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Chinese with ROC IDs can vote: MAC

About 16,000 Chinese people who have obtained Republic of China identification cards will be eligible to vote in the March 20 presidential election, Mainland Affairs Council Vice Chairman Alexander Huang (黃介正) said yesterday.

According to Huang, 13,000 out of the 16,000 are Chinese spouses and the rest are the spouses' relatives.

They enjoy the same right as Taiwanese citizens to cast ballots in the presidential election as well as in the referendum, which will also be held on March 20, Huang said.

The council could not estimate how many Chinese spouses will cast votes on election day, Huang said.

According to the Statute Governing the Relations between the People of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area (兩岸人民關係條例), Chinese spouses must wait for up to 11 years to get identification cards.

Meanwhile, about 15,000 China-based Taiwanese businessmen will return to Taiwan for the presidential vote through the "small three links" established among Kinmen, Matsu and China's Fujian Province, Huang said.

A special "small three links" project to serve businesspeople going home for the vote will be in operation from Thursday to March 30.

The businessmen will be able to use the links if, at customs in Kinmen or Matsu, they show work permits and credentials issued by the Ministry of Economic Affairs to permit their investment in China, Huang said.

Businessmen or their employees without ministry credentials who wish to use the "three small links" can register with Taiwanese businesspeople's associations by March 20, Huang said.

The businesspeople's associations will pass along the names of people who have registered to the semi-official Straits Exchange Foundation, which will send the names to the Immigration Bureau so that the businessmen and their employees can be cleared at Kinmen and Matsu customs, Huang said.

President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) announced last month that all China-based Taiwanese business-people, their Taiwanese employees and families could use the links to go home.

Before Chen's announcement, only Fujian-based Taiwanese businesspeople were able to use the links.

However, although the government has expanded the links service to all China-based Taiwanese businesspeople along with their Taiwanese employees and families, other Taiwanese people living in China, including students, are still barred from using the links.
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