Vaudine England – After a peaceful celebration of the Lunar New Year in much of Indonesia, President Abdurrahman Wahid has further burnished his tolerance credentials by promising a greater respect of Confucianism as a religion.
At a New Year celebration at Jakarta's Senayan Stadium at the weekend, which was organised by the Highest Council Of Confucian Religion in Indonesia, President Wahid, his wife and many guests were dressed in Chinese silk shirts and cheongsams.
"I would like to renew the Government's commitment to stay out of religious issues. Let every religious believer take care of their own beliefs.
As we have all learned, any government intervention would only create negative consequences," Mr Wahid said. "Just as with other believers, Confucius followers also have equal rights and opportunities in Indonesia ... all discriminative actions against Confucianism must end."
In the year since a presidential decree nullified the Suharto-era clamps on Chinese expression, greater openness has come to ethnic Chinese cultural expression, most often expressed through the barongsarai, a local version of the lion dance. Only in the strongly Muslim town of Makassar, South Sulawesi, were plans to hold a lion dance given up in the face of local opposition, reports said.
Last week, the Government revised its visa rules for mainland Chinese visitors. In the past, they were required to travel in organised groups, only entering through designated entry-points.
"[Chinese] citizens can enter Indonesia through all immigration checkpoints," director-general of immigration M. Mudakir said. "There are no longer differences between them and other foreign citizens except for certain preventive measures. Now, visas for PRC citizens can be given without going through a 'clearing house'.
"They can enter Indonesia through all checkpoints. And they also can apply for visas just like any other foreign citizen."
Mr Wahid also touched on other sensitive issues for the Chinese Indonesian minority, such as former president Suharto's insistence that Chinese take on Indonesian names as part of a wider assimilation process.
Mr Wahid disagrees with such distinctions. "It is totally incorrect to say that some of us are indigenous and some of us are of Chinese descent," he said. "If we want to build a strong Indonesia, we should no longer differentiate indigenous from those of Chinese descent."
Indonesia cut diplomatic ties with China after the so-called coup that obliterated the Indonesian Communist Party in 1965.
Under Mr Suharto, Indonesia restored diplomatic ties with China in 1990 and bilateral warmth has increased under Mr Wahid. Trade has also increased, sparking local complaints from motorcycle assemblers who face competition from cheaper Chinese imports.
Business sources say most Chinese-Indonesian wealth and investment, which drained out of Jakarta during anti-Chinese riots in 1998, has yet