Journal of Politics and Law; Vol. 10, No. 2; 2017 ISSN 1913-9047 E-ISSN 1913-9055 Published by Canadian Center of Science and Education 97 China Town Magazine and Indonesian-Chinese Identity Tonny Dian Effendi 1 & Mohd Zaini Abubakar 2 1 Department of Internasional Relations, Universitas Muhammadiyah Malang, Indonesia 2 School of Social Sciences, Universiti Sains Malaysia, Malaysia Correspondence: Tonny Dian Effendi, Department of Internasional Relations, Universitas Muhammadiyah Malang, Indonesia. Tel: 62-813-331-53131. E-mail: tonnydiane@gmail.com Received: December 15, 2016 Accepted: January 10, 2017 Online Published: February 28, 2017 doi:10.5539/jpl.v10n2p97 URL: https://doi.org/10.5539/jpl.v10n2p97 Abstract The new democratic political system in Indonesia recognizes Indonesian-Chinese as part of the national building. In the post-Suharto era, they are enjoying their cultural identity including freedom of press and freely to use their mother language. In fact, they were still develop their identity inside Indonesia as the multi-cultural country. The magazine called China Town is one of the Indonesian-Chinese Community Magazine. The magazine is not merely as the media which periodically reporting Indonesian-Chinese activities and opinions, but also as the representation of their existence and also identity. This article attempts to measure the role of the magazine particularly concerning on the identity issues. Specifically, this research will examine to what extent the China Town magazine achieve the objectives in terms of media coverage in order to develop and strengthen their identity? This is a qualitative study with content analysis. The empirical data found that, the China Town magazine have attempted tries to convince that Indonesian-Chinese is part of the Indonesian nation, as the Indonesian identity, and they are not exclusive as well as homogenous community. However, the magazine have also expressed and emphasized that Indonesian-Chinese were part of Chinese diaspora. It portrays that the magazine gave a balance information between Indonesian mainstream media and Chinese news. Keywords: Indonesian-Chinese, diaspora, identity, media 1. Introduction Indonesian-Chinese have felt experience on discrimination for more than 30 years in Indonesia (Tan, 2008). They have discriminated in the various aspects such as politics, social, culture and economy. The Indonesian New Order regime under Suharto administration gave discrimination policy toward Indonesian-Chinese notably on the three contexts. Indonesian government have strictly prohibited to the any single of Indonesian-Chinese culture performance, Chinese language and organization (Wibowo & Lan, 2010). The Indonesian-Chinese community only have one news media that established by the government and hugely influenced by military (Lindsey & Pausackers, 2003. Wibowo, 2001). The new democracy era have brought a new opportunity for Indonesian-Chinese following the revision of some discrimination policies toward Indonesian-Chinese like the Anti-Discrimination Act and The Citizenship Act (Giblin 2003; Wibowo & Lan, 2010). As a result, Indonesian-Chinese allowed to demonstrate and perform their culture identity (Mahfud, 2012). They also have recognized as an integral part of the Indonesian nation. The Indonesian-Chinese has responded by establishing some media especially since 2000s. Some studies found that the establishment of many Indonesian-Chinese media as the euphoria effect due to the political system change in Indonesia. However, most of the media were hard to survive due to some various problems. There are three important problems. First, the change of Indonesian-Chinese interest. Second, due to political pressure during the New Order era, many Indonesian-Chinese cannot speak Chinese and read the Chinese characters. Third, the Chinese media were also faced financial burden. A study discovered that Chinese media in Indonesia faced three challenges (Hoon, 2012). First, the decline of reading culture which replaced by digital media such as internet. Second, Indonesian-Chinese prefer to read national media rather than their own newspaper. Third, the Chinese media are mostly reporting a historical news which basically suitable for old generation. Henceforth, the young generation are lack interest to read the Chinese news.