The speech act of criticizing is considered as a face threatening act. Different people use different strategies to save the face of those who are criticized. The strategies used are influenced by various factors; one of them is the relationship between the one who criticizes and the one who is criticized. This study deals with strategies of criticizing used by Chinese Indonesian speaking Mandarin in written communication. This study has three goals: (1) to identify criticizing strategies used by the Indonesian Chinese speaking Mandarin in written communication, (2) to examine the influence of power and solidarity on the choice of those strategies, and (3) to see whether there are differences between criticizing strategies used by the Indonesian Chinese and those used by native speakers of Mandarin Chinese. The data for this study come from 47 letters sent to a Chinese newspaper published in Jakarta, Yindunixiya Ribao(Harian Indonesia),from the years 2001¬2003. This study employs a sociopragmatic approach, applying Brown and Levinson as theory on politeness strategies (1987). Of five politeness strategies proposed by Brown and Levinson, the bald on record strategy is found to be the dominant strategy for criticizing used by the Indonesian Chinese. This study reveals that power and solidarity does not play an important role in the choice of criticizing strategies by the Indonesian Chinese. This study also shows that criticizing strategies used by the Indonesian Chinese are different from those used by native speakers of Mandarin Chinese.