page_title: Sino-Indonesian Dual Nationality Treaty
section_title: Background
hierarchical_section_title: Sino-Indonesian Dual Nationality Treaty / Background
caption_attribution_description: Nederlands: Repronegatief. De Chinese consul te Makassar bezoekt zijn landgenoten in Zuid-Celebes
context_page_description: The Sino-Indonesian Dual Nationality Treaty was a bilateral agreement between the People's Republic of China and the Republic of Indonesia that forced Chinese Indonesians with dual nationality of both countries to choose citizenship of just one. It was signed by Zhou Enlai, Premier and Foreign Minister of China, and Sunario, Foreign Minister of Indonesia, on 22 April 1955 during the Asian–African Conference in Bandung. Following ratification by both parties, the treaty came into force on 20 January 1960 after an exchange of the instruments of ratification in Beijing.
  The treaty is formally titled the Agreement on the Issue of Dual Nationality between the Republic of Indonesia and the People's Republic of China.
context_section_description: The last complete census of the Dutch East Indies was held in 1930 and counted 1,233,000 self-identified ethnic Chinese living in the colony. Of this population, nearly two-thirds were born in the Indies, while the remaining one-third were new immigrants from China. Under the Netherlands Citizenship Act of 1910, ethnic Chinese who were born of domiciled parents were considered Dutch subjects even if they were not Dutch citizens. The law followed the principle of jus soli, or right of the soil. Additionally, the Manchu government of China's Qing Dynasty enacted a citizenship law on 28 March 1909 which claimed "every legal or extra-legal child of a Chinese father or mother, regardless of birthplace," as a Chinese citizen according to the principle of jus sanguinis, or right of blood. This principle had previously been taken for granted by the Chinese, and it meant that ethnic Chinese born in the Indies were subjects of both the Dutch and Chinese governments.
  As nationalistic ethnic Chinese protested against "forced naturalization", they demanded the protection of Chinese consuls. However, as an exchange for consular representation in the Indies, both governments signed the Consular Convention of 1911 which limited the jurisdiction of Chinese consuls to those who were not also Dutch subjects. The convention did not explicitly solve the problem of dual nationality as notes attached to the document indicated it was not meant to define citizenship. Chiang Kai-shek's Republic of China government reaffirmed jus sanguinis through a new citizenship act in 1929. It also refused to sign onto the 1930 Hague Convention on Nationality based on Article 4 of the document, which stipulates that "a State may not afford diplomatic protection to one of its nationals against a state whose nationality such person also possesses".
caption: A Chinese consul visits his constituents in Makassar, South Sulawesi.
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