Anyone who was deemed a threat to the New Order and Suharto’s power was immediately put under constant watch by the government; many of these targets were the Chinese living in Indonesia. The Chinese who were living abroad in Indonesia were considerably wealthier than Indonesian citizens, causing disparities between the two groups and were made an easier target to discriminate towards. This fact coupled with a coup from the Communist Party of Indonesia that killed six members of Suharto’s government, helped promote violence and in some cases mass purging of ethnic Chinese. Suharto was able to fan the flames of hatred towards the Chinese from the local population and further his own agenda on gaining complete control over the country and creating an authoritarian state. After the ousting of Suharto and the establishment of more democratic reforms in 1998, the following years showed a decrease in violence against the Chinese.
This reflecting a narrative that within the transition of the government, a dialogue was able to open between the Chinese and Indonesians and policies were formed to allow Chinese to participate more in the political process. The stepping away from Suharto’s controlling regime also showed Indonesian states gaining more control over their own governing bodies. The violence faced by the Chinese during the era of …show more content…
The PKI was able to infiltrate many government agencies and had Indonesia rely heavily on Communist powers, for instance China and the Soviet Union. Also Sukarno was anti-imperialist, having been under the control of the Dutch since the 1800s and was placed under control by the Japanese during World War Two. The reliance was a way to try and distance Indonesia from previous colonial powers such as the Dutch and an interfering west. Another failure in Sukarno was that due to what looked like Sukarno embracing Communism and supporting Communist states many western nations did not want to interact with it and left Indonesia without a plan or reliable support to help life the country out of