Genocide against the Indonesian Chinese by Suharto

[Bulgarian Lion]

The Chinese in Indonesia are hated by all Indonesians - by the Islamists as "kafirs", by the nationalists as "collaborators of the colonialists", by the rightists as "communists" and even by the communists as "capitalists" - the overseas Chinese are overrepresented in the economy of countries where they live. And the Chinese were indeed over-represented in the Indonesian Communist Party, which at the time of its defeat in 1965 was the largest non-ruling communist party in the world. In fact, in the relations of the Indonesians to the Chinese there were the following causes of hostility, similar to and even surpassing those of the Turks to the Armenians before 1915:
1. Overrepresentation in the national economy and the revolutionary movement,
2. Suspicion as agents of a hostile foreign power,
3. A religious motive, deeper than the Turkish Armenophobia, because the Armenians, according to Islam, as Christians, are "people of the book", and they have good relations with the Muslim Persians and Arabs - for example, in Saudi Arabia in recent years there have been demands for the recognition of the Armenian Genocide, while although a significant proportion of overseas Chinese are Christians, there are also followers of syncretic Chinese folk religion among them,
4. Centuries of cooperation with foreign conquerors - while the Turks have been an imperial people for centuries, with a weaker inferiority complex.
Only the concern for territorial integrity is absent, but also Western Armenia before 1915 was a multi-ethnic region. And my question is about the consequences if, after the defeat of the Indonesian Communist Party, the Suharto regime organizes and carries out the first genocide since the Second World War, guided by Islamic fundamentalist and chauvinistic motives. I know that the economic consequences for the country will be negative, due to the loss of experience, education and capital - still at least some of the Chinese will be able to escape to Singapore or Malaysia. I am interested in what will be the reaction of China, Taiwan and Singapore to this event, and how it will affect their relations, as well as the relations of overseas Chinese with the People's Republic of China. how will it affect the relationship between the Chinese and the kin of the Indonesian Malays, I am especially curious how this will affect Sino-Malay relations in Singapore - whether there will be retaliatory Malay pogroms and murders, what position will post-Suharto Indonesia take on the genocide - will it recognize it, apologize and pay reparations, or will it aggressively deny it around the world, as Turkey, Azerbaijan and Pakistan deny the Armenian Genocide and if he takes the second political line, which countries will recognize the genocide and which - will support denial, except Pakistan, Brunei and maybe Malaysia? Also, how much anti-Americanism among the Chinese and around the world will such actions by this "son of our bitch"?

 

[walmart]

The PRC is too indifferent and isolated to do anything regarding Indonesia. I don’t see any long-term relationship issues between China and Indonesia. Internationally, the attitude is going to be the same.

 

[Bulgarian Lion]

The PRC is too indifferent and isolated to do anything regarding Indonesia. I don’t see any long-term relationship issues between China and Indonesia. Internationally, the attitude is going to be the same.

And after China and the US reconcile, what will be the reaction? Let's not forget that the Armenians have had a state only since 1991, which is the weakest, peripheral, and until recently the poorest in the South Caucasus, but thanks to their diaspora dozens of countries have recognized the genocide, and some have even criminalized the denial his. The Chinese diaspora can play the same or a similar role.

 

[walmart]

And after China and the US reconcile, what will be the reaction?

Nothing, until recently the PRC did not care whatsoever about the overseas Chinese.

 

[Bulgarian Lion]

Nothing, until recently the PRC did not care whatsoever about the overseas Chinese.

The overseas Chinese are richer than the Armenian diaspora, if only because of Hong Kong, one of the richest cities in the world, and famously - the aforementioned Hong Kong was the third most important film center in the world. Can't they lobby, if not at the state level, then at least at the local level for recognition of the genocide? In the 1970s, an Armenian terrorist organization of avengers of the Armenian Genocide arose, killing Turkish government officials, and in the 1920s, the Armenians carried out Operation Nemesis, in which some of the main culprits were liquidated. The Chinese have Triads with more tradition than the Armenian Dashankutun Party existed, so their members could join forces with wealthy overseas Chinese and create an anti-Indonesian terrorist organization to draw international attention to the Genocide - depending on its strength, it can also carry out an attempt against Suharto himself. And now China is in conflicts with the countries of Southeast Asia, and one more thing - there is anti-Japanese chauvinism, and during the Second World War Indonesian nationalists were allies of the Japanese, and this can be used for anti-Japanese propaganda - for example, to accuse Japan of Indonesian Sinophobia. One more thing - most Armenians, although Christians, are non-Chalcedonian Christians, that is, they are heretics to the vast majority of Christians in the world, while Chinese Christians - nearly half in Indonesia, are Catholic and Protestant, that is, they can win more Western support.

