The Ministry of the Interior (MOI) said yesterday that KMT Legislator John Chang (
The ministry said that Chang would have to undergo a two-stage legal process, first proving that his "official parents" are not his biological parents, and second, demonstrating that Chiang and his mistress, Chang Ya-juo, were indeed his biological parents.
"Chang must take his case to court to establish that he doesn't have any blood relations with Chang Hau-juo (章浩若) and Chi Chen (紀琛), who are listed as Chang's parents on his ID. Then he has to prove his blood relation with his mother, Chang Ya-juo (章亞若)," Minister of the Interior Yu Cheng-hsien (余政憲) said at a press conference.
Yu said that there are two common ways to prove blood ties -- a birth certificate or a DNA test.
Chang held a press conference last week announcing his desire to list his birth parents' names, Chiang Ching-kuo and Chang Ya-juo (章亞若), on his ID card while retaining the surname Chang, his birth mother's family name.
If, however, he could prove that Chiang Ching-kuo raised him, Chang could be deemed under the Civil Code to have been adopted by Chiang and his ID could be amended accordingly.
Prompted by the Chang case, the MOI yesterday held an inter-departmental meeting, in which it cleared up legal uncertainty about illegitimate children carrying the surnames of their birth mothers.
It ruled that if Chang were able to prove Chiang and Chang are his birth parents, he would indeed be entitled to continue bearing the surname Chang.
Chang was not available for comment yesterday evening.
Former Czech Republic-based Taiwanese researcher Cheng Yu-chin (鄭宇欽) has been sentenced to seven years in prison on espionage-related charges, China’s Ministry of State Security announced yesterday. China said Cheng was a spy for Taiwan who “masqueraded as a professor” and that he was previously an assistant to former Cabinet secretary-general Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰). President-elect William Lai (賴清德) on Wednesday last week announced Cho would be his premier when Lai is inaugurated next month. Today is China’s “National Security Education Day.” The Chinese ministry yesterday released a video online showing arrests over the past 10 years of people alleged to be
THE HAWAII FACTOR: While a 1965 opinion said an attack on Hawaii would not trigger Article 5, the text of the treaty suggests the state is covered, the report says NATO could be drawn into a conflict in the Taiwan Strait if Chinese forces attacked the US mainland or Hawaii, a NATO Defense College report published on Monday says. The report, written by James Lee, an assistant research fellow at Academia Sinica’s Institute of European and American Studies, states that under certain conditions a Taiwan contingency could trigger Article 5 of NATO, under which an attack against any member of the alliance is considered an attack against all members, necessitating a response. Article 6 of the North Atlantic Treaty specifies that an armed attack in the territory of any member in Europe,
LIKE FAMILY: People now treat dogs and cats as family members. They receive the same medical treatments and tests as humans do, a veterinary association official said The number of pet dogs and cats in Taiwan has officially outnumbered the number of human newborns last year, data from the Ministry of Agriculture’s pet registration information system showed. As of last year, Taiwan had 94,544 registered pet dogs and 137,652 pet cats, the data showed. By contrast, 135,571 babies were born last year. Demand for medical care for pet animals has also risen. As of Feb. 29, there were 5,773 veterinarians in Taiwan, 3,993 of whom were for pet animals, statistics from the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Agency showed. In 2022, the nation had 3,077 pediatricians. As of last
XINJIANG: Officials are conducting a report into amending an existing law or to enact a special law to prohibit goods using forced labor Taiwan is mulling an amendment prohibiting the importation of goods using forced labor, similar to the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA) passed by the US Congress in 2021 that imposed limits on goods produced using forced labor in China’s Xinjiang region. A government official who wished to remain anonymous said yesterday that as the US customs law explicitly prohibits the importation of goods made using forced labor, in 2021 it passed the specialized UFLPA to limit the importation of cotton and other goods from China’s Xinjiang Uyghur region. Taiwan does not have the legal basis to prohibit the importation of goods