2

‘Oedjan belasting, the raining of taxes’: Coloniality and the Dutch economic exploitation of the Chinese¹

Abdul Wahid

Introduction

On Monday morning, 8 September 1924, an unusual scene unfolded in the area between Sirene-Park and the Sociëteit de Harmonie, one of most iconic colonial buildings in the heart of Batavia, the capital of the Netherlands East Indies. Thousands of people from different ethnic backgrounds, but mostly non-Europeans, flocked around the main street surrounding the office building of the Gemeente-Secretarie (Municipal Secretary), wearing European-style clothes, some with bicycles and banners decorated with writing. As can be seen in Figure 2.1, this was a mass demonstration of predominantly Chinese people who claimed to be representatives of ‘pendoedoek dari gemeente Batavia’ (‘the residents of the municipality of Batavia’). Accompanied by the music played by Tiong Hoa Im Gak Hwe, a Chinese music group affiliated with Tiong Hoa Hwee Koan (THHK),² the prominent Chinese organisation which promoted and supported Chinese nationalism in the Indies, the Chinese protesters expressed their grievances against government tax policies, particularly those issued by the Batavia municipal government.³

Figure 2.1 Newspaper coverage of an anti-tax demonstration in Batavia on 8 September 1924

Source: Sin Po [Weekly edition], 13 September 1924.

The demonstration ended about 4 o’clock in the afternoon without any significant incidents and a committee representing the protesters handed a signed petition to the Burgemeester (‘Mayor’) of Batavia. Sin Po, the prominent Chinese Malay-language newspaper, reported several days later that the petition included two demands: 1) the Batavia Mayor should abolish the municipal tax service, and 2) the taxes levied by the central and municipal governments should be merged into a single levy.⁴ The petition was seemingly a consequence of the Decentralisatie Wet (‘Decentralisation Law’), a policy introduced by the Netherlands East Indies Government from 1903. The law delegated some of the central government’s authority to local governments, including municipal governments in the big cities across the colony. This included a fiscal aspect that gave the municipal government authority to levy new taxes to finance its programs. Therefore, municipal taxes were introduced on top of the central government’s taxes, creating an additional tax burden for residents of municipalities, especially the Chinese, most of whom settled in urban areas due to the enhanced opportunities for trade.

This street demonstration was notable because of the assertiveness of the crowd and the clear evidence it provided of everyday efforts to resist colonial exploitation. Sin Po vividly explains:

Those participating in the demonstration were mainly not white people, but Indigenous, Chinese and Arabs. Streets were fully occupied by participants and spectators. No riot happened. This is the second time Batavia residents showed their unhappiness with the work of Municipal government.⁵

In the 1920s, this kind of politically motivated mass gathering aimed at criticising the colonial government had become increasingly normal in urban areas of Java but also elsewhere, as the colonial government introduced a series of ‘democratic experiments’ from the early twentieth century allowing the development of ‘civil society’. This included permission for people to produce printed media and engage in associations, political parties and politics, especially in urban areas.⁶ Yet, a mass demonstration to protest the colonial government’s tax policies involving such ‘apolitical groups’ as the Chinese and Arabs was quite extraordinary, especially for Batavia, the colonial administration’s capital, because, consistent with the logic of coloniality and the inseparable link between ‘racialisation and capital exploitation’,⁷ the colonial government had tried to carefully control these groups and place them in key economic roles in the colony. The protest and its diverse participants suggest the heavy tax burden was becoming a shared and pressing political issue among ‘citizens of the Netherlands East Indies’, particularly non-Europeans. Unlike previous anti-tax protests that took the old-fashioned form of armed rebellions,⁸ this time, the residents of Batavia organised modern, non-violent protest through a demonstration and a petition to exercise ‘their right’ to question the government’s tax policies. In fact, the 8 September 1924 demonstration was the last ‘anti-tax’ demonstration, as the colonial government introduced a repressive approach, forbidding political gatherings of any kind after the outbreak of leftist-inspired rebellions in February 1926 and January 1927, allowing political aspirations to be channelled only through the parliament.⁹

These popular grievances arose because of the increasingly burdensome taxes the Dutch introduced due to the deteriorating position of the public finances of the Netherlands East Indies, especially in the 1920s. The official statistics show that, in that period, the government was suffering the biggest fiscal deficit since the start of the century, amounting to a total ƒ336.6 million.¹⁰ Among others, one reason for the debt was colonial repression and the extravagant military expenditure since the last decade of the nineteenth century to finance campaigns in Aceh and Lombok, and the lavish ‘welfare projects of the Ethical Policy’, which was an attempt to assuage colonial guilt.¹¹ According to some economic historians, the Netherlands East Indies ran continuous deficits from the abolition of the ‘Cultivation System’ in the 1870s and was in surplus only during the enforcement of this system from the 1830s to the 1860s.¹²

In response to the deficit, the colonial government increased revenues from taxes. This was evident statistically from the share of total revenues provided by taxes, which steadily grew in the last four decades of the colonial period. Economic historian Anne Booth has calculated that, by 1939, the share of tax revenue in total revenue was 67 per cent, while the real total yearly average of government tax revenue in the period 1930–39 was ƒ262 million.¹³ The considerable growth of the importance of tax as a source of government revenue came at a cost to indigenous, but also Chinese taxpayers who carried the largest burden of taxes on their shoulders. On this issue, prominent colonial servant W. Huender warned the government that the burden of taxation for indigenous people in the colony, at least in Java, meant they had reached ‘their utmost limit’ and further increases would jeopardise their general welfare.¹⁴

The tax burden on indigenous people was confirmed by Huender and Ranneft’s 1926 investigation.¹⁵ Yet, what is less recognised is that Chinese people, especially after 1920, faced a particularly extreme situation due to the multiple ways in which they were exploited as a colonially produced minority group. Early evidence to support this argument is the fact that the largest proportion of government tax revenue was accrued from personal and corporate income taxes, which in the period 1936–40 accounted for 30 per cent of total tax revenues, in comparison with land tax (landrente), which accounted for only 7.7 per cent.¹⁶ Income taxes (personal and corporate) were only levied on Chinese and European people who were categorised as upper-income groups in the colony, while land tax was levied only on the indigenous population, the lowest income group. In addition to being categorised as an upper-income group, the Chinese, according to a racialised logic, were subjected to various ‘new taxes’ such as the war-profit tax, corporate tax, property tax and many others that were introduced in the first two decades of the twentieth century.¹⁷ Under such conditions, the Chinese experienced what Sin Po described as ‘Belasting Bersoesoen-sooesoen’¹⁸ (‘multilayered taxes’), which forced them on to the streets of Batavia on 8 September 1924 to express their grievances.

