Wealthy and well-connected, the Riady banking family was just doing business as usual when it gave $200,000 to President Clinton and the Democratic Party.
But tactics that are a tradition in Indonesia may have backfired for the Riadys, drawing demands in the United States and at home for a criminal investigation and accusations that the ethnic Chinese family lacks patriotism.The money came from James Riady, the son of 67-year-old billionaire Mochtar Riady, an ethnic Chinese whose business empire once included a bank in Little Rock, Ark., while Clinton was the state's attorney general.
Indonesians grudgingly accept that their tycoons thrive by cultivating close ties to the powerful, including President Suharto and his children, some of whom are themselves billionaires.
"I see it as a successful lobbying of an Asian in the United States, and it shows that an Asian can compete with other powerful lobbyists," said M. Budyatna, dean of the social science department at the State University of Indonesia.
The Riadys and officials of their company, the Lippo Group, have refused to comment on the uproar.
A Democratic National Committee official with past ties to the Riadys has raised an estimated $4 million to $5 million from Asian-Americans this year - including $250,000 that was returned because it violated campaign finance laws.
Questions arose after an Indonesian couple that lives in a suburb of Virginia gave the Democrats $425,000.
The White House has said all the accepted contributions were given legally and properly.
However, the donations by Indonesia's seventh-largest company have ignited a furor over foreign involvement in American politics at a crucial time in the U.S. presidential campaign.
Republican presidential nominee Bob Dole has called on the Democrats to give back the money, which Republicans suggest may have been intended to win special favors or influence Clinton administration policy.
"You should see the money given as an investment for the Riadys, and they will collect when Clinton wins," said Arbi Sanit, a political scientist at the University of Indonesia. "In Indonesia, it is a common practice."
Indonesia said Friday that it does not encourage its business tycoons to build ties to foreign leaders. But Foreign Ministry spokesman Ghaffar Fadyl added that Riady's personal contact with Clinton was his own business.
The Lippo Group, which usually actively courts media coverage, made no attempt to publicize its donations, perhaps aware of the potential for a backlash at home.
Criticism of the group at home highlights simmering resentment against rich ethnic Chinese, who make up less than 5 percent of Indonesia's population but control 75 percent of its wealth.
"James Riady is (part of) a wealthy Chinese conglomerate who has made money and become filthy rich from selling our land, and now he is spending it abroad . . . to become richer," said Rachman, a small garment trader in Jakarta. Like many Indonesians, Rachman goes by just one name.
The Lippo Group - a real estate and banking conglomerate - owned the Worthen Bank in Little Rock in the mid-1980s. Mochtar Riady sent his son, James, to run the bank, and he got to know Clinton.
Today, the Lippo Group is worth an estimated $6 billion and owns some 100 companies in Indonesia, Hong Kong, Singapore, Australia and the United States.
One of its most visible recent projects has been the building of Lippo Village, a lavish suburb outside Jakarta complete with apartments, office buildings, a hospital and the country's biggest shopping center.
The Lippo Group also has signed a tentative, $1 billion agreement with a Little Rock company to build a power plant in China.