'I was a victim of the Cold War'

The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Tears welled up in the middle-aged man's eyes and his voice shook with emotion as he started recalling the moment he was reunited with his parents.

The previously lively conversation on his career halted for a moment as he tried to control himself.

"We are all victims of the Cold War," said Tan Wei-wen, the 60-year-old counselor for trade and commerce at the Embassy of the People's Republic of China in Jakarta. "It was a tragedy."

Tan, the second of five children born in June 1945, right after the end of World War II, continued, with less emotion and more self-control.

His English was heavily accented, but not in a way one would expect in a Chinese.

"I was parted from my family for more than 20 years," he said, explaining that he could not even write a simple letter to his parents. "I was afraid of being accused of acting as an agent for other parties and so was my family. In fact, we are only wong cilik (a Javanese phrase meaning ordinary people)."

Tan pronounced the Javanese words as fluently as he pronounced Chinese.

"I was born in Semarang (Central Java)," he said with renewed calmness. He paused for several seconds and added that he spent his school years in the city before he decided to continue his education in China.

"I flew to Beijing in 1966, following the emergence of anti- Chinese rallies after the coup allegedly perpetrated by the PKI (Indonesian Communist Party), while my parents stayed in Semarang.

"I felt like a stranger there," Tan explained, adding that the situation during the Cold War had plunged him into the uncertainty faced by many people in developing countries at that time.

The Cold War years, which the man referred to as a time of unnecessary suspicion, had separated him from his roots, and yet, unexpectedly, had brought him to his current position.

Tan explained that when he went to Beijing, China was undergoing the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, as Chinese leader Mao Tse-tung had started the anticapitalism movement. This decade was to become known as the bloodiest in Chinese history.

Instead of continuing his education, he joined the mass movement and later went to the countryside to work as a farmer when "chairman Mao instructed his cadres to develop their mental capacity through manual labor."

During those three years of farming, he really felt the hardship of living as a village farmer. "Because we claimed that we were serving the people, we had to learn the nature of their aspirations and despair."

However, young Tan did not stop there. "I also continued to study English by myself, through the VoA (Voice of America) or BBC (British Broadcasting Corporation)," he said, adding that he was once suspected of learning the language of "the enemy" and was reported to his superior.

His flair for learning English with very little assistance led him to work as an interpreter as soon as he had returned to Beijing. In 1974, he was sent to Afghanistan on the staff of the trade attache.

"I was involved in development projects funded by China," he said. "That was the beginning of my international career." He served in Afghanistan until late 1978, before he went back to China.

Not long after, the country started opening its doors after the downfall of Soviet communism and welcomed foreign aid. "One offer came from the UNDP (UN Development Program), which opened its office in China in 1979," he explained. With his years abroad, Tan found himself employed as a national program officer for the UNDP.

"I was never involved in politics; always in trade," he said. With the UN position he held, Tan did his part in reforming China's economy.

"We admit that we had a lot to learn from the West," he said. "However, we still held the control of our country."

His return to Indonesia for an international conference in 1989 reunited him with his parents. "It was quite an emotional moment," he recalled.

"My mother still lives in Semarang, but my father has passed away," he said, adding that his family roots were in Indonesia instead of China.

His views of both countries seem to have done him good as a counselor. "I have a clearer view of the situation and the position of each country."

Tan served his first term in Indonesia from 1993 to 1997. He then returned to this country for his second term four-and-a-half years ago.

As China's representative, Tan was able to explain the position of his country well. "China has always been questioned since its birth," he said. "Even now, after the Cold War, people are still suspicious of whatever we do."

Suspicions, Tan added, were a bad inheritance from the Cold War days. "Holding on to them will bring no benefit," he said. Despite criticism and questioned motives, his country would go on with whatever principles it had.

China, reemerging with a new openness, had learned from others -- both their successes and mistakes, he said.

"We believe that we are developing a system that will be the most democratic for the benefit of the majority of our people," he said.

Speaking of the China-Indonesia relationship, Tan said that he still perceived suspicion emanating from Indonesians with regard to his country's policies. "It gets in the way of developing a better relationship, but we're patient."

"A horse's endurance is tested by how far it can go," he said, repeating an old Chinese saying.

Although China might still have to prove itself, Tan Wei-wen has surely passed that test. (003)