This chapter seeks to analyse why and to what extent the Chinese were heavily taxed by the Dutch colonial government (and its successors). To answer the question, I investigate how and why the war profit and income taxes were levied. Combining information from colonial archives, official publications and Chinese newspapers, this chapter argues that the exploitation of the Chinese in the colonial taxation system was integrally connected with the Dutch construction of the sociopolitical and legal position of the Chinese as Vreemde Oosterlingen (‘Foreigners or Foreign Orientals’). Through this category, Dutch colonialists positioned the Chinese as a ‘middleman minority’ sitting between the Europeans at the top and indigenous people at the bottom of the social pyramid of colonial society. As such, the Dutch colonial rulers allowed the Chinese to expand their economic influence but carefully monitored their political influence on the local population, which, from a fiscal perspective, was a strategic way to render them ‘manageable subjects’ who presumably would not protest various forms of taxation.¹⁹ The link between racialised categories and economic exploitation accentuates the ‘coloniality of power’ introduced in Chapter 1 of this volume. By focusing on the position of the Chinese as the subjects of taxation, this study contributes to the new histories of taxation in colonial Indonesia, which in the past few decades have focused heavily on opium revenue farming,²⁰ land tax,²¹ taxation’s contribution to economic development and public finance,²² its connection with colonial state formation and governance²³ and its sociopolitical impacts.²⁴ In discussing the position of the Chinese as the subjects of colonial tax exploitation, this study takes as an insight Louis Althusser’s theory that the ‘tax system reflects the underlying ideology of the state, just like other parts of the state apparatus do’.²⁵ Following this line, this study views the Dutch colonial tax system as a container of colonial ideology, reflective of the way the colonial state operated. Furthermore, it shows how one group was forced to fund the colonial project. My analysis adopts a decolonial lens by linking this racial logic to colonial exploitation and charting sources of resistance to this exploitation.

The socioeconomic and legal positions of the Chinese

Chinese from different parts of China had migrated to and settled in Java and other parts of the archipelago long before the coming of Europeans. Their presence was a product of centuries-old relations between mainland China and the archipelago, and most of them came from the southeast in an area that is today between the provinces of Guangdong and Fujian.²⁶ When the Dutch finally took control of most of the archipelago and established Batavia as their trading and administrative headquarters, they realised the economic importance of Chinese migrants, especially in international and local trade.²⁷ After the Dutch established a monopoly on international trade through the Dutch East India Company (Vereenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie, VOC), they exploited the Chinese to support their ambition to build Batavia as the centre for administration, but also to expand their political and economic influence in the archipelago. Under the VOC’s tutelage, the Chinese were incentivised to become or assigned roles as intermediary traders, contractors for public works, sugar planters, owners of or workers in sugar mills, arrack distilleries and sawmills, artisans, and many other occupations.²⁸ These growing opportunities attracted more Chinese migrants to Batavia, which in the long run overwhelmed Batavia’s carrying capacity and created various social problems that led to the horrible massacres by the Dutch of thousands of Chinese in 1740.²⁹ For analysis of this event and the creation of colonial categories, including spatially, see Abidin Kusno’s analysis in Chapter 11 of this volume.

Despite the 1740 massacre, which indicates the mixed feelings of the Dutch about the Chinese, the important position of the Chinese in the local economy remained. The Dutch used the Chinese extensively as intermediaries in the sale of imported goods such as opium, liquor and cotton, but also for the sale of locally produced commodities like coffee, tobacco, indigo, sugar and so on. But, from a fiscal perspective, the most important role that the Dutch granted to the Chinese was in the system of farming out monopolies, particularly the licences to collect taxes from the population, which is known in the Dutch literature as pachtstelsel (‘tax farming’). According to Howard Dick, this kind of tax collection system was an early stage of state formation.³⁰ The VOC adopted the system as a solution to the lack of human resources and the limited political infrastructure in the first decades of their settlement in Batavia. After the VOC’s collapse, however, and throughout the nineteenth century, the Dutch retained and even institutionalised the system on a larger scale as part of the colonial state administration. By the end of the nineteenth century, the system was almost exclusively controlled by the Chinese elite, allowing them to expand and strengthen their economic influence, at least in Java.³¹

The Chinese population in the Netherlands East Indies grew significantly from the mid-nineteenth century, due largely to the influx of new immigrants from China who were attracted to seek their fortune amid the burgeoning economic opportunities or join relatives who had already settled and made a living in the archipelago. By 1802, the total Chinese population in Java and Madura was 23,311 people. Fifty years later, it had increased more than five times to 123,871 people and, in the next 50 years, it almost doubled, to 227,265 people.³² The first statistical information about the Chinese population in the entire colony is for the year 1860, when the total Chinese population was reported as 221,438 people, 149,424 of whom were living in Java and Madura and the remainder of whom were living in other islands—known in colonial publications as the ‘Outer Islands’. Table 2.1 provides a complete picture of the growth of the Chinese population and its geographical distribution in the period 1880–1930.

Table 2.1 Chinese population of the Netherlands East Indies, 1860–1930

Year	Java & Madura	Outer Islands	Netherlands East Indies
1880	206,931	136,862	343,793
1890	242,111	218,978	461,089
1900	277,265	260,051	537,316
1905	295,193	268,256	563,449
1920	383,614	425,423	809,039
1930	582,431	650,783	1,233,214

Source: Departement van Economische Zaken [Department of Economic Affairs] (1931).

