Local Chinese Community Research Articles

The 1967 anti-Chinese riots in Burma and Sino–Burmese relations

Anti-Chinese riots broke out in Rangoon on 26 June 1967. The riots, which resulted from Chinese students' defiance of the Burmese government's ban on wearing Mao badges in school, led to the deterioration of Sino–Burmese relations, symbolised by the cessation of ‘Pauk Phaw’ ties and the subsequent shift in China's foreign policy which included open intervention in Burma's civil war. The riots contributed to estranged relations between Beijing and Rangoon throughout the 1970s and 1980s despite the normalisation of bilateral ties in 1970. While the roots of the Rangoon riots lay in Burma's political economy and tensions within the local Chinese community in the context of Cold War international relations, Beijing bore primary responsibility, however, due to its export of the Cultural Revolution.

The Chinese and the "Redlands Plan": Ethnic Cleansing, the Rule of Law, Economic Self-Interest, and Financial Restraint

In 1893, working-class anti-Chinese agitation in Redlands, California, was pre-empted by the Redlands Plan put forth by the town9s business leaders, whose stake in the region gave them a high appreciation for law and order. Under this plan, Chinese laborers without a certificate of residence would be arrested and, under Article 6 of the Geary Act, deported. The first spate of arrests was expected to put the rest of the local Chinese community to flight—all without violence. In the end, while violence was thwarted, no Chinese were deported, and a local Chinese presence continued into the twentieth century.

Effective Colorectal Cancer Education for Asian Americans: A Michigan Program

Asian Americans are among the fastest growing population groups in the USA. Despite the fact that colorectal cancer (CRC) is the second most common cancer for this group, Asian Americans have low CRC screening rates. An established health promotion program, Healthy Asian Americans Project (HAAP), expanded to include community-based CRC education during 2005-2006. Using Asian-language media, HAAP promoted awareness throughout local Asian Indian, Chinese, Filipino, Hmong, Japanese, Korean, and Vietnamese American communities and recruited men and women over 50 years to attend health fairs at local community/cultural centers. Evaluation data from 304 participants in an evidence-based educational intervention showed significantly increased knowledge and attitudes about the importance of screening. Follow-up conducted between 6 and 12 months showed that 78% of those receiving the educational intervention had been screened in the last 12 months, compared with the 37% who had ever been screened with any of the tests prior to the study. This community-based health promotion program reached underserved populations and the educational intervention improved CRC screening rates. This and similar programs may help lower CRC mortality among Asian Americans.

Tusans (tusheng) and the Changing Chinese Community in Peru

Since their arrival in Peru 160 years ago, the Chinese have struggled to form a community. Faced with hard living conditions, scattered in haciendas, deprived of Chinese women and suffering from racism, mistreatment and restrictive immigration laws, the task of keeping alive seemed insurmountable. Paradoxically, the emergence and consolidation of the Chinese community came about through mestizaje and conversion to Catholicism. This mestizaje allowed them to rebuild the Chinese family structure, though an internal hierarchy appeared depending on the degree of mestizaje . The Catholic Church also played a role as artisan of Chinese identity by helping at the very beginning with the organization of associations and by strengthening the sense of belonging and recognition of the Tusans ( tusheng in Mandarin) or “local born” as part of the Chinese community. However, the new immigrants from China, arriving since the 1980s, have contested the legitimacy of the Tusans and posed new challenges to the local Chinese community. How and to what extent has this new Chinese immigration changed the community life and reinforced/weakened the Tusan identity? This article describes the historical development of the old Chinese community and analyzes the interaction between the Tusans and the recently arrived Chinese.

Dietary-related profile of older persons in the Chinese community: an exploratory study.

Nutrition plays an important role throughout the life span. It is the interaction of nutrition and health that form part of the aging process. Nutrition affects the maintenance of physiological and biological process of aging, also, the risk of development of acute and chronic diseases. To examine dietary related behaviors and lifestyle factors among non-institutionalized older persons in a local Chinese community. It was a cross-sectional qualitative descriptive design. A convenience sample of 36 older persons (mean +/- SD age, 75 +/- 7.8 years) in a community center were approached and invited to complete a questionnaire regarding their dietary-related profile and the self-perceived nutritional and health status. Results showed that 40% (n=14) of the older persons lived alone and ate alone on a regular basis, taking few fruit and vegetables per day, inadequate fluid and no dairy or bean curd products, and 48% (n=17) were overweight or obese. The self-perceived nutritional status correlated directly with perceived health status, which was high. The clinical relevance of this study is highlighted by the far from optimal dietary behaviors among this group of older persons. Nurses and health care providers working in the community should provide education on healthy diet and nutrition-related health problems, especially to older persons, for health maintenance and disease prevention.

