To get away from the political wrangling and daily grind of Jakarta, Suharto liked to retreat to Tapos, his 700-hectare ranch near Bogor, south of the capital. Originally part of a Dutch plantation taken over by the Indonesian state, it was “provided” for Suharto's use in 1974 by the governor of West Java and managed by a company owned by the president's children. Set amid rolling hills and lakes, the ranch had an experimental station for breeding cattle and sheep. It even featured a go-kart track, where Suharto used to enjoy a few laps. He felt most relaxed there; as he wrote in his autobiography: “I feel very much at home in the environment of agriculture and animal husbandry.” He often invited friends on weekends for a barbeque and to chew the cud, so to speak. Liem, a frequent guest, recalled that steaks and sate (satay) were often on the menu. On one Sunday in March 1990, the tycoon was present at the retreat, but the atmosphere that day was not that relaxing, and the presence of quite a few corporate bosses indicated the occasion had an agenda beyond that of a social event. Liem and some thirty other business chieftains had been summoned to Tapos to hear the president outline plans to deal with an issue receiving increased media attention. It was the thorny subject of income disparity, or social envy — kecemburuan social in Indonesian. It was no surprise that those present, except for two, were Chinese. Adding to their discomfort was the fact that the event was telecast nationwide as Suharto lectured them, urging them to take concrete action to help narrow the income gap. His solution to share the wealth: Make conglomerates shift a chunk of their equity to cooperatives.

ARM-TWISTED COOPERATION

In 1990, Indonesia was on a healthy growth track, but there were also increasing signs that Suharto, turning seventy in June the following year, was getting more out of touch, and dangerously overconfident his path was the right one. (Two years earlier, he blackballed think-tank CSIS when its director Jusuf Wanandi sent a memo suggesting that Suharto consider planning for political succession.) At this stage, he was given to surrounding himself with people less likely to question his judgements. He was also less inclined to accept advice from his economic technocrats.