• Author: Richard Borsuk and Nancy Chng (journalists)
• Publisher: ISEAS Publishing (ISEAS–Yusof Ishak Institute), an independent academic study
• Publication Date: 2014
• Number of Pages: At least 574

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The book in 3 sentences

This biography chronicles the life of Liem Sioe Liong, a penniless Chinese migrant who became Indonesia’s richest tycoon and the ultimate cukong (financial backer) for President Suharto during his 32-year reign from 1966 to 1998. It explores the symbiotic relationship between politics and business during Indonesia’s New Order, illustrating how Liem turned state-granted monopolies into the massive, multinational Salim Group alongside core partners and an extensive network of generals, politicians, and overseas tycoons. Ultimately, it is a story of immense wealth, crony capitalism, and survival, detailing how Liem’s carefully groomed youngest son, Anthony, salvaged the remnants of the empire following the 1997–1998 Asian financial crisis by signing a 1998 Master Settlement and Acquisition Agreement (MSAA) to repay Rp52.6 trillion ($5 billion) in debts by relinquishing stakes in 108 companies.

Impressions

This is a fascinating dive into the mechanics of crony capitalism and the intricacies of doing business in a developing nation under an authoritarian regime. The authors provide a balanced, highly detailed account, demonstrating that while Liem benefited enormously from political patronage—such as the 1985 $326 million state bailout of Indocement—his sheer business acumen, networking skills, and reliance on trustworthy partners like bankers Mochtar Riady and Manny Pangilinan were equally essential to his success. The book also serves as a hidden history of modern Indonesia itself, showing how the private sector was effectively utilized to build the nation’s early industrial base.

Who should read it?

Anyone interested in Southeast Asian history, business strategy in emerging markets, or the realities of crony capitalism. It is a must-read for understanding the deep intersection of politics and business, and how massive family conglomerates navigate regime changes, internal succession, and global financial crises.

My notes and reflection

• It served as a stark reminder of the ultimate cost of crony capitalism and relying on political patronage. While mastering the political economy under Suharto brought the Salim Group immense wealth through state monopolies and bailouts, this proximity to power made them the primary target of public rage when the regime collapsed. The devastating backlash—which saw mobs burn Liem’s mansion while labeling him “Suharto’s dog,” a politically motivated bank run that cost them their flagship bank BCA, and the forced surrender of 108 companies to settle $5 billion in debt—proves that what authoritarian politics gives, it can violently take away.
• It highlighted the sheer importance of “trust” (xinyong) and relationship-building in business, particularly in environments lacking strong, reliable legal frameworks.
• It shifted my perspective on conglomerates in developing nations; they aren’t just products of corruption, but often act as the only entities capable of executing large-scale industrialization (like Bogasari flour or Indocement) when state capacity is exceptionally weak.
• It underscored the extreme danger of over-leveraging and relying too heavily on unhedged foreign debt, as clearly seen in the devastating fallout of the 1997 Asian Financial Crisis, where Indofood alone reported an initial Rp1.2 trillion loss for 1997 because Anthony Salim deemed the $80-$100 million cost of hedging too high.
• It showed the wisdom of separating family emotion from business operations, as demonstrated by Anthony Salim’s insistence on a corporate divorce from his uncles (Liem Sioe Hie and Liem Sioe Kong) in the early 1990s to streamline succession and avoid inter-family quarrels over ownership.

Favorite quotes

• “Yes, I was an antek (crony, or lackey), but I was not a bad one.” — Liem Sioe Liong.
• “Tall trees attract the wind. We don’t want to talk about how big we are; people get jealous.” — Liem Sioe Liong.
• “The main thing is knowing where you put yourself. You get burned if you’re too close to the fire; when you’re too far away, you get cold and die. That’s very important … Just to be warm [enough to] feel the heat, but you don’t get burned.” — Anthony Salim on dealing with political power.
• “When speaking to any boss, you know where you stand. He is the boss… whether you think the boss is stupid or [is] right or wrong … it doesn’t matter — he is the holder of power.” — Anthony Salim.
• “Pick the right horses to run for you. Once you pick them, trust them. If you don’t trust them, don’t pick them.” — Liem Sioe Liong’s management mantra.
• “Trust is good, but control is even better! Pak Anton doesn’t trust anybody 100 per cent — not even me!” — Salim executive Benny Santoso on Anthony Salim’s management style.
• “I have the philosophy that I am a horse and the jockey is the Jakarta governor. If I want to be used, I have to be a horse that’s good.” — Property magnate Ciputra.
• “It is not possible for a snake to transform into a dragon. It would remain a snake after it has molted. I do not mind if others speak ill of me. Genuine gold is not afraid of being heated.” — Liem Sioe Liong on ignoring his critics.
• “If you are not lucky, whether you are clever, a professor, nothing will become of you… Time, place, and good luck … these things cannot be dodged.” — Liem Sioe Liong.
• “A banker has to be very conservative and concentrate on banking but not other [activities]… Bad decisions end up on my shoulder.” — Mochtar Riady.
• “If the children aren’t capable, it’s dangerous.” — Liem Sioe Liong on the risks of traditional dynastic business succession.
• “I want to be remembered as a rich man; without money you are nothing.” — Liem Sioe Liong in his later years.