Application of an expert knowledge system in the study of forest spatial patterns

For the sake of exploring how the pattern of Chinese pine (Pinus massoniana Lamb) community changed after the invasion of the pine wood nematode (Bursaphelenchus xylophilus (Steiner & Buhrer) Niclde) in Zhoushan, Zhejiang Province, we established a test area in the local Chinese pine community. Landsat5 TM images from 1991 and 2006 were integrated with auxiliary data from field investigation and spectral data as additional sources of information. A method of expert knowledge classifier was applied to establish the expert knowledge dataset of the main vegetation cover types from which we obtained a forest type distribution map. The spatial patterns and stability of the forest, before and after the invasion of the pine wood nematode, were analyzed in terms of community patterns. The results indicated that the predominant coniferous forest type changed to a mixed forest. As a result, the forest structure became complex and the interaction between coniferous forest patches became weakened over the period from 1991 to 2006. Therefore, the resistance of the forest eco-system to plant diseases and insect pests and the stability of forest eco-system enhanced.

Revitalizing Chinatown Into a Heterotopia

With the changing immigrant population and rising real-estate prices in downtown Washington, D.C., the number of Chinese residents and businesses in its Chinatown has declined in recent years. Meanwhile, non-Chinese stores and restaurants have marched into this thriving neighborhood. Foreseeing the threat of Chinatown's disappearance from the urban landscape, leaders of the local Chinese community have devised and administered a mandate for all businesses, Chinese and non-Chinese, in the area to carry Chinese shop signs. To understand how this mandate has reconstructed Chinatown's semiotic landscape, this article employs the theoretical framework of geosemiotics and the (post-)structuralist conception of the sign. Through an analysis of shop signs in their material contexts, it is argued that the local community's preservation effort has inadvertently rendered Chinatown into a heterotopia, where heterogeneous spaces are juxtaposed into one place.

Validation of the Chinese Challenging Behaviour Scale: clinical correlates of challenging behaviours in nursing home residents with dementia

Behavioural and psychological symptoms of dementia (BPSD) are associated with considerable burden to patients with dementia and their caregivers. Formal caregivers in residential care settings face different challenges when delivering care. This study aimed at assessing the clinical correlates of challenging BPSD using the Chinese version of the Challenging Behaviour Scale (CCBS) designed for residential care settings. One hundred and twenty-five participants were recruited from three care-and-attention homes in Hong Kong. The CCBS was administered together with the Cantonese version of Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE), Clinical Dementia Rating (CDR), Disability Assessment for Dementia (DAD) and Neuropsychiatric Inventory (NPI) to explore the relationships between challenging behaviour and important clinical correlates. The CCBS had good internal consistency (alpha = 0.86), inter-rater (ICC = 0.79) and test-retest reliability (ICC = 0.98). A four-factor structure is demonstrated by factor analysis: hyperactivity behaviours, hypoactivity behaviours, verbally aggressive and aberrant behaviours. Challenging behaviours were associated with male gender, cognitive impairment, functional disability, neuropsychiatric symptoms, and higher caregiver's workload. The CCBS is a valid and reliable measure to assess BPSD in residential care settings in local Chinese community. It is useful in evaluating the challenges faced by formal caregivers during daily care of the dementia patients.

Dutch Colonial Education: The Chinese Experience in Indonesia, 1900-1942 (review)

