MAC to make it easier for Chinese spouses to stay

The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC), the nation's top China policy planner, yesterday resolved to seek to have an administrative regulation revised to make it easier for Chinese spouses of Taiwanese nationals to stay or settle in Taiwan.

MAC Vice Chairman Johnnason Liu (劉德勳) expressed hope that after a Ministry of the Interior (MOI) administrative regulation is revised, Chinese spouses whose Taiwanese husband or wife has died will find it easier to apply for permanent residency in Taiwan. In cases where the Taiwanese spouse has died, the Chinese spouse should have remained unmarried and must have lived in Taiwan for more than five years to qualify.

Meanwhile, the MAC yesterday called on China to take back all the undocumented Chinese immigrants who have been stranded in Taiwan for the past several years.

"There are still 1,200 illegal Chinese immigrants pending repatriation, and a few dozen of them are pregnant women, infants and patients who should be sent back to China as soon as possible," MAC Vice Chairman Michael You (游盈隆) said.

He said that under the Kinmen Agreement reached by the Red Cross societies on both sides of the Taiwan Strait in 1991, China should speedily take back its nationals who have been arrested by authorities for sneaking into Taiwan illegally to work.

You called on Beijing to speed up its efforts to take back all the immigrants out of humanitarian concern.