Residents of the Rempang island in Indonesia have been protesting against the government’s decision to build an “Eco-city” partly financed by China.
Protests have erupted in Indonesia since the beginning of the week against the forced displacement of 7,500 residents of the Rempang region. A Chinese project to build an industrial complex called “Eco-city”, supported by the Indonesian government, will be undertaken on the displaced families’ native lands.
The Indonesian people affected by the construction of this Eco-city, a massive industrial complex in renewable energies but also a luxury tourist resort, have to leave their homes by the end of September. They will then be relocated to the nearby island of Gatang.
However, this relocation would majorly impact the regional economic ecosystem. The people of Rempang, a small island 60 kilometers south of Singapore, depend on fishing for their livelihood. However, the authorities decided to relocate them 60 kilometers (37 miles) off the coast.
Against this decision, the inhabitants of the four villages affected began to demonstrate peacefully against the Chinese complex. A thousand demonstrators then gathered in front of the building of BP Batam, the region’s development authority, and protested by throwing rocks and bottles at the offices.
A second wave of demonstrators joined the hostilities, mainly defenders of Malay culture claiming that they had been living on these lands for almost two centuries, long before the creation of the Indonesian state, as explained by Raja Zainudin, a leading figure in the defense of Malay culture in the region, interviewed by Al Jazeera.
The Indonesian security forces gradually retaliated, using water jets and tear gas on the demonstrators. Tear gas spray hit schools, forcing some pupils to evacuate to the nearest hospital. The police have defended themselves by claiming that this was due to the wind direction and that the attacks were not targeted, but it particularly worried Amnesty International Indonesia.
According to the latest figures from the Indonesian police, 43 demonstrators have been arrested.
A project born from Sino-Indonesian friendship
The Rempang Eco-city project is a massive undertaking as an industrial complex and a luxury tourist destination. The project requires an enormous amount of funds — almost 11.6 billion dollars — and in the absence of sufficient public investment, Indonesia is turning to Chinese investment to make up the shortfall.
The new city will be home to factories belonging to Xinyi, a leading Chinese manufacturer of glass and solar panels.
It seems paradoxical to set up a factory requiring raw materials such as quartz in a place that claims to be an ecologically responsible city. This is confirmed by Ferry Widodo, from the Indonesian Environmental Forum, in an interview with the Indonesian media VOI. He asserts that extracting and the exposure of quartz would threaten the environment.
In an interview with the Jakarta Post in July 2023, Indonesia’s Investment Minister, Bahlil Lahadalia, announced that the project would create 35,000 jobs and generate more than 26 billion dollars by 2080, despite local discontent.
While this may appear an isolated event, it is part of a broader trend for Chinese companies to expand into neighboring countries. In Indonesia, foreign direct investment from China has increased almost fivefold (from 4 billion dollars in 2010 to 18.9 billion dollars in 2018). And other Chinese industrial groups like Tsingshan are setting up in Indonesia to source raw materials, notably steel and nickel.
Sino-Indonesian cooperation has accelerated since the G20 summit in Bali in 2022, and more recently at a bilateral summit between Indonesian President Joko Widodo and Chinese President Xi Jinping last July.
The two heads of state affirmed their friendship. They agreed on a number of joint economic and political projects, such as greater inclusion in the New Silk Roads (a massive Chinese plan to link Europe and East Asia) and more substantial Chinese investment in Indonesian public and private projects.
The example of Indonesia is not the only one. Sri Lanka, for instance, bears witness to an interdependence that can participate in serious debt. A case in point is the port of Hambantota in Sri Lanka, where the country can no longer repay the deficits caused by the construction of the building, had to hand over the operating rights to the Chinese for 99 years and lost any influence over its own territory.
Indonesians also share this fear. A study undertaken by Jakarta’s Centre for Strategic and International Studies underlines Indonesians’ distrust of China’s true intentions, and are concerned about the potential deprivation of their land.
Usman Hamid of Amnesty International Indonesia, interviewed by Australian broadcast ABC News, is very pessimistic about the future of the Eco-city project. He cites a government mining facility in the village of Wada in the Java province, where the project was forcibly implemented without consulting the local population.
Tensions are therefore noticeable between populations wishing to preserve their ancestors’ cultural heritage and land transmitted to them, and a political power firmly committed to the country’s economic development.
