Recent history of Chinese-Indonesians

* 1955: Indonesia and China sign an agreement on dual citizenship, which allows Chinese people living in the country to hold both Indonesian and Chinese citizenship. * 1958: Indonesia approves the citizenship law, which stipulates naturalization. * 1959: Indonesia and China agree to a repatriation process for 140,000 ethnic Chinese. * 1965: An aborted coup, blamed on the Indonesian Communist Party, takes place. Jakarta accuses China of involvement, which China denies. * 1967: Diplomatic ties with China are frozen, bring an abrupt halt to repatriations. About 100,000 people become stranded here and are deemed stateless. * 1969: Indonesia decides not to honor the dual citizenship agreement. A Chinese person whose parents hold China citizenship can only obtain Indonesia citizenship through naturalization, which can only be proven proved by the issuance of an SBKRI. * 1990: Indonesia resumes ties with China. * 1992: Beijing says it will issue passports in January 1993 for stateless Chinese here, whose number now reaches more than 240,000. * 1996: Soeharto issues a decree on the annulment of the SBKRI requirement. Chinese-Indonesians may instead use their ID cards, birth certificates and kartu keluarga (family cards) for education and business purposes. * 1998: Habibie issues a decree ordering government officials to treat all Indonesians the same. * 1999: Habibie issues a decree banning discrimination against Indonesians based on origin. -- JP