, 109, 132, 171 Pangabean, General Maraden 57, 74, 81, 90, 106, 108 Paraku 105 Paris Peace Agreement (1973) 89 Partai Katolik 73 Partai Muslimin Indonesia (Parmusi) 73 Partai Nasional Indonesia (PNI) 26, 73 Partai Nasional Merah Indonesia 50 Partai Sarekat Islam Indonesia (PSII) 73 PDI (Indonesian Democratic Party) 73 pembangunan 36 pembangunan ekonomi 34 pembangunan nasional 34, 72 People’s Youth (Pemuda Rakjaf) 46 PERATA (Defenders of the People and Motherland) 82–7 Perbumi 117 Pergerakan Tarbiyah Islamiah (PERTI) 73 perjuangan 17, 76 Petition-50 group 109, 110, 116, 131, 164

PGRS (Pasukan Gerilya Rakyat Sarawak) 105 PKI (Indonesian Communist Party) 1, 20, 22, 24, 26, 27, 31–3, 193; China’s link with 43–7, 46, 47–48, 49, 50, 60, 62, 148; collapse of 32, 37, 42, 47, 71; role in domestic politics 101–6 PKI Malam 47 Pol Pot 147 Politburo Declaration of 7 August 1966 48 political stability 132–40 Poniman, Major-General 106, 117 Pono 117 PPP (Partai Persuatan Pembanguanan; United Development Party) 64, 73, 112, 119 Prawiro, Radius 87, 184 PSI 22 Qian Qichen 120, 121, 123, 150, 180–8, 184 Qing 53 Radio Beijing 62 Ramli, A. Rachman 176 Renville Agreements 18 (Five Years Development Plan) 83 resistance to restoring diplomatic ties 99–30; (1970–84 101–16); (1970–74 102–10); (1975–78 106–13); (1979–84 109–16); (1985–88 111–24); (DEPLU’s renewed attempt at normalisation 118–4); (resumption of direct trade relations and Bandung Incident 111–19); (Tanjung Priok Affair 114–23) Returned Overseas Chinese, Chinese attitude towards 145 revolusi fisik 17 Revolution (1911) 53, 65 Rewang (alias Karto) 47 Roem, Mohammad 76 Rosyadi, Imron 92, 122 KNIL (Royal Netherlands Indies Army) 21 Rumamby 33 Rusdy, Air Vice-Marshal Teddy 142–8

INDEX 219

Sadikin, lieutenant-General Ali 109, 116, 170 Saidi, Ridwan 64 Saleh, Brigadier-General Ibrahim 166 Saleh, Rachmat 180, 186 Sambuaga, Theo 121 Sanusi, H.Mohamad 116 Sarawak People’s Guerrilla Movement (Pasukan Gerilya Rakyat SarawaK) 47 Sastroamidjojo, Ali 26 Sekber Golkar 72 Sekneg 168, 169 Shangahi Communique, signing of 89 Shaoqi, Liu 21 Siagian, Sabam 143 Sigit, Sutarto 81 Sihanouk, Prince Norodom 81 Simdjuntak, C.J. 88 Singhasari, Kingdom of 51, 52, 65 Sino-Vietnamese conflict 85, 87, 90–5 Sjahrir cabinet 18 Sjahrir, Sutan 22, 76 Sjamsuddin, Nahar 33 Sjarifuddin, Amir 18 Soedomo, Admiral 90, 110, 119, 123, 151, 169 Soemitro, General 103 Soenarso, General 75 Solichin, Major-General 104 Song Dynasty 51 Sriwijaya, Kingdom of 53 stabilitas 34, 36, 72 State Intelligence Coordinating Board, Indonesia 61–5 Subandrio, Dr 29–30, 74, 75 Subarto 56, 57 Subiyakto, General 123, 123 Sudharmono, Lieutenant-General 166, 168, 169 Sudisman 47 Sugomo, General Yoga 110, 112, 114, 119, 123, 123 Suhardiman, Dr 114 Suharto, President 5, 36, 46–49, 62, 63, 71, 75, 91, 93, 103, 106, 139, 144, 150, 153, 155, 195; ABRI’s position and dilemma 167–7; changing relationship with ABRI 163–73; decline of ABRI’s role and 161–77; on direct tradewith China 111, 113, 114, 118–9;

foreign policy making 7, 171–83; making of normalisation decision 176–92; as president 34–6; Suharto, President (cont.) onrelations with China 80–6, 84, 87; resistance (1975–78) 107–13; resistance (1979–84) 109–16; role in normalisation decision 160–94; and September coup (1965) 32, 33; see also New Order government Suhud, General Kharis 166 Sukamdani Sahid Gitosardjono 120, 178, 180 Sukardi, Raden 121 Sukarno, President 5, 17, 25, 30–5, 36–8, 44, 46, 47, 74, 76, 78, 194–2; criticism of 21; diplomatic relations 32–4; fall of 33–5; foreign policy 7, 27–32; as Great Leader of Indonesia’s Revolution 1; see also Guided Democracy Sukendar, Soewoto 61 Sukiman Cabinet 25 Sukotjo, Major-General 110 Sumarno 33 Sumodisastro, Hardjantho 112 Surat Perintah Sebelas Maret (Supersemar) 47 Suryadinata, Professor 146 Suryo, Atmono 179 Suryohadiprojo, General Sayidiman 153 Sutadisastra, Baron 33 Sutresna, Nana 121, 182 Sutrisno, General Try 116, 117, 122, 152, 162, 165, 181 Syamsuri, Sundoro 123 Tan Ling Djie 25 Tanaka, Kakue 83, 103 Tanjung Priok Affair (Peristiwas Tanjung Priok) 114–23, 133–9, 138, 147 Tiananmen Square massacre 123 Tong Djoe 178 Tritua 1974 103 United Nations 35; withdrawal from 1 Untung, Lieutenant Colonel 32

220 INDEX

Vietnam, withdrawal of American troops from 89 Wahono 167 Wang Renshu 24, 25 Wang Wen Lin 87 Widjajasastra, Ruslan 47 Widodo, General 114 Wilopo 26 XianFuzhi 32 XuRen 33 XuShen 33 Yahuda, Michael 149 Yahya, Junus 135 Yamin, Dr Mohammad 25 Yani, General Achmad 175 Yao Dengshan 33 Yuan 53 Yuan Dynasty 51, 65 Yuwono, General Sutopo 81 Zhao Ziyang 149 Zhou Enlai 26, 108 Zhungguo 54