One notable insight from Table 2.1 is that the number of Chinese living in the Outer Islands grew faster than that in Java and Madura from 1890. By 1920 and 1930, the number of Chinese living in the Outer Islands exceeded that in Java and Madura. This is because, after 1860, the Outer Islands emerged as new destinations for Chinese immigrants who wanted to make a living as koeli (‘workers’) due to the expansion of tobacco plantations in East Sumatra, tin mining in Bangka and Belitung, coalmining in western Sumatra, oil factories in many parts of Sumatra, goldmining in western Borneo and many other opportunities. According to an official report, 223,507 Chinese contract workers moved to these regions in the period 1912–31. Meanwhile, 231,706 Chinese non-contract or free workers came to Java and Madura in the period 1900–31—far below the number moving to the Outer Islands (639,396 people). This means that in the last three decades of the colonial period, the geographical concentration of the Chinese settlements shifted from Java–Madura to the Outer Islands, especially Sumatra. This geographical shift meant that, in Java and Madura, most Chinese were born in the Netherlands East Indies (and were known as Peranakan), while most of those in the Outer Islands had been born in China (and were known as Singkeh).³³

Table 2.1 also shows that the total Chinese population in 1930 was 1,233,214, which accounted for only 2 per cent of the total East Indies population, which comprised 59,138,067 indigenous people (97.4 per cent), 240,417 Europeans (0.4 per cent) and 115,535 other ‘Foreign Asians’ (0.2 per cent). According to Ong Eng Die, the Chinese in the East Indies made up only 0.3 per cent of the global Chinese population of 450 million, but represented 12 per cent of the almost 11 million overseas Chinese living outside the mainland, particularly in the Pacific region.³⁴ According to the Koloniaal Verslag (‘Colonial Report’) for 1907–08, the Chinese occupational structure in Java and Madura in 1905 was as follows: 33,959 were employed in commerce, 10,902 in manufacturing and mining, 7,970 in agriculture and fishing, 1,083 in transport, 835 in services, with 23,693 in other industries. The occupational structure of Chinese living in the Outer Islands was quite different, with agriculture and fishing as the biggest sectors, employing 94,358 people, followed by manufacturing and mining (25,096), commerce (21,263), transport (1,711), services (935) and other (37,774).³⁵ The Chinese were the ones who engaged in trade and therefore it was mostly those in Java and Madura who were targeted with the harshest tax policies, although all Chinese were subject to a greater number of taxes than other residents in the colony.

In the early decades of the twentieth century, the Chinese strengthened their economic control over the trade in retail exports and imports in Java, Madura and elsewhere in the colony. By 1930, the proportion of Chinese control of large-scale trade was already 35.4 per cent, far exceeding European control, which stood at just 13.4 per cent, and indigenous control, which was only 5.4 per cent. In terms of retail trade, the Chinese had almost full control through medium and small-scale trading companies, shops and ‘klontong’ (traditional small shops), which were scattered throughout the cities and towns of Java.³⁶ In addition to their control over the trading sector, at the beginning of the twentieth century, the Chinese managed to expand their economic influence in other sectors. According to The Siauw Giap, this expansion was supported by the increased availability of capital among the Chinese elite after the abolition of a monopoly-lease system. This allowed them to reinvest their capital in various modern economic sectors to compete with Europeans in the capital and technology-intensive sugar industry but also in other sectors, including transportation, banking, services and other large and medium-sized industries.³⁷

Responding to increased Chinese economic influence, the colonial government introduced several policies to control them. First, in 1885, the Dutch decided to make the Chinese subject to European commercial law to simplify their dealings with the growing number of their enterprises. Chinese businesspeople were permitted to form legally recognised modern enterprises or companies, which previously had only been possible for Europeans or those with Europeans’ legal status. For the Chinese, this was quite a radical policy as they were initially equated with ‘native’ people (together with Arabs, Indians and other Asians)—in terms of their legal and administrative positions—under the racially based Regerings-reglement (‘Constitutional Regulation’) of 1854.³⁸ The policy to make Chinese the subjects of European commercial law, according to Cribb and Kahin, brought about a gradual institutionalisation of the group known as Foreign Orientals as a third racial classification, after Europeans and Inlanders, as legally defined in the revised constitution of 1925 (Art. 163).³⁹

A more progressive policy concerning the legal position of the Chinese was taken by the Dutch in 1892 with the enactment of the Citizenship Law, which designated the Chinese as ‘foreigners’ and not ‘citizens’, but they were still considered Dutch subjects if they domiciled in the Netherlands East Indies. Almost a decade later, the Dutch amended the 1892 bill with a more ‘aggressive’ law known as the Netherlands Citizenship Act (s. 296) of 10 February 1910. Based on the principle of jus soli (‘right of soil’), the new law stipulated that all Chinese, as well as members of other ethnic groups who were born in the East Indies of parents who settled and lived there, were Dutch subjects even if they were not Dutch citizens.⁴⁰ Many scholars view the law as a Dutch response to rising Chinese nationalism in the Indies and the formation of the Republic of China with its ‘aggressive’ citizenship policy that claimed all Chinese abroad as Chinese citizens.⁴¹ From an economic perspective, the Citizenship Act of 1910 clearly shows the real intention of the Dutch was to fend off the citizenship claims of the Republic of China over the Chinese, particularly those born in the Indies. The Dutch did not want to lose the Chinese, with their significant economic power, as ‘taxable subjects’, as will be shown in the following section.

The tax burden on the Chinese and their responses

In the last decade of the nineteenth century, the Dutch colonial administrators launched a series of tax reforms with the intention of establishing a modern, unified and just tax system and administrative state in the East Indies. One of the most important tax reforms, and highly related to the political and economic position of the Chinese, was the abolition of the pachtstelsel system. The system had been in operation since the early nineteenth century, with the licences almost entirely in the hands of the Chinese elite, covering many taxes and monopolies, and had become a significant source of revenue for both the colonial government and the Chinese pachters (‘licence-holders’). Reform was implemented through three different measures: first, the complete abolition of toll bridges and taxes on markets, forest exploitation and the sale of palm sugar; second, conversion into state-collected taxes, including taxes on the slaughter of cattle and pigs, the trade of edible birds’ nests, the sale of liquor, tobacco and fish, Chinese gambling, and a poll tax; and third, conversion into state monopolies of the taxes on the sale of opium, pawnshops and the production and sale of salt.⁴²

These reforms brought about a significant change in the role and position of Chinese under the colonial tax administration, from partial government partners in tax collection to pure taxpayers. Because of their economic position, as mentioned above, in their capacity as taxpayers, the Chinese naturally became the most important group after the Europeans and those equated with them. Under the new system, by the mid-1910s, the Chinese were liable to ‘old taxes’—such as the head tax, excise and stamp duties and taxes on exports and imports, the slaughter of cattle and pigs, lotteries, dogs and Chinese gambling licences—but also liable to pay the newly introduced taxes, such as property, business and income taxes.⁴³ The Chinese also had to pay other taxes that were levied by the Netherlands East Indies Government in relation to certain conditions or policies—for example, taxes on war profits (oorlogswinstbelasting) and luxury goods (luxe-belasting) were introduced in the wake of World War I and new taxes were levied by the municipalities as part of the decentralisation policy.⁴⁴