Reviewed by: Dutch Colonial Education: The Chinese Experience in Indonesia, 1900-1942 Sai Siew Min Dutch Colonial Education: The Chinese Experience in Indonesia, 1900-1942. By Ming Govaars, trans. by Lorre Lynn Trytten. Singapore: Chinese Heritage Centre, 2005. 271 pp. This English translation of a Dutch doctoral dissertation is an invaluable resource for scholars studying Chinese Indonesian communities before World War II. In terms of the time period, thematic concerns and coverage of primary materials, it is a welcome addition to the much-cited but by now very dated Overseas Chinese Nationalism: the Genesis of the Pan-Chinese Movement in Indonesia, 1900–1916 by Lea Williams (1960). Both books address a critical event and moment in Chinese Indonesian history, the so-called "Chinese Movement," specifically the educational movement spear-headed by the Batavian Tiong Hoa Hwe Koan (Chinese Association) in the 20th century. Like Williams, Govaars provides not simply an overview of colonial policies but also a close look at the politics of colonial education with regard to the local Chinese communities during the final years of the Dutch empire in Southeast Asia. Govaars, however, addresses a much longer time period which allows her to chart historical changes in the Chinese Movement and discuss what she terms intriguingly "the neo-Chinese Movement." Her book is also meticulously researched and the author's mastery of copious materials culled from Dutch official archives is impressive as can be seen from the detailed information given in the endnotes and appendices. The book is based primarily on Dutch-language materials and that has obvious advantages and disadvantages. The author provides us with an extremely detailed account of official policies and attitudes toward the thorny subject of providing education for a subject race considered by the Dutch colonial government as "foreign" to the Dutch East Indies. From Chapter 3 onward, Govaars discusses an apparent colonial "change of heart" on this issue. It is well-known that the colonial government did not see the need to provide mass education for the Chinese communities in the colony until 1908 when it began to establish the Dutch-Chinese schools specifically for them. The author traces this decision to a 1861 interpretation of a 1854 Government Regulation on education for indigenous children. The government's rationale was that although the Chinese (categorized as "Foreign Orientals") had "Native" legal status, they could not be admitted to schools for "Native" children unless vacancies were available. Govaars demonstrates that the colonial "change of heart" in 1908 was a complex issue. In 1900, the Dutch Resident of Rembang had requested that a government school be set up for Chinese children in his residency but was vetoed by the Director of Education, J.H. Abendanon. The Resident had argued that a school for Chinese children would better prepare them for "life's struggles" (p.71) [End Page 324] and would bind the community to the government. Moreover, the government had already provided for the educational needs of European and indigenous communities and should do likewise for the Chinese (p. 71). Although himself an avid supporter of education as a means of "uplifting" the "Natives" in the Indies, J.H. Abendanon was against educational support for the Chinese, arguing that it would take away financial resources earmarked for indigenous education. He stood firm on this position in 1904 when he vetoed a similar request, this time from the Resident of Batavia. In 1904, when the educational movement championed by the Batavian Chinese Association was well underway in the Indies, the Resident of Batavia expressed his concern that the teaching of Chinese and English in schools set up by the Association within the Chinese Movement would estrange the community from the government (p. 72). Govaars' research reveals that within the colonial bureaucracy the teaching of English (not Dutch) in these schools was one overriding concern in debates on whether the government needed to set up schools for the Chinese. Unfortunately, the author does not discuss the precise nature of the perceived threat of teaching English especially in relation to that of Mandarin Chinese. It would appear that the period of 1900 to 1908 was a critical one with regard to the Dutch administrative decision to establish...

Health care and social service use among Chinese Immigrant elders

We explored patterns and reasons for health and social service use among Chinese immigrant elders. Interviews were conducted with 27 Chinese immigrant elders, 11 adult care giving children, and 12 health and social service providers. Content analysis of these data indicated that participants across groups agreed that Chinese elders under-utilize services because of problems related to language, transportation, cost, long waits for appointments, and because of cultural norms/values related to need for care, preference for self-over professional care, fear, and distrust of western biomedicine, and the obligation to refrain from using formal services. These problems are complicated by geographical dispersion and dialect differences in the local Chinese immigrant community.

Waste Management in Guangdong Cities: The Waste Management Literacy and Waste Reduction Preferences of Domestic Waste Generators

A questionnaire survey was conducted in 2002 on 1365 households in two prefectural-level cities in the Pearl River Delta, Jiangmen and Zhongshan. Three groups of issues are covered in this paper: 1) waste management literacy, concerns, and public participation; 2) waste recycling practices and the potential for waste avoidance; and 3) public environmental literacy. This study confirms findings from previous surveys and provides new information on important issues such as imposing monetary charges on waste and environmental activities, littering, source separation programs (SSPs), and public participation and expectations in local waste management. Saving up recyclable materials for redemption in waste depots is commonly practiced in mainland China regardless of the level of development of a city, although at the household level, high-income families tend to place less value on the revenues to be gained from redemption than lower income groups do. Data from the previous and the present studies indicate that such voluntary but largely economically driven waste recovery behavior diverts at least 10% of the household waste from the waste stream. Although uncompensated SSP is less appealing in the two cities than compensated SSP, it was found that when the median per capita income of a city reaches RMB2000 per month, a high participation rate for uncompensated waste recovery is more likely to occur. Education and income levels are the chief factors affecting littering behavior and the potential for waste avoidance. Contrary to general belief, the local Chinese community is active in microwaste management. The concern, however, is over the inability of the grassroots bureaucracy to deal with rising expectations for waste collection services and neighborhood cleanliness.

