As the legislature is to sit its last session next month, meaning that any proposals that have not been voted on will be “reset,” it is not surprising that civic groups want certain bills to be passed within the remaining few weeks. Groups advocating the rights of Chinese spouses are among them, and they could be seen on the streets of Taipei last week calling for equal treatment for foreign spouses over the residency requirement for obtaining national identification cards.
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) lawmakers accused the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) — which has misgivings about granting Chinese spouses political rights too easily — of discrimination and “selectively allocating human rights,” while KMT lawmakers championed “human rights as a universal value.”
“Insofar as the DPP advocates the idea of ‘one side, one country,’ it should treat [Chinese spouses] in the same way as it does those of other countries,” KMT caucus whip Lai Shyh-bao (賴士葆) said in an attempt at sarcasm.
From an equal-rights perspective, the requirement for Chinese spouses to have six years of residency rather than the four years required for spouses from other countries does seem discriminatory at first glance.
As an academic once said, they will be getting their status anyway, two years after crossing the four-year threshold they are calling for, and the DPP might as well do them a favor and boost its reputation.
However, as Lai reminded us, treating Chinese and other foreigners equally in terms of restrictions presupposes the former’s foreign status and would also constitute a tacit promise to make changes to existing regulations that have discriminatory clauses against other foreign spouses, but not Chinese spouses, which is definitely something that the KMT would not do.
Foreign spouses, with the exception of Chinese, are required to forfeit their original nationality. Chinese spouses, according to the Republic of China Constitution, are not considered “real” foreigners, so all they have to do is surrender their household registration in China and apply for Taiwanese citizenship. Would the KMT go so far as to make Chinese and other foreign spouses “equal” in this respect?
With regard to Chinese spouses, the DPP has been upholding its stance of “easy on the day-to-day living and rights, but strict with the [political] status.”
When the controversy stirred up another round of debate in 2013, it was pointed out that if foreign spouses who are not Chinese wish to obtain resident status without giving up their nationalities, they need to reside in Taiwan for at least 183 days per year for five consecutive years, while Chinese spouses need only four years. Examples of discrepancies such as this abound.
It is not a bad thing that society as a whole and the DPP — which looks set to win the Jan. 16 elections — will be constantly challenged on their stances on equality and the struggle to balance national security with an adequate provision for human rights — public debate is what it takes for a society to move forward.
The KMT could likewise be challenged over its stance of “human rights as a universal value,” when it comes to the various civic groups’ call for the establishment of a refugee act that would provide for the Chinese dissidents seeking political asylum, or for the Tibetan exiles whose status Taiwanese government agencies have been avoiding taking responsibility for.
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