Interestingly, under the reformed tax system, the Chinese found themselves in a dual and hence exploited position. In the case of some taxes, they were considered liable because of their legal status as ‘gelijkgesteld met de inlanders’ (‘equated with indigenous people’), but for others, such as property and income taxes, they were perceived as being equal to Europeans.⁴⁵ In other words, the Chinese were liable to a wide range of taxes levied on either Europeans or indigenous people, which is how they came to bear a heavier tax burden than both. It was why they deemed the Indies’ taxation system unjust and excessively severe towards them. As a result, in the early twentieth century, taxation in the East Indies was a major source of Chinese grievance, which they articulated openly towards the government through any forms of expression possible at that time. According to Lea E. Williams, Chinese resentment towards government taxation was primarily caused by the fact that they paid high taxes but received only ‘small reward’ and no ‘decent compensation, for example in the form of such important public services as education, health care, etc’.⁴⁶

Few statistical data are available for the period 1910–30 about the amount of tax the Chinese paid and the proportion of public revenue it comprised or the tax burden placed on the Chinese population. The existing quantitative data about the tax burden are related mostly to the indigenous population, as exemplified by the extensive survey of the diminishing welfare of indigenous people in 1904–14 and a further survey on the tax burden on the indigenous population in the early 1920s.⁴⁷ Yet, we can ascertain the extent of the burden from the Chinese newspapers published before and after the introduction of the new taxes, including evidence from the first half of the 1920s when the colonial government introduced the war-profit tax and property tax. The following paragraphs will discuss these taxes and how the Chinese population reacted to them.

The Netherlands East Indies Government officially introduced the war-profit tax in 1917 through a decree, Staatsblad 1917 No. 592.⁴⁸ The tax was part of a package of crisis regulations designed to address government losses incurred in the last two years of World War I, when exports of colonial products and the import trade were seriously disrupted by a shortage of shipping capacity due to German submarine warfare.⁴⁹ The tax was levied progressively, reaching, at its highest, a rate of 30 per cent of the short-term profits of individuals (and corporations) made during the first two to three years of the war. During this time, the colonial economy benefited from the enormous increase in world market prices, combined with the Netherlands’ neutral position in the war, which allowed it to continue doing business normally, bringing high profits and high demand, such as the lucrative exports of commodities like oil, sugar and rubber.⁵⁰

This means individual businesspeople or enterprises engaged in export–import trade received most of the benefits and profits from this wartime condition; hence, they were the targets of the war-profit tax. It can be assumed that the Chinese businesspeople were the main payers of this levy for two reasons: first, they played a significant role in the export–import sector in the East Indies; and second, many Dutch individuals and enterprises were exempt from the tax because their registered offices were in the Netherlands, so they paid tax there. Indeed, the archives show many Chinese businesspeople in the East Indies were liable for this tax. With its high rate of 30 per cent implemented progressively, the war-profit tax turned out to be a major blow for Chinese businesspeople. Many failed to pay their tax assessments on time and faced penalties, from amercements and confiscation of assets to imprisonment.⁵¹

The archive of the Department of Finance provides detailed examples of the effects of these taxes. In one case, Soen Bie Seng, the owner of a trading company in Batavia, had to pay war-profit tax of ƒ7,560 in 1918 and ƒ36,780 in 1919. Soen Bie Seng paid the bill in two instalments: ƒ10,000 in October and ƒ1,591 in November 1919. This was less than half the bill, leaving another ƒ25,189 to be paid. Soen Bie Seng was unable to pay the remainder by the deadline and, as a result, his company was sealed, his assets were taken over and he was sent to jail.⁵² Another case was that of N.V. Sin Hong Ho from Semarang, which operated as an exporter of agricultural products like sugar, peanuts and coffee. This family company was registered to three owners: Lai Wong Poh, Thong Tek Li Sip and Eng Jo Sip. After a thorough examination, it was revealed that the company had to pay a total tax bill of ƒ525,306.65 as an accumulated tax debt from 1914 to 1918. The company set out to pay this enormous sum at the end of 1919 but failed. As a result, the company’s legal permit to operate was annulled, its assets were frozen and the owners were sent to jail.⁵³ Revealing the serious consequences of the tax problem, a study shows that some Chinese individuals tried to manipulate the auditing process of their profits or, in extreme cases, to flee Java or the East Indies for good. This is what Oei Tiong Ham, one of the richest Chinese in the East Indies, did in 1918, fleeing to Singapore.⁵⁴

From the examples above, it is clear the war-profit tax was not only excessive for many Chinese businesspeople, but also harshly implemented—to the extent that the tax weakened the performance of Chinese enterprises, sometimes threatening their survival. It is no wonder Chinese businesspeople were unhappy with the tax, and critics popped up in the newspapers and in the Volksraad (‘People’s Council’) through their representatives. The Sin Po weekly edition of 27 October 1923, for example, criticised the timing and the way the tax was collected. Although Sin Po accepted the government’s reason for levying the war-profit tax, they insisted it was introduced at the wrong time, when trade, the market and economic conditions were beginning to decline. Sin Po also criticised the government’s method of levying and collecting the tax, stating it was done too late, because the profits incurred by businesses had already been spent. Many Chinese had spent their wartime profits and then lost their capital due to the worsening economic conditions in the last year of World War I. For them, the tax rate was excessive, the assessment system was imperfect and the timing was unreasonable. As a result, Sin Po concludes:

[T]raders, especially those who don’t understand and are afraid to have an issue with the government, become so frightened and worried, while that kind of fear and concern have already killed their spirit and contentedness to engage in trade. Because of all this, a lot of capital disappeared.⁵⁵

While the dust around the war-profit tax was still far from settled, the Chinese were shocked by the government’s plan to introduce a new unified income tax and tax on luxury goods for those living in Batavia and its surrounds.

As discussed in the opening of this chapter, the Chinese were unhappy with the government’s plan and organised a demonstration to object. Sin Po, as the most influential Chinese newspaper, also contributed to this movement by voicing the grievances of the Chinese in Batavia and providing harsh criticism of the government. In the edition of 23 October 1923, Sin Po suspected the real reason the government was introducing new taxes was because of its own ‘lavish expenditure and its incompetent financial management’.⁵⁶ In other editions, Sin Po openly characterised the government tax policies as constituting a situation in which it was ‘oedjan belasting’ (‘raining taxes’),⁵⁷ they were ‘bajar belasting doea kali’ (‘paying tax twice’)⁵⁸ and paying ‘belasting bersoesoen-soesoen’ (‘multilayered taxes’).⁵⁹ All this evidence reflects the prevalent feeling among the Chinese population that the Netherlands East Indies Government’s tax policies were unjust and excessive towards the Chinese. These criticisms highlight the link between racial categories and economic exploitation in the capitalist colonial system.

