The Chinese of Indonesia and Their Search for Identity: The Relat ...

A problematic situation occurred as a result of the 1949 resolution. The Chinese who were born in Indonesia who did not reject Indonesian nationality nor chose sole Chinese citizenship were legal citizens of both China and Indonesia. This led to the signing of a Dual Nationality Treaty in 1955 by the governments of Indonesia and the People’s Republic of China. As of January 1962, the number of dual nationals who chose Indonesian citizenship fell because of the requirement that the Chinese could in addition to the legal and bureaucratic obstacles placed in front of them (Bert, 1985). There was an adverse repercussion as an outcome of this citizenship dilemma. The WNA (Warga Negara Asing), meaning Chinese aliens in Indonesia, were passed over for the indigenous people whenever they needed government grants, credit facilities, import and manufacturing licenses, wholesaling rights, and foreign exchange.

Coppel (1976) observed that the increasing discrimination against the alien and citizen Chinese, impending political actions leading up to the electoral voice of the Chinese in the coming elections, and the weaknesses of Chinese political parties of the time, such as the Partai Demokrat Tionghoa Indonesia (PDTI), all seemed to point to the need for some new communal organization that could nominate candidates or back those selected by the political parties and make its platform opposition to racial discrimination among fellow citizens. Thus, the Badan Permusyawaratan Kewarganegaraan Indonesia (Baperki) was set up in March 1954. In order to ensure that it obtain maximum support, the new body was to be a “mass organization” rather than a political party. It was, therefore, to be limited in its aims and ideologically unaligned. By limiting its aims substantially to the promotion of citizenship and the elimination of discrimination among citizens, in 1954–1955 Baperki became the most representative of all the Indonesian integrationists groups.