 

[Sekhmet_D]

I am interested in what will be the reaction of China, Taiwan and Singapore to this event, and how it will affect their relations, as well as the relations of overseas Chinese with the People's Republic of China.

Nothing, until recently the PRC did not care whatsoever about the overseas Chinese.

This cannot be stressed enough. For the most part, there is no love lost between the PRC and overseas Chinese. During the May 1998 riots, China did not so much as lift a finger in protest.

 

[Sekhmet_D]

I am especially curious how this will affect Sino-Malay relations in Singapore - whether there will be retaliatory Malay pogroms and murders...

As for this... hah. Overseas Chinese have practically zero history of 'rocking the boat' where they have settled. ESPECIALLY not where it comes to inciting racial violence. Even if your hypothetical genocide was taking place in Indonesia, it would be a cold day in hell before Chinese Singaporeans and Chinese Malaysians would go so far as to torch Malay businesses and lynch Malay individuals in response.

 

[Bulgarian Lion]

This cannot be stressed enough. For the most part, there is no love lost between the PRC and overseas Chinese. During the May 1998 riots, China did not so much as lift a finger in protest.

In the riots in 1998, up to 1,188 people died, and not all of them were Chinese, and in the case of a general extermination of the Chinese in Indonesia, no less than two-thirds, and the rest to escape in one way or another, will hundreds of thousands of people died. In 1894 - 1896, the Ottoman Empire carried out the Hamidian massacres against the Armenians and 80 to 300 thousand people died, and 1.5 million Armenians were killed in the genocide itself, but the Hamidian massacres were not officially treated as genocide even by Armenia itself. So one is relatively limited persecutions in the style of the Jewish pogroms, the other is an organized genocide in the style of the Turkish genocides against the Armenians, the Anatolian Greeks, the Assyrians and the Bulgarians in South-Eastern Thrace in the summer of 1913 (the latter is little known even in Bulgaria, because we remember more how at the same time we lost nearly 90% of Macedonia, but otherwise we would have lobbied massively for international recognition). Moreover, not only because of the geopolitical value of Turkey, the West closed its eyes for a long time, and even in some English and American encyclopedias from the middle of the last century there were materials denying the Armenian Genocide, and even Greece and Cyprus, the most anti-Turkish and one of the most pro-Armenian countries in Europe officially recognized it after the end of the Cold War, despite the fact that after the fall of Todor Zhivkov in Bulgaria on November 10, 1989 - 2 years before the official end of the USSR, there was not even a theoretical possibility of a communist invasion on its territory, but in The Soviet Union until the death of Stalin, those who mentioned the genocide were sent to the Gulag and executed for "bourgeois nationalism", when the leadership of the Armenian SSR built the Tsitsernakaberd memorial in Yerevan, the condition was not to make territorial claims to NATO Turkey and they were forced to officially dedicate the monument to all Armenians who died during the First World War - that is, those who fell in the Russian tsarist army in the battles against Germany. The Armenian SSR officially recognized the Armenian Genocide only in 1988, during Glasnost and Perestroika - after Paraguay and several other countries, and the USSR itself never recognized the Armenian Genocide. It was also not recognized by the neo-Soviet regime of Lukashenko in Belarus, while Russia under Yeltsin recognized it. So, although indeed the People's Republic of China would have been silent for decades about what was happening, or at the "best" case, writing about it in scarcely available specialized literature, under the influence of changes in the geopolitical situation, the lobbying of overseas Chinese, and maybe would - and the Taiwanese government, in the case of Suharto's genocide of its Chinese population, the negative consequences for Indonesia were yet to come.

 

[GSD310]

And my question is about the consequences if, after the defeat of the Indonesian Communist Party, the Suharto regime organizes and carries out the first genocide since the Second World War, guided by Islamic fundamentalist and chauvinistic motives. I know that the economic consequences for the country will be negative…

The bolded is why I don’t think this scenario will happen. Soeharto was discriminatory enough to put in place anti-Chinese policies but he’s too much of a pragmatist to ignore the Indonesian-Chinese’s economic potential and his priority on assuming power was economic recovery after Sukarno reached 650% in inflation.

