Transient ethnic networks and deepening transnational capitalism in the Indonesian marine fisheries

The 2021 ‘Two Countries, Twin Parks’ scheme under the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) targets the exploitation of Indonesian marine fisheries. This article examines the development of the sector since the 1960s to provide a critical and historically grounded analysis of the scheme. Against the portrayals of BRI projects as forms of neocolonialism by the PRC regime, the article shows that the Indonesian state has long functioned as an extractive regime and facilitated transnational exploitation in Indonesian fisheries. It also argues that Chinese Indonesian fishers from the Riau region have benefited from linguistic and cultural similarities to build pseudo-ethnic cooperation with foreign fishers. Finally, it argues that the 2021 scheme—in which the PRC and Indonesian states are working hand-in-glove with their domestic conglomerates against existing fisher-suppliers—deepens capitalistic extraction, spells an end to ethnic networking and leads to the total destruction of the Indonesian marine ecosystem.