Regarded as an authority on Indonesian affairs, Australian academic Richard Robison is the author of the best-selling book, Indonesia: The Rise of Capital, which looks at the growth of the Indonesian capitalist class and its influence on politics and the economy. It also examines the effect on the economy from the division of capital into Chinese and indigenous sections.

Robison was a member of the Australian Government's Foreign Affairs Advisory Board, the AusAID Advisory Board and the Board of the Australia-Indonesia Institute. He is now an emeritus professor at the Asia Research Centre at Murdoch University in Western Australia. Here, he speaks to The Jakarta Post's Chloe Booker on the changing pattern of relationships between Chinese-Indonesian businesspeople and the state.

Question: Although widely discriminated against during the New Order, the Chinese in Indonesia were also given various business privileges under the Soeharto regime. Do you think this patronage still exists today?

Answer: To engage in almost any kind of commercial activity under the New Order, businesses had to deal with powerful political gatekeepers within the government and its bureaucracy. Forestry companies required concessions controlled by the Forestry Ministry, for example, and monopolies for imports and exports were distributed by various ministries, including trade, or by Bulog. Companies could also obtain preferential credit from the state banks or secure lucrative contracts for construction and supply, most notoriously from Pertamina, but also from a vast range of government companies and ministries. The bulk of the business groups that flourished under this system were owned by Chinese-Indonesians. This was partly because they were already well-established in the world of business and best able to turn political favor into profit.

However, some well-connected, pribumi businesses also flourished, including those controlled by the Soeharto family itself. Some old trading groups became contractors and suppliers, among them that of the Bakrie family. Yes, this patronage still exists today although in a modified way.

Can you elaborate upon the form that such patronage takes today?

It was generally thought that the transition to democracy would change things, as the institutions of elections and representation would offer citizens more power to demand accountability and transparency of politicians and officials. Indeed, with a free press and an active anticorruption commission, there has been a much more vigorous public debate about patronage and corruption and we have seen continuing prosecutions in the courts, a few of them successful. At the same time, government officials, including in the military as well as newly elected politicians, continue to defend their control of patronage and its allocation outside the law. Scandals involving the judiciary show that this problem goes to the heart of the political system, even in a democracy. In summary, reformers have not been able to organize themselves politically to contain the practice of patronage as a basis for politics. The main political parties of democratic Indonesia are the same parties that dominated New Order Indonesia and their derivatives.

It is important to point out that the economy is now very different in some areas and offers fewer opportunities for the old-style patronage. For example, foreign ownership is more important in banking, and many of the old business figures have been forced out as they are not able to operate in increasingly international-governance systems.

The political climate is vastly different in Indonesia today. How does the Chinese-Indonesian business community exist against this backdrop?

The Chinese-Indonesian business community faces a range of challenges in the democratic era. In general, these are not specific to Chinese-Indonesians but apply to all business groups. One challenge is that they do not operate under a highly centralized system of patronage; authority is overlapping and often competing. It is complicated by administrative and political decentralization, which gives authority to provincial governors and to provincial and subprovincial administrations.

Does the present, democratic era mean that Chinese Indonesian business is better or worse off?

Certainly, the relations between the state and business are less concentrated and more disorganized. Business is more open to global influences and expectations. And elected politicians are under more pressure to ensure business opportunities for a wider range of constituents. We see more non-Chinese business groups. We do not now see the sort of dominant business empires built on single political relationships, as the Liem-Soeharto relationship exemplified.

Nevertheless, it is true to say that Indonesian private business remains dominated by Chinese-Indonesian business groups. This is because they have established over time the business networks, the national and international links, the access to various avenues of finance and the expertise and institutional basis in the business world.

Do you believe that discrimination still persists?

Discrimination against Chinese-Indonesians has operated most strongly at the grass-roots level. As in all societies, wider grievances or resentments are often unloaded onto ethnic or religious scapegoats, and this sometimes manifested itself in populist politics and riots. But in the world of business, where profits and returns are paramount, politicians and bankers have not been able to afford discrimination.

While Chinese-Indonesians may expect a range of discrimination socially and in some areas of employment and public office, (how many Chinese are members of the House of Representatives or are governors, for example?), their business operates in a somewhat different world. Put simply, they still control the world of business in Indonesia.