The National Status of the Chinese in Indonesia 1900-1958

In 1956, approximately a year after Professor Willmott’s return from Indonesia, the Modern Indonesia Project published as an Interim Report his study of the national status of the Chinese in Indonesia. Subsequently, following helpful comments by Indonesian and Western scholars who had read this study and after having accumulated a considerable amount of additional data, Dr. Willmott undertook to refine and augment his earlier study, while also carrying it forward chronologically through 1958. The present volume represents, then, a substantial expansion of his earlier Interim Report with considerable new data relating not only to the period 1955-1958 but also to the years 1900-1955.

Dr. Willmott is particularly well qualified to undertake this study. He was born in China, a British subject, in 1925, living there until 1946 when he came to the United States to enroll in Oberlin College, from which he received his B.A. in 1950. Prior to his stay in Indonesia, he spent a year of resident graduate study at the University of Michigan and three at Cornell University, the emphasis of his work being in sociology and social psychology. He arrived in Indonesia with a command of the Indonesian and Chinese languages and a substantial knowledge of Indonesian and Chinese culture. His sixteen months of field work in Indonesia (during 1954-1955) were followed by the investigation of relevant material lodged in the Cornell University Library. Dr. Willmott’s studies are the first of several carried out by members of the Cornell Modern Indonesia Project relating to the Chinese minority in Indonesia. - George McT. Kahin, 1961

About the Author

Dr. Willmott received his Ph.D. degree in sociology from Cornell University in 1958, His major study, based upon his field research in Indonesia, The Chinese of Semarang, was published by Cornell University Press in 1960.