Conducts research and collects data on the global history of labour, workers, and labour relations

Warmth of the Motherland

10 December 1959
Chinese women leaving Indonesia c 1960
Source: 
TM60052134 (Wikimedia Commons)

After the independence of Indonesia, the government adopted a number of policies to restrict the business and trading of Chinese living in Indonesia. A presidential regulation in November 1959 banned retail services by non-indigenous persons in rural areas.
As a consequence, over half a million Chinese were affected as their small retail shops should be closed. On 10 December 1959, Peking radio announced a campaign for Chinese citizens in Indonesia to return to "The Warmth of Motherland".  Over 100.000 Chinese returned to China. The remaining Chinese fell under suspicion once again during the anti-communist purges of 1965-1966, when local Chinese were killed in some areas, and their properties looted and burned.

Read more? Jianfa Shen, 'From Mao to the Present: Migration in CHina since the 2nd World War' in: Globalising Migration History. The Eurasian Experience (Leiden 2014)