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The high cost of crony capitalism

Next, the political economy during the Suharto era and the subsequent backlash

Mastering political economy under the New Order:

During President Suharto’s 32-year rule, the Salim Group transformed into Southeast Asia’s largest conglomerate by expertly navigating a symbiotic patron-client relationship with the regime. Liem Sioe Liong utilized this political economy to build his empire through several key mechanisms:

• The “Gang of four”: Suharto personally match-made the Salim Group’s core partnership, ensuring his own cousin, Sudwikatmono, was included to serve as the “Cendana face” (the First Family’s proxy).
• Monopolies for funding: In exchange for heavily funding Suharto’s political machine, military extra-budgetary needs, and charitable foundations, Salim was granted highly lucrative state monopolies, including a duopoly on clove imports and an absolute monopoly on national wheat milling (Bogasari).
• State-funded bailouts: When Salim’s massive industrial projects overextended themselves, Suharto used the state apparatus to rescue them. In 1985, Suharto orchestrated a massive, unpublicized bailout of Salim’s Indocement, injecting $326 million of government funds to save the debt-crushed company.
• The offshore lifeboat: Fully recognizing the political vulnerability of relying entirely on an authoritarian regime as ethnic Chinese businessmen, the family established First Pacific in Hong Kong in 1981 to shield and offshore their wealth.

The backlash and the fall of Suharto

The violent collapse of the Suharto regime in 1998 turned the Salim Group’s greatest asset—its political proximity to the President—into a massive liability, making the family the primary target for public rage against crony capitalism.

• The IMF dismantles monopolies: The beginning of the end came in January 1998, when a vital IMF bailout forced Suharto to sign a humiliating agreement specifically targeting and dismantling the monopolies of his cronies, including Salim’s Bogasari flour monopoly.
• Targeted mob violence: During the catastrophic May 1998 riots, organized mobs specifically targeted Liem’s compound, burning his cars, ransacking his mansion, and parading a slashed portrait of the tycoon painted with the words “Suharto’s dog”. Anthony Salim was forced to flee Jakarta by paying armed gangs at roadblocks with stacks of cash.
• The political bank run on BCA: Immediately following Suharto’s resignation on May 21, 1998, a massive, politically motivated run drained Bank Central Asia (BCA), forcing the government to seize the Salim Group’s flagship bank.
• Forced asset liquidation: Facing a hostile post-Suharto political environment, Anthony Salim was pressured by President B.J. Habibie’s government to sign a Master Settlement and Acquisition Agreement (MSAA). To repay Rp52 trillion ($5 billion) in emergency state liquidity debts, Salim was forced to surrender its stakes in 108 companies—including Astra and Indocement—to a government holding company.

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Summary and notes

Key partnerships: politicians, generals, and tycoons Liem Sioe Liong’s success relied heavily on a vast network of influential individuals:

• President Suharto: The ultimate patron. Liem acted as Suharto’s primary cukong, funding the military and Suharto’s charitable foundations in exchange for lucrative monopolies and protection.
• The “Financial generals”: In the 1960s, Liem allied with military men handling extra-budgetary funds. Maj. Gen. Sudjono Humardani (Suharto’s spiritual advisor and “Minister of Magic”) vouched for Liem to Suharto and helped him gain citizenship. Generals Suryo Wiryohadiputro and Sofjar also partnered with Liem in early banking ventures like Bank Windu Kencana.
• The “Gang of four”: Suharto match-made the core Salim Group partnership in 1968, joining Liem with Suharto’s cousin Sudwikatmono (the “Cendana face” who navigated bureaucracy), Hokchia clansman Djuhar Sutanto (operations), and Acehnese trader Ibrahim Risjad (marketing).
• Mochtar Riady: The brilliant “banking doctor.” Hired in 1975 after a chance encounter on a flight, Riady was given a 17.5% stake in Bank Central Asia (BCA). He used Liem’s “golden keys” (monopolies in cloves, flour, and cement) to turn BCA into Indonesia’s largest private bank before leaving amicably in 1990 to focus on his Lippo Group.
• Robert Kuok & Chin Sophonpanich: Because Indonesian banks lacked capital, Liem turned to overseas Chinese tycoons. Malaysian “Sugar King” Robert Kuok provided the secret expertise and funding for Bogasari Flour Mills, taking a hidden 25% stake. Thai-Chinese banker Chin Sophonpanich provided crucial seed money for Liem’s cement plants.
• Manuel (Manny) Pangilinan & John Gokongwei: Pangilinan, a brilliant Filipino Wharton graduate, helped Anthony Salim launch First Pacific in Hong Kong in 1981. Philippine tycoon John Gokongwei famously stepped in to buy a Singapore property asset (UIC) to save Salim from a cash crunch in 1999.

The three pillars: With his network in place, Liem built a massive conglomerate resting on three main pillars:

1. Food (Bogasari and Indofood): In 1969, Liem was granted an absolute monopoly on milling the nation’s wheat, creating Bogasari Flour Mills with $5 million in paid-up capital. This led to the creation of Indofood, which eventually became the world’s largest manufacturer of instant noodles.
2. Cement (Indocement): Starting in 1973, Liem borrowed heavily to build massive cement plants, eventually controlling 60% of the national market. When the company faced crushing debt during a recession in 1985, Suharto orchestrated a massive Rp364.33 billion ($326 million) government bailout in exchange for a 35% state stake to save Liem’s operations.
3. Banking (Bank Central Asia): Guided by Mochtar Riady, BCA grew its assets from $1 million in 1974 to nearly Rp7.5 trillion by 1990, making it the nation’s largest private bank. To ensure political protection, Liem gave 30% of BCA to Suharto’s eldest children, Sigit and Tutut.

The succession story: grooming the youngest son: Liem wisely broke with traditional Confucian norms by not automatically passing leadership to his eldest son. His three sons had very different trajectories:

• Albert (Eldest): Described by his father as “fun-loving” and lacking a strong work ethic, Albert was put in charge of assembling Volvo cars, a venture that struggled to make a profit. Feeling sidelined and complaining of “inequalities in our group,” Albert walked away from the core Salim Group in the mid-1980s.
• Andree (Middle): A cautious and highly regarded manager, Andree helped run BCA. However, traumatized by the 1998 riots, he stepped back from Indonesian operations and relocated to Singapore.
• Anthony (Youngest): Born Fung Seng (“meeting a new life”) just weeks after Liem narrowly survived a fatal 1949 car crash, Anthony possessed a “computer-like” memory and was highly driven. Liem groomed him by bringing him to high-level meetings. By his mid-twenties, Anthony was translating for his father in secret 1977 negotiations to settle a $1.55 billion state debt scandal. To ensure a clean corporate structure for Anthony to inherit, Liem initiated a corporate divorce from his own brothers (Sioe Hie and Sioe Kong) in the early 1990s, completely separating business from extended family.

The offshore lifeboat and the shift to the Philippines: Recognizing the political vulnerability of being ethnic Chinese in Indonesia, Anthony pushed to create an offshore “lifeboat”. In 1981, with a modest initial capital of HK$4-7 million, Anthony and Manny Pangilinan founded First Pacific in Hong Kong.

While First Pacific initially bought scattered global assets (like San Francisco’s Hibernia Bank and Dutch trader Hagemeyer), the late 1990s saw a massive shift of the family’s offshore wealth to the Philippines.