Yet, after 1926, these kinds of criticisms disappeared from newspapers, as the colonial government imposed stricter press surveillance. The Chinese ‘fight’ against the government’s tax policies did not stop but continued through formal institutions like the Siang Hwee (‘Chamber of Commerce’) and by Chinese representatives in the Volksraad. Minutes of the Volksraad meetings, especially those concerning the East Indies’ annual budget, show how Chinese representatives like Hok Hoe Kan, Khouw Kim An and Loa Sek Hie tried their best to voice the interests of their constituents on the burden of taxation and other related issues. In cooperation with Indonesian senators, they raised the tax issue as part of the anti-Nederlands-onderdaanschap (‘anti-Dutch nationality’) campaign, and later as part of a petition to the Dutch Government to give the East Indies government greater autonomy.⁶⁰

Despite their advocacy, there were no substantial changes to the government’s tax policies until the end of the Dutch colonial period. The Chinese had almost no option but to obey as ‘Dutch subjects’ and pay all the taxes. Their grievances were met with the ‘iron hand’ of the colonial government, which used its legal and administrative instruments to constrain the bargaining position of the Chinese, while exploiting their indispensable economic resources. This situation confirms the premise of the classic theory of a middleman minority, which assumes that the Chinese in colonial Java and elsewhere were trapped between the colonisers and the colonised; they had to serve the interests of the superior Dutch colonisers with very limited power to launch expressions of dissent and link the indigenous producers with local or regional markets, on the one hand, and sometimes with the colonial administration on the other. Until the end of the colonial period, the Chinese position remained unchanged; most were confined to the middleman-trading minority, although an increasing number of Western-educated members of the younger generation began to occupy the newly emerging professions in urban areas.⁶¹ In the longer run, this ‘legal pluralism’ upheld racial ideology, with grievous consequences, because it fed into indigenous resentment of the Chinese, which often led to violence.

From a fiscal point of view, the position of the Chinese as primary taxpayers in the colony remained constant as they continued to be one of the main targets of government taxation. Despite the political turmoil and regime change that took place in the 1940s, relatively little changed regarding political and administrative functions. The Japanese military regime (1942–45) and the competing authorities in the revolutionary period (1945–49)—both the Dutch and the Indonesian Republic—manipulated both the economic wealth of Chinese people and their political weakness for their own benefit. In such a difficult situation, whatever political stand the Chinese took to defend themselves brought unfavourable consequences, particularly a series of violent attacks.⁶² Yet, a separate study is needed of the Chinese fiscal position during this transitional period of modern Indonesia.

Conclusion

This chapter has shown how, in the last three decades of the colonial period, through the Netherlands East Indies’ taxation system, the Dutch exploited the Chinese population along with indigenous people. Driven by desperate financial shortages due to the high military expenditures on the Aceh and Lombok conquests, the ambitious infrastructure projects of the Ethical Policy and shifting global economic conditions before, during and after World War I, the Netherlands East Indies Government in the first decade of the twentieth century sought alternative sources of revenue. It introduced tax reform and new taxes as solutions to the financial problems. While the tax-reform programs were presented as rational, efficient and fair, the introduction of new taxes was in fact driven by the desire for more revenue to drive Dutch economic development. The introduction of the war-profit tax is a good example. Introduced during World War I, it was designed to progressively tax profits realised by individuals and companies during the war years thanks to rocketing prices for oil, sugar, rubber and so on due to high global demand. The tax was levied over a short period on a very pragmatic basis; it therefore reflects the dual ‘face’ of the colonial state—namely, its innovative but also greedy nature in finding new sources of revenue.

From this new taxation, the colonial government collected a significant sum of revenue, but mostly at the cost of the Chinese population. Sociopolitically constructed as ‘foreigners’ and economically as intermediaries between indigenous peasants and Europeans, the Chinese became the primary taxpayers in the colony. Their economic power was targeted through various taxes, both old and new, introduced by the central or local governments. By 1920, the Chinese found themselves overtaxed, with their tax burden increasing all the time. Despite their difficult minority status, the Chinese resisted and began to express their grievances, by protesting via newspapers, street demonstrations or petitions in formal institutions like the Chamber of Commerce and the Volksraad. All these efforts were fruitless, however, as the colonial government continued with its tax program, ignoring the outcry of Chinese and indigenous taxpayers.

This chapter shows how the coloniality of power worked in the colonial political structure, within which the Chinese were placed as ‘foreigners’, and how this constrained and weakened their bargaining position, making them ‘constantly exploited’. The institutionalisation of this sociopolitical structure, keeping the Chinese weak politically while exploiting them economically, became one of the most problematic but long-lasting legacies in postcolonial Indonesia and thus an enduring feature of coloniality.

References

Primary sources

Algemeen handelsblad voor Nederlandsch-Indië. 1924. ‘Een Massa-Demonstratie [A Mass Demonstration].’ Algemeen handelsblad voor Nederlandsch-Indië [General Trade Magazine for the Dutch East Indies], 11 September.

Arsip Nasional Republik Indonesia [National Archives of the Republic of Indonesia] (ANRI). n.d. Arsip Financiën [Financial Archives], No. Inventaris 413, ‘Pajak Laba Perang [War Profit Tax].’ Jakarta: National Archives of the Republic of Indonesia.

ANRI. n.d. Arsip Financiën [Financial Archives], No. Inventaris 414, ‘Pemeriksaan Buku Perusahaan-perusahaan [Inspection of Companies’ Books].’ Jakarta: National Archives of the Republic of Indonesia.

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Sin Po. 1925. ‘Oedjan Belasting [The Raining of Taxes].’ Sin Po: Wekelijksche Editie [Weekly edition], 21 February.

Sin Po. 1925. ‘Bajar Belasting Doea Kali [Paying Tax Twice].’ Sin Po: Wekelijksche Editie [Weekly edition], 7 March.

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1. 1 The phrase Oedjan Belasting (‘The Raining of Taxes’) is the title of an article in Sin Po: Wekelijksche Editie [Weekly edition], 21 February 1925.

2. 2 On the THHK and its role in promoting Chinese schools in the East Indies, see Didi Kwartanada, ‘The Tiong Hoa Hwee Koan School: A Transborder Project of Modernity in Batavia, c. 1900s’, in Chinese Indonesians Reassessed: History, Religion and Belonging, eds Siew-Min Sai and Chang-Yau Hoon (London: Routledge, 2013), 27–44.

