Government to dismiss illegal Chinese nationals

The government announced yesterday that it will terminate the employment of all former Chinese nationals with Taiwanese citizenship who are working unlawfully for the government after its investigation into the matter has been completed next week.

Chu Nan-hsin (朱楠賢), director of the Research and Planning Department of the Cabinet's Central Personnel Administration (人事行政局), told the Taipei Times, "We will implement the regulation."

The regulation in question is Article 21 of the Statute Governing Relations Between the People of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area (兩岸人民關係條例), which stipulates that former Chinese nationals who have had Taiwanese citizenship for less than 10 years are prohibited from serving in government posts.

The move follows a recommendation made earlier this month by the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC).

"All government departments should lay off all former Chinese nationals right after the investigation is completed. It doesn't matter what position these people hold," Jeff Yang (楊家駿), the director of the MAC's Department of Legal Affairs, told the Taipei Times yesterday.

The Cabinet's Central Personnel Administration (人事行政局), which is responsible for employment matters within Taiwan's civil service, began an investigation at the end of May into the number of former Chinese nationals with Taiwanese citizenship working unlawfully for the government.

Yang told the Taipei Times, "Government departments have failed to observe the regulations."

"We have had no idea about the regulations in the past. As far as I know, the mistaken employment of former Chinese nationals has been widespread among government departments," said an official at Taichung County's Veterans Service Department, which earlier this month forced a former Chinese national, Wang Hsiu-chin (王秀金), who had worked for the department for more than three years, to quit her post.

Wu San-ling (吳三靈), secretary-general of the Central Personnel Administration, told the Taipei Times, "Nobody paid attention to the regulation since it had nothing to do with day-to-day affairs. But the issue came to the fore after the Hsieh Hong-mei (謝紅梅) case."

Hsieh Hong-mei passed the civil service examination in February last year and served as secretary at the Shetze Elementary School (社子國小) in Taipei until March, when the government forced her to leave her post.

The government department learned Hsieh's Chinese background after she told colleagues during a meeting that she was from Nanjing.

DPP Legislator Chen Ching-chun (陳景峻), who has assisted Hsieh, said that while the government should complete its investigations into the matter, he would propose an amendment to the regulation to allow the employment of former Chinese nationals in posts that have no bearing on national security as soon as they acquire Taiwanese citizenship.

Yang, however, said, "Any low-level employees could deal with documents connected to national security."

He added, "All government departments agreed in 1999 that the law was right to bar all former Chinese nationals from holding any government post before they have held Taiwan citizenship for ten years," Yang said.