• When and why: Seeking major “country-specific” strategies, Pangilinan aggressively steered First Pacific to his home country.
• How Much: In 1995, First Pacific paid top dollar to develop Fort Bonifacio, a massive Manila property. In November 1998, they spent US$749 million to acquire a 17.2% controlling stake in Philippine Long Distance Telephone (PLDT). This resulted in two-thirds of First Pacific’s assets being concentrated in the Philippines.
• The corporate mutiny: The heavy Philippine debt burden triggered a staggering US$1.8 billion loss for First Pacific in 2001. Desperate to cut debt, Anthony secretly negotiated in 2002 to sell PLDT to rival tycoon John Gokongwei. Pangilinan was furious and launched a massive “corporate mutiny,” rallying the PLDT board to block the sale. The men ultimately reconciled; Gokongwei withdrew, and First Pacific resolved its debt by selling 50.4% of Fort Bonifacio to the Ayala Group.

The crash and survival: The 1997-1998 Asian Financial Crisis devastated the Salim Group due to massive unhedged foreign debts. As public rage boiled over against Suharto’s crony capitalism, organized mobs burned Liem’s Jakarta mansion on May 14, 1998, forcing Anthony to flee the country with Rp10 million in cash to pay off armed roadblocks to reach the airport. Following Suharto’s resignation on May 21, 1998, a massive political bank run drained BCA, resulting in the government’s Indonesian Bank Restructuring Agency (IBRA) seizing the bank on May 28.

Tasked with saving the empire, Anthony Salim negotiated a Master Settlement and Acquisition Agreement (MSAA) signed on September 21, 1998, agreeing to repay Rp52.6 trillion ($5 billion) in state liquidity debts. To satisfy this, Salim surrendered its stakes in 108 companies. The government liquidated these assets via a holding company, Holdiko Perkasa, orchestrating major sales including:

• Astra International: Salim surrendered its 22% stake, which IBRA sold as part of a 40% block for $506 million in 2000.
• Oil Palm Plantations: 25 plantations spanning 270,000 hectares were sold to Malaysia’s Guthrie for $350 million in 2000/2001.
• Indomobil: A 73% stake was rapidly sold to a consortium led by Trimegah Securities for Rp625 billion in 2001.
• BCA: The government sold a controlling 51% stake in Salim’s former flagship bank to the Hartono family (owners of Djarum) and US firm Farallon for $530 million in 2002.

Crucially, Anthony managed to keep control of Indofood (the group’s cash cow) by only surrendering 2.5% to IBRA. He then engineered a deal where First Pacific bought a 40% stake in Indofood for $650 million in 1999, infusing the Salim family with cash while shielding the noodle giant from domestic political retaliation. In March 2004, Anthony successfully obtained a legal “release and discharge” letter from the government, clearing him of his massive debts and ensuring the modernized Salim Group survived the Götterdämmerung of the New Order.

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CHAPTER-BY-CHAPTER SUMMARY

Chapter 1: A Javanese “king” and his cukong

The chapter establishes the symbiotic patron-client relationship between President Suharto and his primary cukong (financial backer), Liem Sioe Liong, which lasted for over three decades. Suharto provided political protection and monopolies, while Liem generated immense wealth to fund the military, political machines, and Suharto’s charitable foundations. Despite their different backgrounds, the two men bonded over shared traits: humble rural origins, a lack of formal education, and a deep belief in mysticism. Suharto treated Liem with unusual respect; Liem recalled that the President would always stand up when he entered the room, laughing off Liem’s protests by saying, “I am an ordinary person”. Liem secured his position by advising Suharto on the Chinese philosophy of providing the “four basic needs” (clothing, food, shelter, transportation), which dovetailed with Suharto’s goals and paved the way for Liem to dominate Indonesia’s flour and cement industries.

Chapter 2: Roots

Liem was born Lin Shaoliang in 1917 in the impoverished village of Niuzhai in Fujian, China. The region was notoriously harsh, characterized by the local saying: “nine years of drought, one year of disaster”. Following his father’s sudden death and the threat of Japanese conscription, Liem fled to Java in 1938. His mother sewed a lucky charm containing ginseng for his journey, which proved difficult as his money was stolen onboard, leaving him to arrive in Surabaya with only the clothes on his back. He started as a traveling peddler in Kudus, openly admitting he used his handsome looks and “sweet tongue” to charm Javanese women into buying his wares. Despite having an arranged wife back in China, he courted a 17-year-old student, Lie Kim Nio, and married her in 1944 during the dangerous Japanese Occupation, shortly after which he was arrested and beaten by Japanese soldiers looking for hidden weapons.