3. 3 ‘Een Massa-Demonstratie [A Mass Demonstration]’, Algemeen Handelsblad voor Nederlandsch-Indie [General Trade Magazine for the Dutch East Indies], 11 September 1924.

4. 4 ‘Demonstrasi Oeroesan Belasting [Demonstration on Tax Matters]’, Sin Po: Wekelijksche Editie [Weekly edition], 13 September 1924. For analysis of Sin Po during and after the Indonesian revolution, see Ravando and Harsono’s Chapter 8 in this volume.

5. 5 ‘Demonstration on Tax Matters’, Sin Po: ‘Jang toeroet ambil bagian teroetama ada pendoedoek jang boekan berkoelit poeti, jalah bangsa Boemipoetra, Tionghoa dan Arab. Djarang orang Tionghoa dan Arab berkompoel. Djalanan sampe penoe dengan orang jang ikoet dan jang menonton. Tidak ada keriboetan apa-apa. Ini ada boeat kadoea kalinja, jang pendoedoek Batavia oendjoek ia orang poenja koerang senang hati pada mintrad poenja tjara berkerdja [The participants are non-White populations, namely Natives, Chinese, and Arabs. The Chinese and Arab are seldom to make such a gathering. Street was fully occupied by participants and observers. There was no chaos. This is the second time Batavia populations show their antipathy toward the way the Gemeente worked].’

6. 6 This was evident from the formation of the Volksraad and the Gemeenteraad (‘Municipal Council’). See Freek Colombijn, ‘The Colonial Municipal Council in Padang (Sumatra) as Political Arena’, Journal of Southeast Asian Studies 26, no. 2 (1995): 263–88, doi.org/10.1017/S0022463400007104; Remco Raben, ‘Decolonization and the Democratic Moment in Southeast Asia’, Paper presented to Eclipse of Empire: Colonial Resistance, Metropolitan Decline and Imperial Crises in the 19th and 20th Centuries Conference, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona, 2–3 June 2010; Abdul Wahid, ‘City and “Colonial Governance” in Late Colonial Indonesia: Towards an Agenda for Historical Research’, Paramita: Historical Studies Journal 28, no. 1 (2018): 25–37. Indonesian historians view this period as representative of the birth of ‘the nationalist movement of Indonesia’. See, for example, Sartono Kartodirdjo, Pengantar Sejarah Indonesia Baru: Sejarah Pergerakan Nasional [Introduction to New Indonesian History: History of the National Movement] (Yogyakarta: Penerbit Ombak, 2014).

7. 7 María Lugones, ‘Toward a Decolonial Feminism’, Hypatia 25, no. 4 (2010): 742–59, doi.org/10.1111/j.1527-2001.2010.01137.x, at 745.

8. 8 Sartono Kartodirdjo, Protest Movement in Rural Java: A Study of Agrarian Unrest in the Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries (Singapore: Oxford University Press, 1973).

9. 9 Merle C. Ricklefs, A History of Modern Indonesia Since c. 1200, 3rd edn (London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2008), doi.org/10.5040/9781350394582; Abdul Wahid, ‘From Revenue Farming to State Monopoly: The Political Economy of Taxation in Colonial Indonesia, 1816–1942’ Bulletin of Indonesian Economic Studies 50, no. 2 (2014): 294–95, doi.org/10.1080/00074918.2014.896245, 283.

10. 10 ƒ = guilders.

11. 11 W.M.F. Mansvelt and Pieter Creutzberg, eds, Changing Economy in Indonesia. Volume 7: Balance of Payments, 1823–1939 (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1987), Tables 2–4; Anne Booth, The Indonesian Economy in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries: A History of Missed Opportunities (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 1998), doi.org/10.1057/9780333994962.

12. 12 Jan L. van Zanden and Daan Marks, An Economic History of Indonesia, 1800–2010 (London: Routledge, 2012), 50.

13. 13 Booth, The Indonesian Economy in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, 146.

14. 14 ibid., 147.

15. 15 J.W. Meijer Ranneft and W. Huender, Onderzoek naar den Belastingdruk op de Inlandsche Bevolking [Investigation into the Tax Burden on the Native Population] (Weltevreden: Landsdrukkerij, 1926).

16. 16 Wahid, ‘From Revenue Farming to State Monopoly’, 51.

17. 17 ibid., 43–48.

18. 18 ‘Belasting Bersoesoen-soesoen [Multilayered Tax]’, Sin Po: Wekelijksche Editie [Weekly edition], 15 May 1926.

19. 19 Various scholars have theorised the Chinese position in colonial Indonesia and elsewhere as a ‘trading minority’, ‘middleman minority’, ‘entrepreneurial minority’ and ‘essential outsiders’. See Wim F. Wertheim, East–West Parallels: Sociological Approaches to Modern Asia (The Hague: W. van Hoeve, 1964); Edna Bonacich, ‘A Theory of Middleman Minorities’, American Sociological Review 38, no. 5 (1973): 583–94, doi.org/10.2307/2094409; Christine Dobbin, Asian Entrepreneurial Minorities: Conjoint Communities in the Making of the World Economy, 1570–1940 (London: Curzon, 1996); Daniel Chirot and Anthony Reid, eds, Essential Outsiders: Chinese and Jews in the Modern Transformation of Southeast Asia and Central Europe (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1997).

20. 20 James Rush, Opium to Java: Revenue Farming and Chinese Enterprise in Colonial Indonesia, 1860–1910 (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1990); Claudine Salmon, ‘A Critical View of the Opium Farmers as Reflected in a Syair by Boen Sing Ho (Semarang 1889)’, Indonesia [SI] (1991): 25–51, doi.org/10.2307/3351253; Fritz W. Diehl, ‘Revenue Farming and Colonial Finances in the Netherlands East Indies, 1816–1925’, in The Rise and Fall of Revenue Farming: Business Elites and the Emergence of the Modern State in Southeast Asia, eds John Butcher and Howard Dick (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 1993), 196–232, doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-22877-5_12.

21. 21 W.R. Hugenholtz, ‘The Landrent Question and its Solution, 1850–1920’, in The Late Colonial State in Indonesia: Political and Economic Foundation of the Netherlands Indies, 1880–1942, ed. Robert Cribb (Leiden: KITLV Press, 1994), 139–72; Anne Booth, ‘Land Taxation in Asia: An Overview of the 19th and 20th Centuries’, Oxford Development Studies 42, no. 1 (2014): 1–18, doi.org/10.1080/13600818.2014.880413.

