Jamie Mackie

Hal Hill Steps Down—and up. Head of the Indonesia Project, ANU, 1986–98 Editor of BIES, 1990–98

Hal Hill is known as an eminent authority on the Indonesian economy. He is an astonishingly productive scholar. He continues as an imaginative and highly successful head of the ANUs Indonesia Project and Editor of its journal. He is constantly sought after abroad as Visiting Professor, participant in conferences and contributor to research projects (June 1997).

How Many Chinese Indonesians

Until the census of 2000, no attempt had been made since the 1930 census to elicit data from Indonesians about their ethnicity. The 2000 census question on the subject was necessarily based on self-identification. However, the very low figure recorded for ethnic Chinese Indonesians implies that large numbers of them chose not to identify themselves as such, probably because of fears aroused by outbreaks of anti-Chinese violence in 1998. The 2000 census figure of only 1.8 million Chinese, less than 1% of the total population (or 1.4 % according to a proposed adjustment) seems far too low to be credible. In 1930 Chinese Indonesians represented about 2% of the total, and they have generally been assumed since then to amount to 2-3% of the population. This note examines the key variables relevant to that assumption, which seems likely to be nearer the truth than the recent census figure.

IN MEMORIAM: PROFESSOR BENJAMIN HIGGINS, 1912-2001

ISSN 0007-4918 print/ISSN 1472-7234 online/01/020183-6