Ruanjiaqi

For Chinese companies, although the Indonesian market seems profitable and attractive, it can not be denied that the Indonesian market can be also considered as a highly risky and backward market. When opening companies or investing in the Indonesian market, Chinese businessmen often find out that they have to face a large amount of problems. These problems do not only come from differences between two cultures or different religious beliefs, but also from political or economic environment. The first problem comes from different cultures and religious beliefs. Because most Indonesian people believe in Islam while most Chinese businessmen are atheists, the Indonesian employees often think that their Chinese boss does not respect their religion while Chinese managers just do what they think is reasonable. For example, Indonesian workers who believe in Islam think that they have right to get a long break in the afternoon, and during this period, they can pray for Allah, however, in order to raise the profit, Chinese managers only give a lunch break to their employees. For Indonesian employees, this may be a kind of insult to their god, otherwise Chinese managers just do what is considered as common in China. This kind of misunderstanding between workers and managers will result in low work efficiency and make employees are not loyal again to the company. This is why Chinese managers often find out that the local employees are hostile to their leaders and even steal property from the company. In addition to different cultures and religious beliefs, the political and economic environment is also the origin of problems. As a developing country with extremely low level of economy, the Indonesian government keeps both eyes peeled for those foreign industries. Why the Indonesian government does so is that although foreign investments now have great effects on improving Indonesian economy, the Indonesian government is more willing to make the local industries take the dimonant position in the national economy. Thus, setting up trade barriers and publishing laws and regulations to protest against those foreign industries that the government dislikes become the essential policies to protect the local industries. It is clearly that these policies will also influence Chinese companies. In fact, in Indonesia, most foreign companies are Chinese companies. In other words, Chinese companies are the biggest victims of these exclusive laws and regulations. For instance, in 2011, the Indonesian government plans to restrict the activities of Chinese businessmen. Some important industries, like steel and oil industries, can not be managed by Chinese people. The Indonesian government also increases the tax rate on foreign industries, and limits the amount of foreign investment. All these facts illustrate that Indonesian government is afraid of that foreign companies, especially Chinese companies, master the economy of the whole country,even influence its political decisions. Local protectionism is not the sole political problem the Chinese company need to face. Because of a long period of being ruled by the dictator, laws on regulating the economic orders have become useless, which will finally result in the boom of corruption and the collapse of fair competition. What makes the matter worse is that Indonesia consists of a large number of islands. It means that the central government has no useful methods to monitor whether those officers in remote islands obey the law or not. For example, in 2010, a officer has been sued for accepting bribes from local industries. After accepting bribes, this officer gave more opportunities to these low-grade local companies instead of those high-class foreign companies. His action has endangered the principle of fair competition, and threatened the existence of foreign companies. Moreover, the most serious political problem the Chinese industry has to face is anti-China socialist. As we all know, Chinese businessmen have occupied the upper class in Indonesia because of their fortune while most local people are workers or farmers, and live in extremely poor environment. This contrast now results in the appearance of anti-China socialist.. Anti-China socialist makes Chinese companies unsafe in the Indonesian society. In 1998, anti-China socialist developed into violence which focusd on Chinese people and companies. Hundreds of Chinese shops were destroyed by local people, and a large number of Chinese companies were robbed by criminals. Now, how to protect their companies from the attack of violence becomes the most urgent problem for Chinese businessmen to solve. In conclusion, Chinese businessmen should burden the pressure from different cultures, local protectionism, corruption and anti-China socialist if they decide to set up companies in Indonesia.