Mahmood Mamdani and other academics[27][28]have discussed extensively how both direct and indirect rule were attempts to implement identical goals of foreign rule, but how the "indirect" strategy helped to create ethnic tensions within ruled societies which persist in hostile communal relations and dysfunctional strategies of government.[29][30] Mamdani himself famously described indirect rule as "decentralised despotism".[31]
Kapitan Cina, (English: Captain of the Chinese; Chinese: 華人甲必丹; pinyin: Huárén Jiǎbìdān; Dutch: Kapitein der Chinezen), was a high-ranking government position in the civil administration of colonial Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Borneo and the Philippines. Corresponding posts existed for other ethnic groups, such as Kapitan Arab and Kapitan Keling for the local Arab and Indian communities respectively.[4]
The institution of Kapitan Cina was most fully developed in colonial Indonesia, where an intricate hierarchy of Chinese officieren, or Chinese officers, was put in place by the Dutch authorities.[11] The officers acted as Hoofden der Chinezen ('Heads of the Chinese'), that is as the legal and political administrators of the local Chinese community.[11] There were three separate ranks of Majoor, Kapitein and Luitenant der Chinezen depending on the incumbent's seniority in the administrative structure, the importance of their territory or their own personal merit.[11]
The Chinese officership came to be dominated on a near-hereditary basis by a small, oligarchicgroup of interrelated, landowning families.[11][18]They formed the so-called Cabang Atas, or the traditional Chinese establishment or gentry of colonial Indonesia.[19] As a social class, they exerted a powerful social, economic and political influence on colonial life in Indonesia beyond the local Chinese community.[12][11] The descendants of Chinese officers are entitled by colonial Indonesian custom to the hereditary title of 'Sia'.[16]
The Vorstenlanden[1] (Dutch for 'princely lands' or 'princely states', Japanese: 公地, romanized: kōchi, koti, Indonesian: wilayah kepangeranan, Javanese: ꧋ꦥꦿꦗꦏꦼꦗꦮꦺꦤ꧀, praja kejawen) were four native, princely states on the island of Java in the colonial Dutch East Indies.
The four Javanese princely states were: