Starting next month, foreign professionals who hold a “Plum Blossom” Alien Permanent Resident Certificate (APRC) can apply for citizenship through a simplified process, officials announced yesterday.
The certificate aims to encourage talented foreigners to stay in Taiwan, Deputy Minister of the Interior Hua Ching-chun (花敬群) said.
Eligible cardholders can apply through the National Immigration Agency with a letter from their employer, eliminating the need to obtain a recommendation from the agency governing the applicant’s industry.
The policy would apply to those with a Plum Blossom APRC and would eliminate the requirement for an additional review, Hua said.
Previously, cardholders who wanted to become naturalized citizens were required to undergo a review by the Ministry of the Interior that was nearly identical to the one the immigration agency administers for the Plum Blossom APRC, Hua said, adding that the process was repetitive and inconvenient.
Since June last year, 59 foreign professionals have been granted citizenship, three of whom held Plum Blossom APRCs, the ministry said.
There are still 90 professionals with Plum Blossom APRCs who have not applied for citizenship, the ministry said.
Plum Blossom APRCs are granted to specialized professionals, those who have made outstanding contributions to the nation and those who have earned certain awards or recognition from the government, immigration official Lee Ming-fang (李明芳) said.
An interested applicant does not need to have lived in Taiwan for five years to obtain the card, Lee said, adding that spouses and dependents could apply.
Cardholders do not need a company sponsor and can apply for jobs at will, Lee said.
The US Department of State yesterday criticized Beijing over its misrepresentation of the US’ “one China” policy in the latest diplomatic salvo between the two countries over a bid by Taiwan to regain its observer status at the World Health Assembly, the decisionmaking body of the WHO. “The PRC [People’s Republic of China] continues to publicly misrepresent U.S. policy,” Department of State spokesman Ned Price wrote on Twitter. “The United States does not subscribe to the PRC’s ‘one China principle’ — we remain committed to our longstanding, bipartisan one China policy, guided by the Taiwan Relations Act, Three Joint Communiques, and
FATES LINKED: The US president said that sanctions on Russia over Ukraine must exact a ‘long-term price,’ because otherwise ‘what signal does that send to China?’ US President Joe Biden yesterday vowed that US forces would defend Taiwan militarily in the event of a Chinese attack in his strongest statement to date on the issue. Beijing is already “flirting with danger,” Biden said following talks with Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida in Tokyo, in which the pair agreed to monitor Chinese naval activity and joint Chinese-Russian exercises. Asked if Washington was willing to get involved militarily to defend Taiwan, he replied: “Yes.” “That’s the commitment we made,” Biden said. “We agreed with the ‘one China’ policy, we signed on to it ... but the idea that it can be
‘TOO RESTRICTIVE’: Ending US sales of weapons that do not fall under the category of ‘asymmetric’ would hamper Taiwan’s defense against China, two business groups said Taiwan’s weapons procurement decisions are made based on its needs, and are not influenced by individual arms dealers, the Ministry of National Defense (MND) said yesterday after two US business groups questioned a US official’s comment on arms sales to Taiwan. US Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Regional Security Mira Resnick told the business groups via video link on Saturday that Washington would adjust the types of weapons sold to Taiwan and end “most arms sales to Taiwan that do not fall under the category of ‘asymmetric.’” The American Chamber of Commerce in Taiwan and the US-Taiwan Business Council on Monday
Local COVID-19 cases are expected to continue rising in the upcoming week, the Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) said yesterday, as it reported a record-high 85,310 new domestic cases and 41 deaths. Daily case numbers had remained in the 60,000s for the past six days before surging about 30 percent yesterday, said Minister of Health and Welfare Chen Shih-chung (陳時中), who heads the center. Centers for Disease Control (CDC) Deputy Director-General Philip Lo (羅一鈞), deputy head of the CECC’s medical response division, said the number of polymerase chain reaction (PCR) tests conducted on Tuesday also marked a record-high of 112,915, with a
RSS