The Economist - USA (2020-02-15)

34 Asia The EconomistFebruary 15th 2020

2

Banyan Belt and roadblock

W

hen china’spresident, Xi Jinping,

launched the Belt and Road Initia-

tive (bri) in 2013, Indonesia was seen as

essential to its success. So much so that

he went to Jakarta, its capital, to launch

the maritime dimension of his world-

girdling programme of infrastructure

investments. But then a funny thing

happened: very little. Nearby Cambodia

has been overrun by Chinese involve-

ment in its economy and politics. In

Pakistan briand its local iteration, the

China-Pakistan Economic Corridor

(cpec), are held up as proof of a relation-

ship “as close as lips and teeth”—even as

cpecgoes off the rails. In contrast, most

Indonesians have never heard of China’s

signature foreign policy. Banyan’s recent

informal poll of residents of Jakarta was

nearly unanimous: briis a financial

institution, Bank Rakyat Indonesia.

China’s involvement in Indonesia is

growing, but it got going late. One reason

is the long slow process of getting any

project off the ground. Public consul-

tations drag on, land is a nightmare to

acquire, bureaucrats block licences and

sleazier ministers wonder what is in it

for them. One minister under President

Joko Widodo, or Jokowi, admits that the

Indonesian way is hardly ideal, but at

least the country avoided many of the

reckless, grandiose projects and poor

financial terms embraced by faster-

moving neighbouring countries. The

only real albatross, a planned high-speed

railway from Jakarta to Bandung, is a

cautionary tale. In 2015 China beat Japan

in the bid for its construction by not

insisting on government guarantees for

its loans. Quickly the usual problems

emerged: even the air force, with a base

in the path of the train, objected. Last

year all the land was at last acquired. But

the project is years late and over budget.

Since no broader high-speed network is

envisaged that offers economies of scale,

the 150km line will never pay for itself. The

railway is China’s flagship project in In-

donesia, but Indonesian ministers do not

want to talk about it.

The railway is also a lesson in the some-

times ugly sensibilities over the nearly 3m

Indonesians of Chinese origin, which in

turn shape Indonesia’s engagement with

China. Chinese have been doing business

in Indonesia for centuries, and today form

a big part of the entrepreneurial class.

Anti-Chinese antagonisms date back at

least to colonial times, when the Dutch

appointed ethnic Chinese as tax farmers

even as they encouraged occasional po-

groms against Chinese traders, builders

and sugar-mill workers. In the 20th cen-

tury some Indonesian nationalists defined

themselves in part by their anti-Chinese-

ness. After independence, hatred boiled

over in 1965 following an alleged left-wing

coup attempt. Ethnic Chinese were seen by

many as communist sympathisers. Chi-

nese Indonesians were among those tar-

geted in army-directed massacres in

which hundreds of thousands of people

died. Anti-Chinese riots erupt around

the archipelago from time to time. And in

2017 the ethnic-Chinese and Christian

governor of Jakarta, Basuki Tjahaja Pur-

nama, or Ahok, an ally of Jokowi, was

jailed on trumped-up charges of blasphe-

my. A rabble-rousing politician, Prabowo

Subianto, who said Ahok should “know

his place lest the Indonesian Chinese

face the consequences of his action”, is

now the minister of defence.

The railway was also criticised,

caught in a broad surge of anti-Chinese

sentiment. The government has drawn

its own conclusions. All the other big

projects backed by China are to be built

far from the Javanese heartland where,

one official explains, “a lot of the reli-

gious conservatives and Muslim hard-

liners are collected”. They include an oil

refinery in northern Sumatra near the

Malacca Strait, a smelter on Sulawesi that

allows Indonesia to process its nickel ore

for the first time, and planned hydro-

power plants in northern Kalimantan to

encourage aluminium smelters to move

from China.

Indonesia, then, mostly engages with

China on its own terms—and a Chinese

commitment for a training college to

teach Indonesians about nickel process-

ing is further proof of that. At times it

will even be seen to stand up to China, as

in a maritime spat last month in which

the navy and coastguard expelled a Chi-

nese fishing fleet from Indonesia’s exclu-

sive economic zone. The move led some

observers to imagine that Indonesia will

unite its South-East Asian neighbours

against China in the South China Sea. But

that is wishful thinking. Jokowi must

appear robust to anti-China forces at

home. But, for the economy to grow, he

must court Chinese money.

Indonesia wants to deal with China on its own terms

the-clock vigil, turning it into a carnival of

opprobrium that has spawned scores of

copycat sit-ins across the country.

In its campaign the bjpstrove to depict

Shaheen Bagh’s mothers and housewives

as dangerous incubators of treachery and

terrorism. “This fire can anytime reach the

households of Delhi,” fulminated Parvesh

Verma, one of the party’s mps. “These peo-

ple will enter your house, will abduct your

sisters and mothers, rape them, kill them!”

Mr Verma even screeched that Arvind Kej-

riwal, the bespectacled, cardigan-wearing

former tax inspector who heads the aap,

was a dangerous terrorist. Another mp, the

junior minister of finance, whipped a rally

into a frenzy against the prime minister’s

critics, leading the crowd to chant, “Shoot

the bastards! Shoot the bastards!”

Such excesses sparked little adverse

comment from the fawning television

channels that dominate Hindi-language

broadcasting. When the dismal results be-

gan pouring in, these outlets tried to ex-

plain them away. Commenting on the bjp’s

defeat, Sudhir Chaudhary, an anchor on

Zee tv, launched a tirade against the voters

of Delhi, implying that they were somehow

paving the way for the Muslim minority to

take over the country, as Muslim invaders

did centuries ago. “They do not care that

Mughal rule will return...nor are they wor-

ried that the country will break up,” he la-

mented. “The people of Delhi are com-

pletely caught up in their daily lives and

don’t care two hoots for what happens to

the rest of the country.” Mr Chaudhary has

it backwards. If the rest of India was watch-

ing the bjp’s effort to pump up sectarian

fury in Delhi, it might conclude that it was

the ruling party that was trying to break up

the country. 7