John McBeth, Jakarta – Smartly dressed in a suit, tie and polished shoes, the nervous Indonesian visa applicant gave the American consular official interviewing him a strange feeling that he wasn't the businessman he claimed. So the official, drawing on years of experience, asked him to take the ultimate test: Undo and re-knot his tie. Shamefaced, the man couldn't do it.
Only a trickle this time last year, the visa line at the US embassy in Jakarta has grown into one of the world's longest, matching those in Manila, Seoul and Mexico City. The surge has seen the refusal rate rise from 8% to over 40%. Indonesians, it seems, are doing something they have rarely done before: If they are not actually migrating, many are contemplating life abroad.
Concerned at the deteriorating political situation, the economic crisis and slumping employment, the number of Indonesians seeking five-year non-immigrant visas to the US was 50% higher in the first five months of this year than at the same time last year. That amounts to more than 700 people a day – more than half ethnic Chinese, and a significant proportion from East Java, Jakarta and Kalimantan.
The main reason appears to be the looming political demise of President Abdurrahman Wahid, who despite his failings has the authority to enforce a policy of religious pluralism that reassures Indonesia's Chinese community. If Vice-President Megawati Sukarnoputri replaces him there is worry that nationalistic Islamic fervour will grow. "We don't think Megawati has the same authority to deal with the hardline Muslims," says an Indonesian-Chinese businessman. "She has to be careful in how she deals with them because she knows her limitations."
A similar increase in visa applications hasn't been noticed at the Australian or other Western embassies, but the United States is especially attractive. It doesn't monitor departures, thereby ensuring that the large number of stay-behinds is difficult to detect in a country swollen by 10 million illegal immigrants. And apart from issuing longer-term visas, the US has granted political asylum to more than 2,000 Indonesians – most ethnic Chinese – in the past three years. "The increase in applications is undoubtedly due to the sense of insecurity, coupled with the willingness of the US to issue visas liberally," says Arthur Helton, programme director at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York.
The extent of the new brain drain is hard to gauge, but appears mainly confined to Western-educated professionals in finance and information technology. Sadly these are the very kind of people Indonesia needs if it is to keep pressing for economic reform and recovery. Some lost jobs in Jakarta and found positions paying more in the United States, Singapore or Hong Kong – the three prime destinations.
Weekend commuters to Singapore
Security has been important for the Indonesian-Chinese since they were targets in the May 1998 riots that ended President Suharto's rule. One manifestation of that unease is parents parking their teenage children overseas. An estimated 7,000 Indonesians attend high school in Singapore alone. But fear isn't always the key. "I'm more worried about what the economic crisis has done to education standards," says a financial consultant with two daughters at school in Singapore.
The consultant is among 60 to 70 Indonesian businessmen who spend weekends in Singapore, leaving Jakarta each Friday afternoon and returning on Monday morning. He says Singapore goes out of its way to offer permanent residence to Indonesian-Chinese, including an increasing number venturing overseas for jobs that often aren't available at home.
"The [economic] crisis may have hit back in 1998, but it is only now that companies are laying off people," says Manggi Habir, a 48-year-old Indonesian executive who left his job at the head of a rating agency to attend Harvard University. "Also, after years of crisis, it is now settling in some people's minds that they have to look to their future elsewhere." Habir has personal reasons for going back to the books, but business friends are complimenting him on his "exquisite timing."
There's another dimension. Some prominent figures, like former Local Autonomy Minister Ryaas Rasyid and economist Sri Mulyani Indrawati, are leaving on sabbaticals while the country is mired in crisis. Rasyid is taking six months off to teach at the University of Northern Illinois, his alma mater. Sri Mulyani is taking a year-long "constructive break" at Georgia State University and says her ability to influence events is limited in the current political and economic vacuum. At least they're still planning to come back.