An abridgement and translation of De distribveerende tusschenhandel der Chineezen op Java.

Dutch Commerce and Chinese Merchants in Java describes the vanished commercial world of colonial Java. Alexander Claver shows the challenges of a demanding business environment by highlighting trade and finance mechanisms, and the relationships between the participants involved.

This book is a study of the nature and historical development of peranakan Chinese politics in Java, with reference to the three major political streams the China-oriented Sin Po group, the Netherlands-oriented Chung Hwa Hui, and the Indonesia-oriented Partai Tionghoa Indonesia. The work is based on original sources comprising newspapers and pamphlets printed in peranakan Malay and on personal interviews. The author attempts to identify various phases in the political activities of the peranakan Chinese and presents a detailed and documented political history of this Chinese minority in Java before the Second World War. This edition features a new postscript by the author and a new chapter.

The bibliographical essays on the studies of the ethnic Chinese in the ASEAN states will be extremely useful as it is the first monograph of its kind and also up-to-date. It begins with a general overview on the studies of the ethnic Chinese in the ASEAN states, and is followed by five country studies and two essays on specific topics. All essays in this volume were written by specialists.