Nawiyanto
Faculty of Letters University of Jember
snawiyanto@gmail.com
Abstract
Java has long been a contested lucrative market among the foreign goods producers. The 1990s crisis saw an expansion of Chinese products into the market. This article discusses the contest for market of Java between Chinese and Japanese related business. Historical method is employed here in collecting relevant source materials, handling critically the data and in synthesizing the result. This article draws largely upon newspaper reports and oral history interviews as its main sources, supported by other relevant secondary materials. The goals of the article are to investigate how the Chinese goods penetrated the market, to examine strategies employed to penetrate the market, and to elaborate how the Japanese-related business respond to the Chinese business threat. It is argued that the 1990s crisis has paved the way for the China-made product to expand in the Indonesia’s market of Java. The desire of the consumers in Java for cheap price product was a major factor. The penetration was supported by combined marketing strategies. The fast expanding China’s import trade raised serious concerns among the Japanese business interests. Efforts were made to accept the challenges and to secure their earlier dominant market position.
Key words:
Market, crisis, related business