The Ministry of the Interior has come up with a draft table of quotas for various categories of Chinese citizens to be allowed to stay or settle in Taiwan annually as part of efforts to control population growth, officials said yesterday.
They said the quota table was drawn up under Article 17 of the Statute Governing the Relations Between the People of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area (兩岸人民關係條例), which authorizes the ministry to set annual caps on Chinese citizens to be allowed to come to Taiwan for reunions with their next of kin, long-term stays, or permanent settlement.
Johnnason Liu (
Taiwan has the world's second highest population density.
"Both Hong Kong and Macau have enacted clear-cut regulations to govern the immigration of Chinese citizens," Liu said, adding that the quota regulations have nothing to do with ideology.
According to the table, the number of Chinese citizens to be allowed to come to Taiwan to stay with their next of kin for a specified period of time is capped at 12,000 per year.
The ministry has not set any limit on the number of Chinese citizens to be allowed to come to Taiwan for long-term stays under special economic, educational, cultural or technological exchange programs, with a view to attracting Chinese with professional skills or expertise to immigrate to Taiwan.
The quota for Chinese citizens eligible to come to Taiwan for long-term stays for humanitarian reasons is set at 36 per year. This category of people includes Chinese citizens who have to stay in Taiwan to care for their elderly parents-in-law after their Taiwanese spouses die, or children of Chinese spouses.
Officials said the quota for this group of people should be restricted because they tend to be dependent and their entry may squeeze social resources.
Meanwhile, the ministry set an annual cap of 6,000 on Chinese spouses obtaining permanent settlement status or Taiwanese citizenship. The quota was decided after evaluating a combination of factors, including the number of Chinese spouses who were granted permanent residency in the previous three years, the officials said.
`Derived' population
To prevent a rapid expansion of "derived" population, the ministry is also imposing ceilings on various categories of Chinese next of kin to be granted permanent residency each year. This includes 60 for Chinese aged 70 or over who are blood relatives or spouses of Taiwanese citizens; 24 for Chinese grandchildren or great-grandchildren aged under 12; and 12 for children of Chinese spouses from previous marriages younger than 12 years old.
The list also stipulates that Chinese immigrants cannot apply for their next of kin to come to Taiwan for a reunion or long-term stay until after they have held permanent residency or Taiwanese citizenship for five years.
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