TIL the first republic in Asia was in Kalimantan and lasted for more than 100 years.

This paragraph is interesting:

Although the Republic had both ethnic Chinese citizens (numbering in the tens of thousands) and indigenous subjects (numbering in the hundreds of thousands), the ethnic Chinese were the only ones who voted in presidential elections. Thus, Luo would not dare call himself a king in front of the ethnic Chinese citizens, but was not afraid to do so in front of his indigenous subjects.

It seemed like the voting rights was only given to ethnic Chinese. I heard about this Kongsi republic several years ago. I think MetroTV had a documentary about it, unfortunately I didn't watch it. But the information above was new to me. Did they elected their legislative and judiciary too? Did they have local leaders elected via local election as opposed to presidential election?

My professor had required us to read a paper on the Lanfang Republic and its economic structures before, and I was actually surprised as well.

It was really the first time that a lightbulb switched in my head saying "So that's why Borneo has a lot of Chinese people!" (to be more specific, Pontianak).

Kongsi (公司) literally means firms/companies. They are basically a trade mining/trade republic essentially.

They also paid little to no taxes towards the Dutch as well, and when they were forced to, it pretty much led to wars.