The Ambivalent Alliance between Beijing and Jakarta
The Ambivalent Alliance between Beijing and Jakarta
This chapter explores Beijing's strategic collaborations with Jakarta through the second Afro-Asia Conference, the Game of the New Emerging Forces (GANEFO), and konfrontasi—Indonesia's campaign to block Britain's plan to merge the remains of its former Southeast Asian colonies into the Federation of Malaysia. However, closer bilateral relations failed to prevent anti-Chinese riots in Indonesia. In May 1963, shortly after Liu Shaoqi's historic visit to Indonesia, which was the first visit by a head of state of the People's Republic of China, a chain of anti-Chinese riots broke out in West Java. Unlike the government-led anti-Chinese acts in 1959–60, the attacks against ethnic Chinese in 1963 were eruptions of popular discontent sparked by economic conditions. Meanwhile, the two countries' common struggle against the Western imperialist presence in Southeast Asia led to new discord. Beijing and Jakarta clashed over policies toward the ethnic Chinese in Malaya, the Chinese-dominated Communist guerillas in Sarawak, and the Chinese-majority country of Singapore.
Keywords: Beijing, Jakarta, Afro-Asia Conference, GANEFO, konfrontasi, Indonesia, anti-Chinese riots, ethnic Chinese, Communist guerillas
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