Chapter 3: Establishing a foothold

During Indonesia’s bloody struggle for independence against the Dutch (1945-1949), Liem rebuilt his ruined finances by smuggling essential provisions to Republican guerrilla soldiers in the hills of Central Java. It was during this risky period that Liem first impressed military officers with his reliability, including a young Lt. Col. Suharto. In 1949, Liem narrowly escaped death when his shared taxi collided head-on with a Dutch military truck, killing the driver and two friends. Grateful to survive just before the birth of his third son, Liem broke with family naming traditions and named the boy Fung Seng (“meeting a new life”), who later became Anthony Salim. Liem relocated his family to Jakarta in 1952, though he remained a relatively unknown “small potato” throughout the Sukarno era.

Chapter 4: Crucial links

Liem’s rise required networks beyond Suharto, particularly with Suharto’s “financial generals” and prominent overseas Chinese tycoons. General Sudjono Humardani, Suharto’s personal spiritual advisor (often dubbed the “Minister of Magic”), became a key patron who recommended Liem to the President. To fund massive industrial projects, Liem allied with Thai-Chinese banker Chin Sophonpanich and Malaysian sugar baron Robert Kuok. Chin, who provided crucial seed money for Liem’s cement venture, shared Liem’s love for mixing business with pleasure; knowing Liem’s fondness for nightclubs, Chin supplied him with singers. When Liem once worried about leaving his wife and mother-in-law at a hotel in Bangkok to go out, Chin joked, “Order mee goreng… Never be afraid of your wife!”.

Chapter 5: The scent of money

This chapter covers Liem’s lucrative entry into the clove trade, the essential spice for Indonesia’s highly popular kretek cigarettes. In 1968, the government effectively granted a duopoly for importing African cloves to Liem’s PT Mega and PT Mercu Buana, owned by Suharto’s half-brother, Probosutedjo. Liem had acquired PT Mega from his close friend Hasan Din, the father-in-law of former President Sukarno, whom Liem had bravely sheltered from the Dutch years earlier. The monopoly was heavily criticized for enriching the President’s circle, but Suharto fiercely defended it, claiming the companies only took a 2 percent fee while the massive remaining profits were funneled into a presidential fund to buy hospital equipment and support charities.

Chapter 6: “Gang of four”

Suharto actively match-made the core partnership that became the Salim Group: Liem, Suharto’s cousin Sudwikatmono, Hokchia businessman Djuhar Sutanto, and Acehnese trader Ibrahim Risjad. The “Gang of four” started in a tiny, non-airconditioned room in Jakarta’s Chinatown with only one desk, two chairs, and a shared telephone line. They divided labor efficiently: Sudwikatmono navigated government bureaucracy, Risjad managed marketing, Liem secured financing, and Djuhar handled operations. Sudwikatmono, originally a low-level civil servant, was shocked when Liem initially offered him a salary of 1 million rupiah—2,500 times his existing pay—and thought he was dreaming.

Chapter 7: A “new life”

Anthony Salim, Liem’s youngest son, emerged as the conglomerate’s aggressive, brilliant heir apparent. Anthony was a hyperactive, mischievous child who accidentally set his family’s living room on fire while playing with matches. In 1966, the family experienced terror when an armed man in a Marine uniform entered their home looking for Liem; finding him absent, the man shot Anthony’s mother in the stomach, though she miraculously survived. Unlike his father, Anthony received a Western education in the UK and pushed the group to modernize and diversify. He proved his value early on by serving as his father’s translator and negotiator during secret 1977 meetings in Singapore to settle a $1.55 billion Pertamina debt scandal with Swiss shipping magnate Bruce Rappaport.

Chapter 8: Flour power

Bogasari Flour Mills became one of Salim’s most lucrative and controversial pillars. Pressured by the US to accept wheat aid to stabilize the country, Suharto tasked Liem with building domestic milling capacity. With secret capital and expertise provided by Robert Kuok, Bogasari was established in 1969. Bogasari enjoyed an absolute monopoly protected by the state logistics agency, Bulog. A rival Singapore-based company, Prima, tried to open mills in Indonesia but was marginalized by the government and ultimately forced to sell its factory to state interests, who promptly handed a 40% stake to Salim. Suharto publicly defended Bogasari by comparing Liem to a mere “tailor” who processed state wheat for a set fee, ignoring the massive profits Salim made from selling milling by-products.

