Legislation on Chinese Indonesians

In the early 1950s the Government of Indonesia implemented the Benteng Program, under which only native Indonesians were allowed to have licenses to import certain items.

[1][2] This was to reduce the economic disparity between ordinary Indonesians and ethnic Chinese who were given racial privileges during the centuries-old Dutch colonial rule.

[3][4] The program soon evolved into a colloquially term of Ali Baba, referring to symbiotic relationship between ethnic Chinese entrepreneurs and native Indonesians who benefited each other through mutual cooperation.

[7] This was the government's attempt to better redistribute economic commerce and trade back into the hands of majority when much of the nation's economy is run by a small, elite minority of ethnic Chinese which had near monopoly of all business transactions.

[5] However, the implementation of the directive resulted with riots and triggered the return of many ethnic Chinese back to China, as many of their businesses were labelled as foreign-owned and liable to be confiscated.

[5] Tens of thousands of business owned by ethnic Chinese were either forcibly transferred (often with excessive force and threats) under the auspices of military personnel or peacefully, albeit with much reluctance and protest.

240/1867) mandated assimilation of "foreigners" and supported a previous directive, 127/U/Kep/12/1966, for Indonesian Chinese to adopt Indonesian-sounding names.