Racial Conspiracies Tear at Asia's Societal Fabric
International Herald Tribune
September 12, 1998
Philip Bowring 

There are few more emotive words than rape and race. Combine them with the word recession and you can quickly create a scenario for turmoil in the region if governments, particularly the shakier ones, allow themselves to be led by emotion.

There are several issues that, at first glance, appear unconnected but have some potentially dangerous links. One is the allegations of organized mass rapes of Chinese in Indonesia. Given the extent of mob violence against ethnic Chinese property in recent months, reports of rapes have some credibility. Many Chinese, shopkeepers in particular, have been living in fear. Chinese were used as scapegoats by some elements in the dying days of the Suharto regime and now in the struggle for the succession.

It would be surprising if there had not been some rape cases. How many is, of course, hard to find out, despite the best efforts of human rights organizations. But the reports appear to have been deliberately exaggerated. In some cases, reports have been fabricated and widely disseminated on the Internet. Presumably the objective has been to raise consciousness, particularly among ethnic Chinese around the world.

If so, they had the desired effect. In Beijing, the authorities were more willing than normal to permit a small anti-Indonesian demonstration. Groups in Canada protested anti-Chinese racism. In Hong Kong, newspapers put banner headlines on "atrocities," and callers to phone-in radio shows demanded that Beijing take action to protect Chinese. Western news organizations were assailed for not giving sufficient coverage to the rapes allegations.

The ethnic identification is natural, but has very likely been counterproductive, at least for the Chinese minorities in southeast Asia it was designed to help. It is also open to allegations of hypocrisy. Protesters' concern for human rights in Indonesia seemed to stop short of Aceh or East Timor, where the issue was murder, not rape, carried out at official instigation, not by random mob action.

Hong Kongers are quick to spot anti-Chinese racism in Canada, Australia and other places, not to mention Indonesia, but ignore it their own backyard.

China and Hong Kong both have nationality laws that are racially based. In Hong Kong those who can claim Chinese "blood," whatever their nationality or place of birth, have rights denied to non-Chinese.

"Victim" identification is the other side of the coin. Two years ago, the commercial achievements of ethnic Chinese, particularly in southeast Asia, was being trumpeted. Tycoons boasted of their massive contribution to the development of the motherland. This triumphalism, well supported by best-selling books in the West such as John Naisbitt's "Megatrends Asia," was always likely to end in tears.

Now, to try to bring Beijing into the equation is the most dangerous move of all. China's territorial ambitions in the South China Sea is regarded with fear in the Malay world. Worse, it gives succor to the racists on the other side, the ethnic Malay racists and Muslim extremists who would like all Chinese to be sent back to China. Every move by Chinese to make Indonesia into a global Chinese issue increases the paranoia of the majority.

National identity, not ethnic identity, has been the region's strength for 30 years, and it remains the only way ahead for southeast Asia. Integration — as in Thailand — is more urgent now than ever. It requires real effort on Jakarta's part and the removal of anti-Chinese practices. But equally it requires ethnic Chinese not to regard themselves as a race apart, united by mythical "blood" ties.

Racial and anti-foreign sentiment is a contagious disease that seems to be spreading. Prime Minister Mahathir bin Mohamad's vitriol against foreign "speculators" may be shrugged off as domestic politics and win some nationalist approval from all races in Malaysia.

But restrictions on capital movement are inevitably seen as having a racial, anti-Chinese as well as anti-foreign ingredient. Disputes with predominantly Chinese Singapore add to the danger of racial disharmony. And when Malay politics become deeply divided, as is happening in Malaysia and Indonesia, the danger to Chinese minorities increases, however low a profile the Chinese adopt.

Even in internationalist and free-market Hong Kong, the government has taken to barely veiled anti-foreign rhetoric.

The fall in stock prices is blamed on "manipulation" rather than previous gross overvaluation. The word "war" is used to justify massive use of public funds to "save" Hong Kong by propping up the worth of business groups whose debts are exceeded only by their political influence.

Media feedback suggest that supporters of the "war" do so more because of "nationalist" appeal than because they think it is money well spent.

Some of Asia's problems derive from excessive Western capital flows, in and out. But when governments start talking of "conspiracies" it is time to be on guard.

There is no particular reason to believe that, with good leadership, the majorities in Hong Kong, Malaysia or Indonesia will be overwhelmed by the playing of racial fears any more than Jean-Marie Le Pen in France and Pauline Hanson in Australia have become dictators of policy.

But those — be they Western, Malay or Chinese — who promote notions of racial conspiracies threaten the fabric of Asian societies that for 150 years have thrived on pluralism and openness.

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