Military denies report of ban on Chinese wives

The Ministry of National Defense (MND) yesterday denied that there are any military regulations forbidding servicemen to marry Chinese women.

The MND said that, according to regulations governing the marriage of servicemen, they are forbidden to marry only "foreign women who are deemed by the authorities concerned to pose a threat to the security of Taiwan."

The MND made the statement in response to a report by the United Evening News, which quoted Minister of National Defense Tang Yao-ming (湯曜明) as saying that servicemen are not legally allowed to marry Chinese women.

The report said Minister Tang made the remarks to the press on Tuesday at the legislature. The United Evening News seemed to be the only news organization which heard Tang say so, since the remarks it quoted from Tang did not appear in any other major newspaper.

The MND declined to confirm whether Tang had made the remarks as quoted by the United Evening News.

It insisted that it would respond only to the so-called "regulations forbidding servicemen to marry `security risk' women."

Quoting servicemen's marriage regulations, the MND said there are no rules forbidding marriage with Chinese women, as claimed by the report.

A spokesman for the MND said the regulations do forbid servicemen to marry certain "risk categories" of women but that Chinese women are not necessarily included in these.

Article four of the regulations stipulate that servicemen are not allowed to marry two types of women -- local women who have committed treason crimes against the country and foreign women who are deemed by the authorities concerned to pose a threat to the security of Taiwan.

There is no definition, however, for the term "foreign women" in the article. It could refer to Chinese women depending on how the military interprets the relations between the two sides of the Taiwan Strait.