Tuesday, May 24, 2022

The Bandung Conference and the Sino-Indonesian Dual Nationality Treaty in 1955

The 1955 Bandung Conference in Bandung, Indonesia, brought together representatives of 29 African and Asian countries to discuss cooperation and oppose colonialism. China's Premier and Foreign Minister Zhou Enlai attended the conference, but while he was in Indonesia he also met with Indonesian Foreign Minister Soenario to negotiate a Sino-Indonesian Dual Nationality Treaty, which aimed to resolve the status of over one million ethnic Chinese in Indonesia after its recent independence from the Netherlands. As I am the father of children with dual nationality, the idea of that treaty sounded good to me – until I found out it was a treaty to force dual nationals to choose one or the other. (Andrew Shields, #111words, 24 May 2022)


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