The political tension may have eased in Indonesia, but the ethnic Chinese living in Medan said it would take months to recover from their trauma. The North Sumatran city of two million people is Indonesia's commodity trading centre. Hundreds of Chinese fled to Singapore, Malaysia and Hongkong after rioters burnt and looted their shops and houses early this month to protest against rising prices of fuel and transport. Bloody riots in Jakarta two weeks ago, which also targeted the property of ethnic Chinese, caused more jitters among their community.
Commodity trading is normal but, behind that, traders are nervous.
More than 220,000 ethnic Chinese live in Medan. Most of them are traders, dealing in cooking oil, rubber and basic commodities. They make up less than 5 per cent of Indonesia's 200 million people, but they play key roles in the country's business and own a substantial portion of the national wealth. They don't care about the market's fundamentals. What they care about is how to get as much money as possible during this kind of situation.