China and the Shaping of Indonesia, 1949-1965
Hong Liu

The interactions and mutual perceptions of China and Indonesia, two of the most important nations in modern Asia, offer revealing insights into the region's postcolonial transformation. Because of the prevailing emphasis on the diplomatic and political relations between the two countries within a Cold War and nation-state framework, their multi-dimensional interrelationship and its complex domestic ramifications have escaped the scholarly scrutiny.

In China and the Shaping of Indonesia, Hong Liu examines the presentation, construction, and implications of Indonesian perceptions and misperceptions of China between 1949 and 1965. Taking a transnational perspective and focusing on the intersections between politics and culture, the book addresses three central questions. First, what images of China were prevalent in Indonesia, and how were narratives about China construed and reconstructed? Second, why did the China Metaphor - the projection of an imagined foreign land onto the local intellectual and political milieu - become central to Indonesian's conception of themselves and an occasion for self criticism? Third, how was the China Metaphor incorporated into Indonesia's domestic politics and culture, and what was it significance for the nation's postcolonial transformation and the fate of the ethnic Chinese minority in Indonesia?

By employing a wide range of primary materials in Indonesian, Chinese, and English as well as the author's own interviews, Liu argues compellingly that many political and cultural intellectuals, including Sukarno and Pramoedya, used China as an alternative model of modernity in social engineering and cultural regeneration, thus helping to shape the trajectory of modern Indonesia.