‘Chinese Scare’ Hoaxes in Indonesian Presidential Elections

The second speaker in this AANZCA 2024 conference session is Tommy S. Yotes, whose focus is on the 2024 Indonesian presidential election, which took place in February. Indonesian politics often features hoaxes distributed through social media platforms, and scare campaigns repeating to Chinese-Indonesians and Chinese influence on Indonesia are common; they make for easy scapegoats in times of civil unrest.

Much of this is expressed through social media memes that promote hoaxes. Hoaxes themselves are not new in political disinformation, and predate the Internet by many decades; online hoaxes effectively exploit the affordances of digital media, however, and represent memetic practices within shared digital spaces that are replicated through imitation in a competitive environment.

Indonesian politics emphasis on Chinese hoaxes stem from a long history of engagement r between Indonesia and China. During the colonial era, the Chinese minority occupied specific positions in society, especially in major economic roles as merchants, traders, and tax collectors; under the Suharto regime the Chinese minority was portrayed as a distinct problem and was subject to forced assimilation campaigns; throughout, there have also been ongoing concerns about the influence of Chinese communism on Indonesian society and democracy.

Memes, then, are defined by their form, content, and stance, and Tommy identified relevant memes from the Turn Back Hoax site which tracks hoax memes in Indonesia; the site acts as a gatekeeper for the memes identified by its followers in a dedicated Facebook group. Some such memes related to President Joao Widodo being overly connected to Chinese interests; foreign Chinese workers taking Indonesian jobs; the influx of unsafe Chinese drugs, products, and food into the country; and the challenge to then Muslim faith from Chinese populations.

One meme from TikTok falsely claimed, for instance, that Joko Widodo himself was of ethnic Chinese descent; another showed him next to what was purported to be a Chinese flag (but was actually a Vietnamese flag, during a state visit to Vietnam); both imply an affinity with and influence from China. A post on Twitter purported to show an attack by Chinese foreign workers on Indonesian locals (but was actually from Malaysia); another used a Vietnamese video out of context to claim a clandestine influx of Chinese workers into a specific region, taking job opportunities from Indonesian workers. Yet other posts claimed that imported Chinese snake fruit contained methamphetamines, that China produced ‘fake’ eggs and rice, or that face masks produced in China were ineffective. China was also positioned as a regional military threat, and a threat to the Muslim faith, using deliberately edited sensationalist footage.

Such content is deliberately designed to appear news-like, urgent, authoritative, and attention-grabbing; texts are short and immediately accessible; symbols include national flags, high-profile figures; the stance is alarmist and Sinophobic, evoking key problematic elements; perspectives are nationalistic and highlight threats to national integrity; and there is a strong appeal to emotion. Since the 2019 election, there is a shift away from communist hoaxes, and a move towards short-form content; the focus on anti-Muslim imagery and language has also increased.