On “Islamic fundamentalist” motives, while everybody seem to remember Soeharto is an anti-communist, they always forget that number 2 on his list of ideological enemies are religious fundamentalists. He referred to communists as the Extreme Left and religious fundamentalists as the Extreme Right. Yes he embraced Islam and became more Islamic later in life but this is different than becoming a fundamentalist.

On “chauvinistic” motives, it needs to be said that while Soeharto put in place anti-Chinese policies, he wasn’t a chauvinist. He was notorious for favoring Indonesian-Chinese businessmen. He threw a bone or two in the direction of the “indigenous Indonesian businessmen“ but that’s about it.

 

[ennobee]

I think rather than settling in Malaysia, most Chinese refugees will end up in the Netherlands, courtesy of Indonesia having been through Dutch Indies for so long. Implications for the ethnic makeup of today's Netherlands will be interesting.....

 

[GhostTrader]

Technically, Suharto already enforced forced cultural assimiliation or if you want to be extreme about it, cultural genocide, to the Chinese Indonesians. I can say that since I'm Chinese Indonesians myself. Aside from maybe having a Chinese name that is barely used if at all, having Chinese appearance, gathering with other Chinese Indonesians, eating Chinese food, and getting red envelopes of money, there isn't much similarity now between Chinese Indonesians and normal Chineses. And no one would raise too much hell if the Chinese Indonesians were genocided in the hypothetical situation.

 

[CalBear]

The Chinese in Indonesia are hated by all Indonesians - by the Islamists as "kafirs", by the nationalists as "collaborators of the colonialists", by the rightists as "communists" and even by the communists as "capitalists" - the overseas Chinese are overrepresented in the economy of countries where they live. And the Chinese were indeed over-represented in the Indonesian Communist Party, which at the time of its defeat in 1965 was the largest non-ruling communist party in the world. In fact, in the relations of the Indonesians to the Chinese there were the following causes of hostility, similar to and even surpassing those of the Turks to the Armenians before 1915:
1. Overrepresentation in the national economy and the revolutionary movement,
2. Suspicion as agents of a hostile foreign power,
3. A religious motive, deeper than the Turkish Armenophobia, because the Armenians, according to Islam, as Christians, are "people of the book", and they have good relations with the Muslim Persians and Arabs - for example, in Saudi Arabia in recent years there have been demands for the recognition of the Armenian Genocide, while although a significant proportion of overseas Chinese are Christians, there are also followers of syncretic Chinese folk religion among them,
4. Centuries of cooperation with foreign conquerors - while the Turks have been an imperial people for centuries, with a weaker inferiority complex.
Only the concern for territorial integrity is absent, but also Western Armenia before 1915 was a multi-ethnic region. And my question is about the consequences if, after the defeat of the Indonesian Communist Party, the Suharto regime organizes and carries out the first genocide since the Second World War, guided by Islamic fundamentalist and chauvinistic motives. I know that the economic consequences for the country will be negative, due to the loss of experience, education and capital - still at least some of the Chinese will be able to escape to Singapore or Malaysia. I am interested in what will be the reaction of China, Taiwan and Singapore to this event, and how it will affect their relations, as well as the relations of overseas Chinese with the People's Republic of China. how will it affect the relationship between the Chinese and the kin of the Indonesian Malays, I am especially curious how this will affect Sino-Malay relations in Singapore - whether there will be retaliatory Malay pogroms and murders, what position will post-Suharto Indonesia take on the genocide - will it recognize it, apologize and pay reparations, or will it aggressively deny it around the world, as Turkey, Azerbaijan and Pakistan deny the Armenian Genocide and if he takes the second political line, which countries will recognize the genocide and which - will support denial, except Pakistan, Brunei and maybe Malaysia? Also, how much anti-Americanism among the Chinese and around the world will such actions by this "son of our bitch"?

Your fascination with Genocide is, frankly, disturbing. This same holds true for your willingness to broad brush entire populations as being ready to go in on genocide.

I would strongly suggest that you review your postings

 

[RousseauX]

Your fascination with Genocide is, frankly, disturbing. This same holds true for your willingness to broad brush entire populations as being ready to go in on genocide.

I would strongly suggest that you review your postings

the dude honestly seem kinda mentally unwill considering how meandering those posts go