The Pao An Tui was the name given to two similar, yet separate, ethnic Chinese militias that operated in Medan and Java during the Indonesian National Revolution. This organisation represents for some an enduring testament to ethnic Chinese indifference and hostility to the Indonesian nationalist cause, continuing to emerge in contemporary anti-Chinese Indonesian public discourse. Other scholarship more sensitive to the Chinese experience has painted the militia as a cynical concoction of the Chinese Nationalist Party in Indonesia that served only Chinese business interests. This paper will re-examine the historiography surrounding the Pao An Tui in Java, demonstrating that this militia was a solution to the anti-Chinese violence of the war employed only after all other non-violent options were exhausted. It will also demonstrate how the militia enjoyed the support of Java’s two largest Peranakan Chinese newspapers - Sin Po and Keng Po. This fact of broad popular support within Java’s Chinese communities,  particularly by progressive factions, indicates that the militia was not just a vehicle for powerful Chinese interests, but rather considered a legitimate and necessary solution to anti-Chinese violence.