Local and Transnational Initiatives Towards Improving Chinese-Indigenous Relations in Post-Suharto Indonesia: The Role of the Voluntary Sector

The erosion of state-managed Chinese- pribumi relations during the Suharto era and the succeeding economic collapse in Indonesia have left a socially and politically fragile situation where new sources of cohesion and social capital are emerging spontaneously at the local level. Some of this takes the form of voluntary and informal activities, both by local and international non-governmental organisations (NGOs), and other forms of (global) civil society, using horizontal network principles, which link local and transnational ethnic Chinese communities from Malaysia and Indonesia to Australia and North America. In this article, I describe three of the more innovative and striking experiments in inter-ethnic and humanistic cooperation, combining both Chinese and pribumi initiatives: these include an educational/environmental institution, founded by a Chinese doctor (Yayasan Perguruan Sultan Iskandar Muda), in Medan; an inter-ethnic Heritage trust (Badan Warisan Sumatera Utara), in the same city; and the Jakarta/Bandung-based Tim Relawan Kemanusiaan, a humanitarian team dedicated to the rehabilitation of victims of state violence across Indonesia. All these groups are connected with transnational NGO and other networks, and are concerned as much with more inclusive issues of citizenship and human rights as with 'assimilation' or ethnic interests alone.

China and Cambodia: In the Mirror of History

In recent years, China has been paying greater attention to Southeast Asia and to Cambodia in particular, says Nayan Chanda, director of publications at the Yale Center for the Study of Globalization. This interest is not new however, but reflects a partial return to the foreign policy followed by the leaders of China since the days of the Ming dynasty. Historically, China had not been interested in active involvement in Indochina, preferring to limit its role to policies that kept its southern neighbors in check and the region free of influence from another challenging power. This tradition of noninterference was broken in the 1970s, amidst increasing tension between the Soviet Union and China, and the beginning of the Sino-American détente in 1971, which changed the international context of China's foreign policy. Chanda points out that since the collapse of the Soviet Union, there has been a surge in Chinese aid, private investment, dispatch of labor and support for the growing local ethnic Chinese community in Cambodia.

Behavioural problems in children and parenting stress associated with primary nocturnal enuresis in Hong Kong

The aim of this study was to investigate the behavioural problems and parenting stress of enuretic children in the local Chinese community. The study recruited 89 children with primary nocturnal enuresis (PNE) from the paediatric clinics of 9 regional hospitals in Hong Kong, and 131 age- and gender-matched control children without PNE from the Student Health Centres. After adequate instruction, the parents completed the Child Behaviour Checklist (CBCL) and Parenting Stress Index (PSI). A trained interviewer interviewed the parents and children and rated the children on the Global Assessment of Functioning (GAF). The PNE group had worse overall scores in both the Problem and Competence scales of CBCL; in particular, they had more attention problems and aggressive behaviours, and lower social competence and school performance than the control group. Their parents demonstrated more parenting stress as shown by higher PSI scores. In the local Chinese population, PNE was associated with more childhood behavioural problems and greater parenting stress. Attention to the psychosocial functioning of the child and parents may be important in the management of enuresis.

Behavioural problems in children and parenting stress associated with primary nocturnal enuresis in Hong Kong

The aim of this study was to investigate the behavioural problems and parenting stress of enuretic children in the local Chinese community. The study recruited 89 children with primary nocturnal enuresis (PNE) from the paediatric clinics of 9 regional hospitals in Hong Kong, and 131 age‐ and gender‐matched control children without PNE from the Student Health Centres. After adequate instruction, the parents completed the Child Behaviour Checklist (CBCL) and Parenting Stress Index (PSI). A trained interviewer interviewed the parents and children and rated the children on the Global Assessment of Functioning (GAF). The PNE group had worse overall scores in both the Problem and Competence scales of CBCL; in particular, they had more attention problems and aggressive behaviours, and lower social competence and school performance than the control group. Their parents demonstrated more parenting stress as shown by higher PSI scores. Conclusion: In the local Chinese population, PNE was associated with more childhood behavioural problems and greater parenting stress. Attention to the psychosocial functioning of the child and parents may be important in the management of enuresis.

