On ethnic statistics

This is to comment on Mr. Masli Arman's letter to your paper on Nov. 16 titled "Ethnic statistics".

So far, everybody including sociologists and academics can only speculate on the numbers and percentage which until now are shrouded in mist. But it is actually not such a mystery because all Chinese-Indonesians' identity cards are codified. Plus they are required to have K-1 forms.

On Oct. 27, 1998, according to The Jakarta Post in its article Chinese-Indonesian 'power' myths blasted, as I read it, Leo Suryadinata said that Chinese-Indonesians could be the third largest ethnic group with an estimated six million to eight million people, or 3 percent to 4 percent of the 202 million population. He did not claim it to be the absolute truth. He also concurred with you that the data was compiled in 1930 at 2.3 percent of the total population then.

On Nov. 7, 1998, the Post just referred to a report on Oct. 26, 1998, and it was not by Leo Suryadinata. I notice that Mr. Frans H. Winarta in his article on Aug. 1, 1998 Stop divisive political agenda, interestingly put the estimate at 5 percent or 8,715,164, thus making the Chinese the third largest ethnic group as according to a census by the Central Bureau of Statistics in 1995. The several ethnic groups listed were: Javanese 67,453,465; Sundanese 25,222,111; Madurese 7,142,046; and Minang 4,316,889.

Mr. Masli Arman, it is very much a logical flaw for you to use 68-year-old data from 1930 and then extrapolate it and claim it as truth to contradict a respectable scholar like Mr. Leo Suryadinata and use such harsh words like "this blatantly false, tendentious and probably preposterous statement".

For your information, as per Dr. Fukuda Shozo's data in the book Sweat and Abacus, the total population of Netherlands Indies increased 1.6 times from 1896 to 1926 from 32 million to 50 million while the Chinese population increased more than fourfold from 1859 to 1926. The Chinese population continued to increase until the Great Depression in 1929 and then it declined, but it picked up again from 1934.

The entry permits granted by the Dutch were 41,157 in 1928, 35,946 in 1929, 32,181 in 1930, 12,702 in 1931, 5,980 in 1932, 4,954 in 1933 and 6,771 in 1934. However, the Dutch census covered only permanently settled Peranakan (mixed ethnic) Chinese and the newcomer Totok (full-blooded) Chinese as shown by the new entry permits granted, but it did not cover contract coolies with the assumption that they would return after their contracts expired. However, a lot did not leave owing to being broke from gambling or because of romances with natives, and they would go on to become free coolies.

In 1929, besides the official entry permits granted to 35,945, there were also 15,236 new contract coolies. Regarding the numbers and percentage of Chinese here, we can only speculate until the government publishes the figures.

SIA KA MOU

Jakarta