Chapter 9: Cement build-up and bailout

Liem became Indonesia’s “cement king” by heavily borrowing foreign capital to build Indocement, eventually controlling 60% of the national market. However, when a recession hit in the mid-1980s, the company faced massive overcapacity and crushing debt. Suharto orchestrated a massive, unpublicized bailout in 1985, injecting $326 million of government funds in exchange for a 35% stake in Indocement. Liem was also pressured by Suharto into building a costly cold-rolling steel mill (CRMI), which also hemorrhaged money until the government bailed it out. Liem viewed these ventures as “national service” at the behest of the President, though critics saw them as blatant crony capitalism.

Chapter 10: A banking behemoth

To finance his growing empire, Liem needed a real bank. In 1975, he recruited Mochtar Riady, a brilliant “banking doctor,” after a chance encounter on a flight to Hong Kong. Mochtar promised to make Bank Central Asia (BCA) the largest private bank in Indonesia by utilizing Liem’s “three golden keys”: his monopolies in cloves, flour, and cement. When Mochtar arrived for negotiations, he was initially insulted to be met by young Anthony Salim, who sported long hair, a goatee, and noisy platform shoes; however, Anthony’s sharp grasp of finance quickly won Mochtar’s deep respect. Under Mochtar’s leadership, BCA introduced ATMs and satellite communications, growing its assets from $1 million to nearly $3 billion before Mochtar amicably departed in 1990 to build his own Lippo Group.

Chapter 11: Broadening the home base

Salim expanded its domestic dominance into property, automotive, and palm oil. Liem partnered with property visionary Ciputra, sealing a deal with a simple handshake to fund the massive Pondok Indah luxury estate in Jakarta. In the automotive sector, Salim acquired Indomobil to challenge market leader Astra International. When the founding Soeryadjaya family faced financial ruin in 1992 and lost Astra, Salim quietly joined a Suharto-backed consortium to acquire a stake in its biggest rival. Salim also partnered with Sinar Mas to dominate cooking oil, but Anthony Salim eventually orchestrated a corporate divorce due to management friction, walking away with the prized “Bimoli” brand.

Chapter 12: Going international

Recognizing the political vulnerability of Chinese Indonesians (reinforced by the 1974 Malari riots), Anthony Salim pushed to create an offshore “lifeboat”. In 1981, they founded First Pacific in Hong Kong with Filipino banker Manny Pangilinan and American lawyer Robert Meyer. First Pacific went on a global shopping spree, famously acquiring the Dutch trading house Hagemeyer and San Francisco’s Hibernia Bank, which was historically notable for being robbed by heiress Patty Hearst. Anthony broke with traditional Chinese family business models by giving his foreign managers a remarkably free hand to run the empire.

Chapter 13: Helping hands

The Suharto regime operated heavily on a “Favor Bank” system. In 1990, Bank Duta, a bank majority-owned by Suharto’s charitable foundations, secretly lost $419.6 million in rogue foreign exchange trading. When the central bank refused to bail Duta out, Suharto forced Liem and another tycoon to quietly cover the massive losses via a “pure donation”. According to insiders, Suharto was so irritated that Liem didn’t pay his pledge immediately that Liem was temporarily banned from the President’s residence. Salim was also called upon to shore up Bukopin and Bank Yama, the latter owned by Suharto’s daughter Tutut.

Chapter 14: Noodle king

Indofood became the world’s largest instant noodle manufacturer, but Salim did not invent its most famous brand, Indomie. Salim initially entered the noodle market to supply the government during a rice shortage, creating the “Sarimi” brand. When the government no longer needed the noodles, Salim aggressively marketed Sarimi to crush the existing market leader, Djajadi Djaja’s Indomie. Faced with Salim’s overwhelming financial and milling clout, Djajadi was cornered into a joint venture, and Salim eventually took total control. Years later, Djajadi unsuccessfully sued Salim, claiming he was forced to sell his trademark under severe duress.

Chapter 15: Dark clouds

By the 1990s, public resentment over the wealth gap and cronyism reached a boiling point. In a televised stunt to display his commitment to social justice, Suharto summoned the nation’s top tycoons to his Tapos ranch in 1990 and pressured them to transfer shares to cooperatives. The event awkwardly highlighted the fact that almost all of Indonesia’s top billionaires were ethnic Chinese. Meanwhile, Suharto’s children engaged in increasingly blatant rent-seeking; his youngest son Tommy established a disastrous clove monopoly (BPPC) that ruined farmers and ignored the warnings of Indonesia’s top economic technocrats, proving Suharto was completely out of touch.