22. 22 Booth, The Indonesian Economy in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries; Anne Booth, Economic Change in Modern Indonesia: Colonial and Post-Colonial Comparison (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016), doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781316271438; Ewout Frankema and Anne Booth, eds, Fiscal Capacity and the Colonial State in Asia and Africa, c. 1850–1960 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2020), doi.org/10.1017/9781108665001.

23. 23 Wahid, ‘From Revenue Farming to State Monopoly’; Maarten Manse, ‘From Headhunting to Head Taxes: Violence, Taxation and Colonial Governance on Seram, c. 1860–1920’, Bijdragen tot de Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde [Journal of the Humanities and Social Sciences of Southeast Asia] 177, no. 4 (2021): 524–58, doi.org/10.1163/22134379-bja10023; Maarten Manse, ‘Promise, Pretence, and Pragmatism: Governance and Taxation in Colonial Indonesia, 1870–1940’ (PhD diss., Leiden University, Netherlands, 2021).

24. 24 Onghokham, ‘Pulung Affair: Pemberontakan Pajak di Desa Patik, Beberapa Aspek Politik di Madiun Pada Abad ke-19 [Pulung Affair: Tax Rebellion in Patik Village, Some Political Aspects in Madiun in the Nineteenth Century]’, Majalah Ilmu-ilmu Sastra [Indonesian Literary Sciences Magazine] 7, no. 1 (1977): 1–25; Onghokham, ‘Pajak dalam Perspektif Sejarah [Tax in Historical Perspective]’, Prisma 14, no. 4 (1985): 74–85; The Siauw Giap, ‘Socio-Economic Role of the Chinese in Indonesia, 1820–1940’, in Economic Growth in Indonesia, 1820–1940, eds Angus Maddison and Gé Prince (Dordrecht: Foris Publications, 1989), 159–202; Sartono Kartodirdjo, Laporan-laporan tentang Gerakan Protes di Jawa pada Abad XX [Reports on the Protest Movement in Java in the Twentieth Century] (Jakarta: National Archives of the Republic of Indonesia, 1981); Kenneth A. Young, Islamic Peasants and the State: The 1908 Anti-Tax Rebellion in West Sumatra, Yale Center for International and Area Studies Monograph No. 40 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1994).

25. 25 Louis Althusser, ‘Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses (Notes Toward an Investigation)’, in The Anthropology of the State: A Reader, eds Aradhana Sharma and Akhil Gupta (Malden: Blackwell Publishing, 2006), 86–111, at 90.

26. 26 Ong Eng Die, Chineezen in Nederlandsch-Indië: Sociografie van een Indonesische Bevolkingsgroep [The Chinese in the Netherlands Indies: Sociography of an Indonesian Population Group] (Assen: Van Gorchum & Co., 1943), 29.

27. 27 On the early Dutch venture in Batavia and elsewhere in the archipelago through the VOC, see Femme S. Gaastra, The Dutch East India Company: Expansion and Decline (Zutphen: Waalburg Press, 2003).

28. 28 The Siauw Giap, ‘Socio-Economic role of the Chinese in Indonesia’, 159.

29. 29 Leonard Blussé, Strange Company: Chinese Settlers, Mestizo Women, and the Dutch in VOC Batavia, KITLV Verhandelingen Series No. 122 (Leiden: KITLV/Foris Publications, 1986).

30. 30 Howard Dick, ‘A Fresh Approach to Southeast Asian History’, in The Rise and Fall of Revenue Farming: Business Elites and the Emergence of the Modern State in Southeast Asia, eds John Butcher and Howard Dick (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 1993), 3–18, doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-22877-5_1, at 5–6.

31. 31 Rush, Opium to Java; Diehl, ‘Revenue Farming and Colonial Finances in the Netherlands East Indies’.

32. 32 Peter Boomgaard and A.J. Gooszen, Changing Economy in Indonesia. Volume 11: Population Trends, 1795–1942 (Amsterdam: Royal Tropical Institute, 1991), Table 6b.1, 127.

33. 33 Ong Eng Die, The Chinese in the Netherlands Indies, 39–40. Yet, most Chinese contract and free workers came from the same areas as their predecessors—namely, Guangdong and Fujian. The Chinese population comprised the following ethnic (or dialect) groups: Hokkien (47 per cent), Hakka or Keh (16.9 per cent), Kwongfoe (11.44 per cent) and Tio Ciu or Hoklo (7.38 per cent). See Departement van Economische Zaken [Department of Economic Affairs], Volkstelling 1930 [Census 1930]. Volume VII (Batavia: Landsdrukkerij, 1931), Table 21, 104.

34. 34 Ong Eng Die, The Chinese in the Netherlands Indies, 13.

35. 35 M.R. Fernando and David Bulbeck, eds, Chinese Economic Activity in Netherlands India: Selected Translations from the Dutch (Singapore: ISEAS, 1992), doi.org/10.1355/9789814379410, 87–89.

36. 36 Ong Eng Die, The Chinese in the Netherlands Indies, 104.

37. 37 The Siauw Giap, ‘Socio-Economic Role of the Chinese in Indonesia’, 177.

38. 38 In comparison, Japanese in the East Indies had, by 1889, been granted full European-equivalent status—something the Chinese wanted but never achieved and that made them envious. Cees Fasseur, ‘Cornerstone and Stumbling Block: Racial Classification and the Late Colonial State in Indonesia’, in The Late Colonial State in Indonesia: Political and Economic Foundation of the Netherlands Indies, 1880–1942, ed. Robert Cribb (Leiden: KITLV Press, 1994), 31–56, at 37.

39. 39 However, this racial classification was not entirely fixed. About this matter, Cribb and Kahin explain: ‘Movement between [racial] categories was possible by means of gelijkstelling [‘alike-making’], under which a person of native or foreign oriental status could gain full legal European status if he could demonstrate that he was culturally assimilated to the European community or had special legal need for European status.’ See Robert Cribb and Audrey Kahin, Historical Dictionary of Indonesia (Lanham: Scarecrow Press, 2004), 363.

40. 40 Donald E. Willmott, The National Status of the Chinese in Indonesia (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1956), Ch. 2.

41. 41 For example, Leo Suryadinata, Peranakan Chinese Politics in Java, 1917–1942 (Singapore: NUS Press, 1981); and Patricia Tjiook-Liem, De Rechtspositie der Chinezen in Nederlands-Indië 1848–1942 [The Legal Position of the Chinese in the Netherlands Indies, 1848–1942] (Leiden: Leiden University Press, 2009).

42. 42 Wahid, ‘From Revenue Farming to State Monopoly’, 180.

