Despite Indonesia’s stable economic growth over the last few years, unemployment and concerns about job prospects remain a major issue, especially among young people. As in so many other countries, blaming external factors has proven far easier than attempting to solve complicated domestic issues, and so it seems China has become the scapegoat for Indonesia’s economic problems.
That’s according to the results of a new survey from pollster Media Survei Nasional (Median). They asked people across the archipelago which country they thought posed the greatest threat to Indonesia. China came out on top, with 22.7% of respondents picking the Asian superpower.
The second and third most-chosen countries were the United States and Malaysia, with 14.1% and 7.8%, respectively. Israel came in fourth with 3.2% and Myanmar fifth with 1.7%.
The survey was conducted from Sept. 14-22 and is based on data from 1,000 respondents.
Median’s research director, Sudarto, said they were surprised that worries about China were greater than for the US or neighboring Malaysia. But he said that the clear reason respondents felt China was now the greatest threat was due to economic issues.
As many as 31.2% of survey takers said they thought China had control over Indonesia’s economy. In addition, 23.7% said that Chinese products were dominating Indonesian markets.
This contrasts greatly with the reasons why respondents thought the US was a threat to Indonesia, which were based on concerns over America’s military strength and interventionist foreign policy.
Fears about Chinese workers coming to Indonesia and stealing local jobs have been growing, stoked in large part for political purposes. Late last year during the height of the movement against the former governor of Jakarta, Basuki “Ahok” Tjahaja Purnama, an Indonesian of Chinese-descent, there were rumors that there were 10 million Chinese nationals working in Indonesia when in fact there were only about 21,000.
There was also last year’s “chili conspiracy”, which saw local media outlets accusing China of using a “biological weapon” against Indonesia after four Chinese nationals were arrested for allegedly planting imported chili seeds contaminated with bacteria.
More recently, a survey by the Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) found that 77.7% of millennials in Indonesia thought foreign workers were having a negative impact on the economy, believing that they were taking away jobs from locals.
Meanwhile, President Jokowi’s administration is doing their best to court foreign investment from China, which many believe is crucial to Indonesia’s continued economic growth, while trying not to further antagonize the misled masses who think that China is the source of their economic woes.
