“This shop does not accept Japanese, Philippines, Vietnamese and dogs”, reads a picture posted on Facebook, of a poster on the front door of a restaurant at Lake Houhai, one of Beijing’s popular tourist spots. The restaurant owner, Mr. Wang, proudly told the BBC that he did it because he loves his country and that many customers support his act.

Since maritime disputes flared up in the South China Sea and Diaoyu Islands, so too have reports of ultra-nationalism in China. I remember when there was news of a near clash in the South China Sea early last year, ultra-nationalism materialized into different hot topics trending on Weibo (China’s Twitter), including a revival of the May 1998 riot topic. I remember one comment, “Don’t let the Filipinos do to Chinese overseas compatriots as the Indonesians did in May 98!”

I used Baidu (China’s Google) to discover the Chinese people’s perception of Indonesia at the time. Of the 10 most popular topics, four were about Sino-phobia. I searched again on Wednesday morning and only one was about anti-Chinese violence.

It is easy to believe that the current Chinese regime is to blame for perpetuating these sentiments. However, what I gathered from discussions with scholars and officials here in Beijing, it is actually not the case. The Chinese government actually has very little ability to control these sentiments. More interestingly, it seems that they are acutely aware of how these sentiments can spillover into domestic instability, which in turn can undermine the Communist regime.

The rise of ultra-nationalism, not just in China, but also in other countries involved in maritime disputes has raised many concerns in the region. They are detrimental to the commitment for peace, stability and prosperity for the region, as envisioned in the plan to build an ASEAN Community or its extension, an East Asia Community.

The word “Indonesians” would probably be on that restaurant’s door-sign, had Indonesia been a claimant in the South China Sea, or if another anti-Chinese riot erupted in Indonesia. This can be prevented. After all, we have been China’s first and largest strategic partner in Southeast Asia for seven years now.

Unfortunately, the social cultural pillar of our strategic partnership has received the least attention in strategic dialogues attended by scholars and policy makers compared to the “sexier” political security pillar and the more “lucrative” economic pillar.

If the economic pillar is the “blood” and the political and security pillar is the “bones”, then the social cultural pillar is the “soul”, without which our strategic partnership with China remains vulnerable to suspicion and distrust. This pillar could help solve the crux of the problems that bog down our partnership — the lack of understanding in each society, from the people to policy makers.

There have been encouraging improvements in this field, particularly in tourism, education and youth cooperation. The overall trend is vibrant, but still slower than expectations and far from its full potential. There are nine other fields of cooperation under the strategic partnership agreement that have yet to be developed.

Generally, there are still imbalances, gaps and obstacles. The main hurdles include language, knowledge and information gap, financial constraints and institutional mismatch.

China has the advantage of the government’s full-fledged commitment in putting soft power as part of its foreign policy’s grand strategy. This not only can be seen in the hefty budget poured into institutions like CCTV and Confucius Institutes. The soft power theme has a strong presence in China’s academic and foreign policy discourse. There have been efforts to blend Chinese traditional/ancient wisdom in their foreign policy discourse.

It is not only about crafting diplomacy, but also shaping national identity. In the 17th Party Congress, then president Hu Jintao stated explicitly that soft power is a “crucial source of national cohesion”.

Three media agencies (Xinhua, People’s Daily and China National Radio) already posted a number of journalists to Indonesia. Of the 400 Confucius Institutes worldwide, seven are already located on major islands in Indonesia.

Indonesia lacks government vision, rigor and purse. There is only one news agency (Antara) with one reporter. There is only one Indonesian Center in Beijing even though the initial idea was to have equal number of centers or institutes in each country.

Of course, soft power is not supposed to be solely state generated. The government may facilitate, but people-to-people connectivity is essential. This is where our strengths lie. Indonesia is home to the largest and heterogeneous Chinese overseas population in the world. More importantly, the Chinese-Indonesians are becoming more and more active in Indonesia’s democratization process together with other elements in Indonesian civil society.

Last year, there were over 10,000 Indonesian students studying in China (only 1,000 in 1998). There were at least 20 formal Indonesian student associations in 19 major cities. Add with informal ones (social, functional, religious, etc.), the numbers would triple or quadruple. If managed well, these can be our powerful soft power assets. We can cope with ultra-nationalism by pushing people-to-people connectivity with better understanding. For that, more education and research exchanges are urgently needed.

As an old Chinese saying goes; it takes 10 years to grow a tree and a hundred to grow a human. Though we still suffer from the knowledge vacuum of three decades during Soeharto’s time, we have initiated a recovery process after normalization in 1990. The last 22 years has been a painstakingly slow, yet necessary and important process. But now it is time to consolidate.

Let us move beyond process and make progress.

The writer is a researcher at the department of politics and international relations, Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), Jakarta. She is currently pursuing doctorate degree at Peking University, China.

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