’A Beautiful Bridge’: Chinese Indonesian associations, social capital and strategic identification in a new era of China Indonesia relations

• Main Author: SETIJADI, Charlotte
• Format: text
• Language: English
• Published: Institutional Knowledge at Singapore Management University 2016
• Subjects: Indonesia; China; soft-power; voluntary associations; overseas Chinese; Asian Studies; International Relations; Politics and Social Change; Race and Ethnicity
• Online Access: https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/soss_research/2712; https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/context/soss_research/article/3969/viewcontent/Beautiful_Bridge_2016_afv.pdf
• Institution: Singapore Management University

In Indonesia, Chinese voluntary associations took on a new level of importance after the fall of Suharto’s New Order regime in 1998 that ushered in a revival of Chinese identity politics. At the same time, Sino-Indonesian relations are blossoming, and the rise of China as a global power means that Indonesia can only benefit from stronger ties with China in the future. In this new atmosphere of cooperation, I argue that Chinese Indonesian individuals and voluntary organizations play a crucial function as trade and cultural intermediaries. Drawing on both empirical and qualitative fieldwork data, in this paper, I examine how members of Chinese voluntary organizations view their ethnicity, national belonging, and strategic position in the contexts of post-Suharto Chinese identity politics and Sino-Indonesia relations. More broadly, this paper also offers a critical analysis of the internal dynamics of contemporary Overseas Chinese voluntary organizations and the role they play in building trade and sociocultural relationships between China and other countries.