The Effect of Visual Stimulation via the Eyeglass Display and the Perception of Pain

Hospitalization involves anxiety and pain for many people. Unfamiliar hospital settings, various diagnostic and therapeutic procedures, and the sight and sounds of medical procedures exacerbate pain and anxiety. By blocking off the anxiety-inducing sights and sounds of the hospital surroundings and creating a pleasant environment, an eyeglass display might be able to change the sensation and perception of pain. In this randomized, controlled, crossover study, 72 healthy university student volunteers were asked to wear a light-weight eyeglass that projected a feeling of watching a 52-inch television screen at 6 1/2 feet in distance while pain was produced by a modified tourniquet technique. Subjects were randomly assigned to participate in a V-session or B-session first, with subsequent cross-over. In a V-session, subjects were instructed to wear the eyeglass and watch the soundless display of natural scenery during the inflation. In a B-session, the eyeglass that subjects wore would project a static blank screen. During V-sessions, there was a significant increase in pain threshold (p < 0.001) and pain tolerance (p < 0.001). The degree of immersion was positively correlated with improvement in pain threshold, whereas the anxiety level was negatively correlated with improvement in pain threshold. These findings have implications for using visual stimulation as a positive adjunct to other methods of pain relief and for different pain conditions. This study was considered to be the pioneer use of visual stimulation in the local Chinese community as an adjunct to pain relief.

The health status and health needs of Chinese population in Glasgow.

This cross sectional study explored the health problems and health needs in the local Chinese community in Glasgow. Several data collection methods have been used in this study, including face-to-face and telephone structured interviews, postal and hand delivered questionnaires. A total of 800 questionnaires were processed, and 493 were completed, giving an overall response rate 61.6%. The results from the present survey indicated that the health status of Chinese residents in Glasgow is poorer than that of the local population. The most important findings of the study is that the Chinese community in Glasgow underuse health services, and unmet health needs exist in the community. The main barrier to effective use of present health services and benefit from the health promotion and health education programmes is language difficulties. Following discussion with the local community, options for improving the health services for the Chinese community in Glasgow were obtained. The findings of the study have implications for health service purchaser/providers of health care to the Chinese population generally in Scotland.

Hong Kong in Chinese History: Community and Social Unrest in the British Colony, 1842-1913 (review)

