THROUGHOUT last week, Ian spent most of his time just watching visitors to Plaza Pinangsia, Jakarta. On several occasions, some of them even came into the computer shop he owns, Live Computindo. “Most of them only made queries, no one was actually buying,” he said. Two months ago, sales at his shop would reach Rp20 million a month. Recently, however, sales have dropped sharply to around half as much.

One hundred meters from Plaza Pinangsia,