Chapter 16: The sky starts to fall

The 1997 Asian Financial Crisis devastated Indonesia, causing the rupiah to collapse and leaving conglomerates with massive unhedged foreign debts. When false rumors spread that Liem had died, triggering a bank run on BCA, Liem immediately flew back from Singapore to appear on television, declaring, “Look at me, I am perfectly fine”. Despite the economic ruin, Suharto stubbornly protected his children’s vanity projects, forcing the IMF to intervene. In a famous moment of humiliation for the regime, IMF chief Michel Camdessus stood with folded arms watching a submissive Suharto sign a strict bailout agreement that targeted the monopolies of his family and cronies.

Chapter 17: Götterdämmerung of the New Order

In May 1998, catastrophic riots erupted in Jakarta following massive fuel price hikes and the shooting of student protesters. Organized mobs specifically targeted Liem’s compound, burning his cars, ransacking his mansion, and parading a slashed portrait of the tycoon while painting “Suharto’s dog” on his gate. Anthony Salim was forced to flee his office, paying heavily armed gangs at roadblocks with stacks of cash to reach Halim airport and escape to Singapore. A week later, Suharto resigned, triggering a massive, politically motivated run on BCA that forced the government to seize Salim’s flagship bank.

Chapter 18: Surviving

Under intense political pressure to destroy the Suharto cronies, Anthony Salim fought to save his empire under President B.J. Habibie, who personally despised Anthony. Anthony negotiated a Master Settlement and Acquisition Agreement (MSAA) with the government, surrendering stakes in over 100 companies—including Astra and Indocement—to repay $5 billion in liquidity debts. However, he brilliantly maneuvered to keep control of his cash cow, Indofood, by breaking off a planned sale to Japan’s Nissin and instead having First Pacific buy the controlling stake. Anthony’s survival was aided by the IMF, which warned Habibie that destroying Salim through a fire-sale of assets would collapse the broader economy.

Chapter 19: Assets: lost and found

The government created Holdiko Perkasa to liquidate the assets Salim surrendered. Anthony initially clashed fiercely with Holdiko’s American chief, Scott Coffey, “hating him like hell” for his rigorous financial grilling, though they eventually developed a deep mutual respect. Controversies continually dogged the asset sales, as critics accused Salim of using proxies to secretly buy back prized assets at rock-bottom prices, such as the highly criticized sale of Indomobil. Ultimately, Salim lost BCA to the Djarum group and Indocement to Germany’s Heidelberg Cement.

Chapter 20: Moving ahead

In the 2000s, Anthony Salim successfully restructured the remainder of the empire. He obtained a legal “release and discharge” from the government in 2004, clearing his debts. His leadership was severely tested during a bitter corporate mutiny when his First Pacific partner, Manny Pangilinan, publicly blocked Anthony’s attempt to sell their Philippine telecommunications asset (PLDT) to tycoon John Gokongwei. The men eventually reconciled, and PLDT became incredibly profitable. Salim continued to expand globally, pushing Indomie into Africa and the Middle East, though a massive planned industrial hub in West Bengal, India, collapsed due to violent local protests over land acquisition.

Chapter 21: Twilight

Liem spent his final years quietly in Singapore. He made triumphant, highly celebrated returns to his hometown of Fuqing, China, where he was revered as a demigod and called “laoban” (the Boss) for donating over RMB 430 million to build infrastructure, hospitals, and schools. When his lifelong patron Suharto passed away in 2008, Liem’s family deliberately hid the news from him, honoring a Javanese superstition that when one close friend dies, the other will soon follow. Liem lived out his final days refusing to renovate his burned Jakarta mansion, wanting it to remain a testament to the riots that drove him from the country he helped build.

Chapter 22: End of an era

Liem Sioe Liong died in Singapore in 2012 at the age of 95. His massive week-long wake drew politicians, tycoons, and dignitaries from across Asia, and the demand for wreaths was so great that it temporarily depleted Singapore’s supply of fresh flowers. While critics remembered him as a crony who stifled competition, his defenders argued he turned government privileges into productive industrial assets and noted his silent, behind-the-scenes work to secure Indonesian citizenship for hundreds of thousands of stateless ethnic Chinese. Anthony Salim acknowledged his father’s complex legacy but looked to the future, stating that the modernized Salim Group would continue to thrive without political patronage.