256 China Review International: Vol. 2, No. 1, Spring 1995 Jung-fang Tsai. Hong Kong in Chinese History: Community and Social Unrest in the British Colony, 1842-1913. New York: Columbia University Press, 1993. 375 pp. Hardcover $45.00. With its 1997 retrocession to Chinese sovereignty looming closer every day, Hong Kong has, during the past decade, appeared frequently in the headlines ofdie international press and as a subject ofacademic discussion. Yet despite die proliferation of tides on Hong Kong, there is still an obvious lack ofserious scholarship in English on die historical development ofHong Kong, especially its local Chinese community. This volume goes a long way toward filling the gap by offering a very solid, original, and penetrating study ofthe first seven decades ofHong Kong society under British rule, from the Opium War to the aftermath ofthe 1911 republican revolution. Based on extensive documentation in both Chinese and English, this book delineates die gradual yet significant social and political changes that transformed colonial Hong Kong during a crucial stage of Sino-Western interaction and die global expansion ofcapitalism-imperialism. By placing his study in the context of modern Chinese history, Tsai offers an effective rebuttal to what he strongly criticizes (pp. 2-4) as the Eurocentric historiography of Hong Kong which is written from the perspective ofthe European elites and focuses on British colonial administration and formal institutions. In restoring the principal Hong Kong Chinese actors to center stage, this book reminds us ofRichard Hughes' famous title, Hong Kong: Borrowed Place, Borrowed Time (New York: Praeger, 1968)—and as this reviewer would like to add, "widi borrowed people." Tsai examines three main themes in Hong Kong's development: the birth of an urban community and its social relationships, the changing nature and patterns of social unrest, and die growth of nationalism among the Chinese mercantile elites, intelligentsia, and die laboring masses in colonial Hong Kong. The first four chapters of the book chart the economic conditions and sociopolitical structure ofHong Kong from its founding as a British colony in 1842 to the eve ofthe First World War. The following five chapters analyze the nature and significance of social unrest in Hong Kong—including patriotic and politically motivated collective actions such as the 1884 popular insurrection at the time of the SinoFrench War, the 1905 anti-American and 1908 anti-Japanese boycotts, and die 1912-1913 tramway boycott, inspired by die 1911 revolution, as well as the socioeconomic struggles which, like the labor strikes from 1861 to 1895, were protests© 1995 by University agamst colonial regulations. oj awai ? PressTsai's findings are, on the whole, persuasive and relevant to the major discourses in the study ofmodern Chinese history. For instance, one readily accepts his characterization ofthe common folk as "conditional patriots" responding Reviews 257 tìirough a rational articulation oflocal issues and socioeconomic self-interest to the appeal ofclass consciousness and the impact ofimperialism, both ofwhich were "situational" according to Tsai. His differentiation between "elite nationalism "—on the part Hong Kong Chinese mercantile elements and those intellectuals who practiced "cultural hegemony"—and die patriotic outbursts from the grassroots adds a useful dimension to our understanding ofthe rise ofpopular nationalistic consciousness in urban China. Several points in this book deserve further elaboration or more refined articulation . For instance, in Tsai's depiction of "Chinese patriots," he repeatedly includes die name ofRobert Ho Tung (pp. 161, 165, 169). In fact, Ho Tung was not a full-blooded Chinese, but a Eurasian with an English father and a Chinese mother. However, in the prewar official Hong Kong categorization, there were only "Chinese" and "European," with no separate or distinct provision for Eurasians . Furthermore, among the local Hong Kong Chinese populace and in the eyes of mainland Chinese officialdom, Robert Ho Tung was never regarded as genuinely Chinese. Even during the major strikes of the 1920s, when he was severely denounced by labor leaders and left-wing activists for his part in the British colonial state-Western capitalist oppression against workers' interests, he was never condemned as a "traitor," simply because he was not regarded as a Chinese and tiius could not be accused ofbetraying the interests of fellow Chinese compatriots. In drawing attention...

Destination, selection and turnover among Chinese migrants to Philippine cities in the nineteenth century

An investigation of large numbers of individual Chinese immigrants in nineteenth-century Philippine cities reveals that the flow of migrants was strongly biased by river basin and rural marketing system of origin in China and by emergent regional economy (sugar versus non-sugar) in the Philippines. The revealed patterns tend to confirm Skinner's formulations on the nature of functional regions in pre-modern China. Most of the immigrants were males, and many were sojourners who planned to return to China both periodically and on retirement. This characteristic led to the maintenance of highly localized chains of migration over long periods of time and also to high rates of turnover within local Chinese communities in the Philippines. Turnover was highest among recent arrivals and lowest among business license holders and longer-term local residents in general.

Indonesian Policies toward the Chinese Minority under the New Order

THE CHINESE IN Indonesia, numbering about 3.5 million, are a heterogeneous and complex community. Culturally they can be divided into Indonesian-speaking peranakans and Chinesespeaking totoks; legally they can be classified as Indonesian citizens and aliens cutting across the above-mentioned cultural divisions; politically they are split into pro-Jakarta, pro-Peking and pro-Taipei groups and others who are not sure of their orientation. The majority, however, remain politically passive. Economically the Chinese are heavily engaged in trading activities and are influential in Indonesian economic life, but they are still far from controlling the Indonesian economy in the way that the Dutch did prior to 1957. Despite the heterogeneous nature of the local Chinese community in Indonesia, most indigenous Indonesian leaders, with the exception of those affiliated with the communists and minor left-wing parties, perceive the Chinese as a homogeneous group which controls the Indonesian economy, resists assimilation and is loyal to an outside power, especially the People's Republic of China (PRC). As to the economic power of the Chinese, President Suharto has been quoted as saying that the Chinese, constituting less than 3% of the Indonesian population, dominate 70% of the Indonesian economy.1 There is evidence that the indigenous Indonesian leaders' perceptions rather than the actual conditions of the Chinese influence Indonesian policies toward this minority group. Understandably, Indonesian governments from Sukarno to Suharto have introduced policies aimed at curbing Chinese economic strength and assimilating them into the indigenous population. Nonetheless, these policies have often been modified to suit domestic political and economic realities at specific periods of time. Since