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451-\ UN1VERSITY OF HAWAI'I LIBRARY THE JINGJU-WAYANG ENCOUNTER: CHINA AND INDONESIA DURING THE CULTURAL REVOLUTION AND THE GESTAPU COUP AND COUNTERCOUP A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE GRADUATE DIVISION OF THE UNIVERSITY OF HAWAI'I IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY IN HISTORY MAY 2005 By James Ross Corcoran Dissertation Committee: Stephen Uhalley Jr., Chairperson Leonard Andaya Timothy Naftali Robert Van Niel Alice Dewey © Copyright by James Ross Corcoran 2005 All Rights Reserved iii This work is dedicated to all those Chinese and Indonesian people who lost their lives in, and also to all those who have suffered the hardships of, the Chinese Cultural Revolution and the Indonesian Gestapu Coup and Countercoup. iv ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I have been the beneficiary of extensive assistance and support from many individuals as the process for this dissertation unfolded. Stephen Uhalley, Jr., my dissertation advisor, has been unfailing in his support and guidance; his instruction, advice and constructive comments have been vital to the completion of this work. Leonard Andaya, Timothy Naftali, and Robert Van Niel have been the very best of instructors; true teachers in the best sense of the word. Alice Dewey has gone the extra mile suffering my unending explanations of my themes and ideas; access to her deep knowledge of Indonesia is a rare opportunity for any student. Along with Muthiah Alagappa, Alvin So, and T. Y. Tao I must say that all of these faculty members have enriched my existence as well as my fund of knowledge. D. W. Y. Kwok has been one of the most influential figures in my quest for an understanding of Chinese history. His graduate courses and his public China Seminar, now celebrating its thirtieth anniversary, have been exemplary in setting the pace for the inculcation of civil society in the highest sense of the concept; bringing together China and the West to the great benefit of both. I wish to thank the University of Hawai'i at Manoa, the Center for Chinese Studies, the History Department, the University ROTC program, and the University Veteran's Affairs v office for the many opportunities made available to me: the University of Hawai'i-Peking University (Beida) Exchange Fellowship, the IAF Grant, the ROTC-sponsored West Point Military History Fellowship, the Pacific-Asian Scholarship and various Graduate Assistantship opportunities and stipends. Special thanks goes to the History Department, not only for all of those opportunities, but also for the rich history studies environment created by professionals such as Idus Newby, Karen Jolly, David Hanlon, David A. Chappell, James Kraft, Jerry Bentley, Margot Henriksen, Robert McGlone, Harry Lamley, Jagdish Sharma, John Stephan, and Richard Immerman; these being only the faculty I was privileged to have directly worked with, in addition to those named earlier. There are many others in the department, to include the outstanding office staff, Gwen Agina, Margaret Hattori, and Susan Abe who were always professional, efficient, bright, and cheery. All greatly added to the value of the history learning experience and I thank them as well. I need to thank Hao Ping and his Foreign Affairs Office for the opportunities made available to me at Peking University. lowe special thanks to many others who will be referred to in the dissertation. I must mention especially Zhou Nanjing, Zhang Xizheng, Liang Yingming, Ju Sanyuan, Liang Zhiming, and Guo Weidong, all of Peking University; as well as the library staff of Nanjing University who searched their computer listings and stacks for materials on my behalf. Huang Ailing and his vi gracious wife invited me to their apartment for our interview, a rare treat for a visiting foreigner because the general custom in China is to do business and socialize in public meeting places. Professor Zhang Xizheng and his gracious wife Ji also invited me into their home, and I felt quite honored. Guo Hongxing deserves special thanks for his support in all things such as special access to the dissertation vault at Beida, entry to the National Library stacks, trip arrangements to Zhoukoudian, and all the other arrangements he made for me. Penn Zhou eased my way greatly for research opportunities in Shanghai and Nanjing. While they and others will be credited in the thesis, I must thank Pak Raden and Ibu Meriam Sukardi, James T. Collins, Abdul Dahana, Dewi Fortuna Anwar, Lan Hiang Char, and Yati Barnard for their assistance with the Indonesian language, sources, access, and information. Others in Indonesia will go unnamed for reasons of political sensitivities, but I have endeavored to express my gratitude to them, and I will continue to do so. The University of Hawai'i at Manoa Hamilton Library staff deserves really special thanks, not only for their professional expertise, but especially for the superb manner in which they have responded to the October, 2004 flood which devastated the library and even threatened some lives. After more than four decades of