Reacting to complaints from Chinese brides, the Ministry of the Interior (MOI) concluded yesterday that there is no way that spouses from China and South East Asia can be treated equally over the citizenship issue, and that Chinese wives would still have to wait longer to apply for citizenship.
"Chinese spouses and foreign spouses are basically regulated by different regulations. Because of their different backgrounds, we do not think we could amend the regulations to equalize their statuses over the citizenship issue," Chien Tai-lang (簡太郎), Vice Minister of the MOI, said after the ministry's conference on foreign and Chinese spouses yesterday.
Currently, foreign spouses from South East Asian countries are regulated by the Immigration Law (入出國移民法). Chinese spouses are regulated by the Statute Governing the Relations Between the People of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area (兩岸人民關係條例).
As a result, it usually takes foreign spouses four to eight years to receive Taiwan citizenship, on the condition that they give up their original citizenship.
In contrast, however, it takes spouses from China seven to 11 years to receive Taiwan citizenship, but they don't have to give up their Chinese citizenship.
The time difference has upset Chinese spouses, especially since the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) attempted recently to amend the regulation to make the waiting period a minimum of eight years.
But Chien said the situations are different for the two groups, so they cannot be treated the same.
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