Early Overseas Issue Of Dual Nationality Policy Change (1949-1955)

The People's Republic of China recognized the dual nationality of Overseas Chinese at the beginning of its establishment (1949-1955). It was rather common that the overseas Chinese owned dual nationality of both Chinese and the country where they lived because the Qing Dynasty enforced nationality by jus sanguinis in 1910 while the Southeast Asia countries where most overseas Chinese inhabited enforced nationality by jus soli. However, the dual nationality of Overseas Chinese became a complicated political problem especially after the Second World War as the Southeast Asia countries realized their national independence and hence the nationalism prevailed. The PRC government adopted the policy of renouncement of the dual nationality of Overseas Chinese and therefore encouraged the overseas Chinese becoming the nationals of the countries where they lived in order to establish sound relationship with these countries and better solve the problem related to its overseas Chinese. The Sino-Indonesian Treaty on Dual Nationality in 1955 signed in Bandung Conference was the milestone of this policy and finally resolved this problem in the form of law and its principle was followed when resolving the same problem with other Southeast Asia countries .The transformation of the policy at that time was deeply influenced by China's foreign policy which undergone a similar transformation from less revolution to more coexistence.