operation, no one could have predicted nature's vii wrath. Ted Kwok and many other staff members were exceptionally innovative in devising ways for me to attain sources needed to finish my dissertation; they were magnificent! The Richardson School of Law Library was most supportive in my time of need. I do thank the University of Hawai'i at Manoa, Hawaii Pacific University, and Chaminade University of Honolulu for the many teaching opportunities which made it possible for me to sustain myself over the years in researching and writing this study. On a more personal note special thanks go to those who sustained me through my research and writing process: especially Linda Ure, and also my son Jim, his wife Doris, and especially my grandson, Jim, and my daughter Dawn, who all lost out on our time together. Mike Howard, and Drs. Jack Burke, Claude Chemtob, and J. Scott Kortvelesey, along with Dana Smith, Esq., all saw me through troubled times, and lowe them a great deal. viii ABSTRACT This dissertation is a study of the breakdown in relations between China and Indonesia, between October 1965 and October 1967, the early years of the Cultural Revolution and the Gestapu coup and countercoup. During that most tumultuous period in each Republic's short history, China and Indonesia each lost relations with only one major diplomatic partner: the other. Foreign Ministers Chen Yi and Dr. H. Subandrio, along with their ministries, came under repeated, violent, domestic attack. They were toppled and their foreign affairs systems thrown into severe disarray through radical, politically motivated, attacks and purges. Activist student groups in each country attacked the other nation's resident diplomatic facilities and personnel. Despite China's severely strained relations around the world the PRC managed to hold on to its ties with its other major partners. Indonesia, with an increasingly broad anti communist national program characterized by the Suharto New Order regime's decimation of the Indonesian Communist Party, the PKI, continued its relations with all of its other communist diplomatic partners. This study uses Indonesian and Chinese internal government materials, as well as other Chinese and Indonesian language sources, to explore the cataclysmic domestic situations which played themselves out in their foreign relations. ix Taking a different approach than earlier accounts, this dissertation views the breakdown in relations from both sides through their own words, but also with the use of U. S. and British declassified documents, and other reference materials, to provide depth from third party perspectives. The use of memoirs of recently released political prisoners, and other first-hand accounts, combined with my translations of the contents of diplomatic notes between the two nations, all serve to challenge conventionally held views of the break in relations: that the split was inevitable, that China and the PKI were mainly responsible, that the Indonesian student attacks were spontaneous, that the Indonesian Chinese brought about the breakup, and other popularly held impressions. Simultaneous disorder in both the domestic and foreign affairs scenes played the predominant role in the final freeze, or suspension, in relations in October 1967 which would last for nearly a quarter of a century. x TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS v ABSTRACT . ix CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 1 THE PLIGHT OF THOSE TOUCHED BY THE TWO MASS MOVEMENTS . 23 DEFINING AND UNDERSTANDING THE INDONESIAN-CHINESE PEOPLE ..... .. 27 THE APPLICATION OF THE VARIOUS USES AND SPELLING FORMS OF THE CHINESE AND INDONESIAN LANGUAGES ................. 32 AVAILABILITY OF INFORMATION ABOUT INDONESIA AND CHINA DURING THE MID-1960S ..... 35 CHAPTER 2: THE CULTURAL REVOLUTION'S EFFECTS ON CHINA'S FOREIGN AFFAIRS SYSTEM AND RELATIONS WITH OTHER NATIONS INCLUDING INDONESIA 40 CHINA'S LOSS OF CONTROL OVER ITS FOREIGN AFFAIRS 40 THE CHINESE CULTURAL REVOLUTION'S EFFECTS ON CHINA'S FOREIGN RELATIONS ..... 53 THE DYNAMICS OF THE CULTURAL REVOLUTION AS RELATED TO CHINA'S FOREIGN AFFAIRS INFRASTRUCTURE ............ 57 CHAPTER 3: THE FEBRUARY ADVERSE CURRENT'S EFFECTS ON CHINA'S FOREIGN AFFAIRS SYSTEM AND RELATIONS WITH INDONESIA ................ 83 CHAPTER 4: THE REVOLUTIONARIES' SEIZURE OF FOREIGN MINISTER CHEN YI, THE MINISTRY OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS AND CHINA'S FOREIGN AFFAIRS SYSTEM, AND RESULTANT EFFECTS ON SINO-INDONESIAN RELATIONS . 111 CHAPTER 5: THE QUESTION OF THE ROLE OF THE INDONESIAN CHINESE IN THE BREAKDOWN OF RELATIONS BETWEEN INDONESIA AND CHINA .......... 138 xi EXAMINATION OF THE EXPERIENCES OF INDONESIAN- CHINESE IN THE AFTERMATH OF GESTAPU .. 157 A SUMMARY ASSESSMENT OF THE QUESTION OF THE INDONESIAN-CHINESE ROLE IN THE BREAKDOWN OF RELATIONS BETWEEN CHINA AND INDONESIA ... 171 CHAPTER 6: QUESTIONING THE ROLE OF THE PKI IN GESTAPU ALONG WITH CHINA'S INVOLVEMENT WITH THE PKI AS RELATED TO THE BREAKDOWN IN INDONESIAN RELATIONS WITH CHINA ............... 176 VARIOUS CHALLENGES TO PKI/PRC INVOLVEMENT IN GESTAPU ...............