43. 43 J. Paulus, ed., Encyclopaedie van Nederlandsch-Indie. Volume 1 (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1917), 224; J. Visser, Overzicht van het Belastingwezen van Nederlandsch-Indië: Voor Onderwijs en Praktijk [Overview of the Netherlands Indies’ Tax System: For Education and Practice] (Batavia: Van Dorp & Co., 1924), 43–44.

44. 44 Wahid, ‘From Revenue Farming to State Monopoly’, 172.

45. 45 Visser, Overview of the Netherlands Indies’ Tax System, 142–43.

46. 46 Lea E. Williams, Overseas Chinese Nationalism: The Genesis of Pan-Chinese Nationalism in Indonesia (Glencoe: The Free Press, 1960), 27. In contrast to what the Chinese population felt about their tax burden, the Dutch colonial administrator thought the Chinese paid ‘extremely little’ in taxes compared with European and indigenous people. Surely, such a contention offended the feelings of Chinese people and raised their grievances about other issues. Aside from tax issues, Williams further explains that the Chinese in the early decades of the twentieth century were offended by the tax-farming system (passenstelsel) and zoning system (wijkenstelsel) that restricted their freedom and the placing of Chinese under the jurisdiction of the courts for natives (politierol).

47. 47 The surveys were launched under the framework of the ‘Ethical Policy’, as the colonial government considered overtaxation was contributing to the diminishing welfare of indigenous people. See C.J. Hasselman, Algemeen Overzicht van de Uitkomsten van het Welvaart-Onderzoek Gehouden op Java en Madoera in 1904–1905: Opgemaakt Ingevolge Opdracht van Zijne Excellentie den Minister van Kolonien [General Overview of the Results of the Welfare Research in Java and Madura 1904–1905: Drawn Up by Order of His Excellency the Minister of Colonies], Koloniaal Verslag [Colonial Report] 1907–1908 (‘s-Gravenhage: Martinus Nijhoff, 1914); Meijer Ranneft and Huender, Investigation into the Tax Burden on the Native Population; and Frans Hüsken, ‘Declining Welfare in Java: Government and Private Inquiries, 1903–1914’, in The Late Colonial State in Indonesia: Political and Economic Foundation of the Netherlands Indies, 1880–1942, ed. Robert Cribb (Leiden: KITLV Press, 1994), 213–27.

48. 48 Arsip Nasional Republik Indonesia [National Archives of the Republic of Indonesia] [hereinafter ANRI], Arsip Algemene Secretarie serie Grote Bundel Besluit [General Secretariat Archive Large Bundle Decree Series], 1891–1942, Nomor Inventaris 3683, No. Arsip Bt. 1941-07-31/30, Inkomstenbelasting, Bedrijfs – en Patentbelasting [Income Tax, Corporate and Patent Tax].

49. 49 van Zanden and Marks, An Economic History of Indonesia, 97. Despite the Netherlands East Indies not being involved directly in World War I and taking a neutral stance, the war in Europe affected ‘the domestic political situation, the relationship between motherland and the colony, and the economic performance of the Netherlands Indies’. See Kees van Dijk, The Netherlands Indies and the Great War, 1914–1918 (Leiden: KITLV Press, 2007), doi.org/10.26530/oapen_389234, at vii.

50. 50 A report reveals that, from 1917 until 1923, the colonial government collected total revenue as high as ƒ193 million from this tax. It was abolished in 1923, when the world economy had recovered its normal conditions. J.L. Vleming and J. van Gelderen, Theorie en Praktijk van de Indische Belastingen, Lezingen Gehouden te Weltevreden in de Openbare Vergadering van 4 April 1923 [Theory and Practice of the Indies Taxation, Lectures Delivered in Weltevreden in the Public Meeting on 4 April 1923] (Weltevreden: Indonesisch Drukkerij, 1923), 13.

51. 51 ANRI, Arsip Financiën [Financial Archives], No. Inventaris 392, ‘Catatan global pajak laba perang 1919 [Global Notes of War Profits 1919]’.

52. 52 ANRI, Arsip Financiën [Financial Archives], No. Inventaris 413, ‘Pajak Laba Perang [War Profit Tax]’.

53. 53 ANRI, Arsip Financiën [Financial Archives], No. Inventaris 414, ‘Pemeriksaan Buku Perusahaan-perusahaan [Inspection of Companies’ Books]’. This bundle contains more than 100 companies that had an issue with the war-profit tax. Most were Chinese companies or individuals, but there were also a few Dutch and other Europeans who struggled with this tax.

54. 54 Jamie Mackie, ‘Towkays and Tycoons: The Chinese in Indonesian Economic Life in the 1920s and 1980s’, Indonesia [SI] (July 1991): 83–96, doi.org/10.2307/3351256, at 87.

55. 55 ‘[O]rang-orang dagang, teroetama jang koerang mengarti dan takoet beroeroesan dengan Pamarentah, djadi sanget katakoetan dan berkoatir, samentara ini perasaan takoet dan koeatir soeda boenoeh sebagian marika poenja napsoe dan kagoembirahan dalem perdagangan. Banjak kapitaal jang djadi mandek lantaran ini.’ ‘Belasting-belasting [Taxes]’, Sin Po: Wekelijksche Editie [Weekly edition], 23 October 1923.

56. 56 ‘Pemandangan Oemoem tentang Malaise [General View on Malaise (Crises)]’, Sin Po: Wekelijksche Editie [Weekly edition], 23 October 1923.

57. 57 ‘The Raining of Taxes’, Sin Po.

58. 58 ‘Bajar Belasting Doea Kali [Paying Tax Twice]’, Sin Po: Wekelijksche Editie [Weekly edition], 7 March 1925.

59. 59 ‘Multilayered Tax’, Sin Po.

60. 60 Suryadinata, Peranakan Chinese Politics in Java, 34; Mona Lohanda, The Kapitan Cina of Batavia, 1837–1942: A History of Chinese Establishment in Colonial Society (Jakarta: Djambatan, 1996), 150.

61. 61 Wertheim, East–West Parallels, 42–82; Wahid, ‘From Revenue Farming to State Monopoly’, 179–80.

62. 62 See Mary Somer Heidhuis, ‘Anti-Chinese Violence in Java during the Indonesian Revolution, 1945–49’, in Colonial Counterinsurgency and Mass Violence: The Dutch Empire in Indonesia, eds Bart Luttikhuis and A. Dirk Moses (London: Routledge, 2014), 155–76, doi.org/10.4324/9781315767345-8.