Chinese spouses of Taiwanese no longer have to be fingerprinted every time they enter Taiwan if their data are already on record, National Immigration Agency Director-General Hsieh Li-kung (謝立功) said yesterday.
The relaxation of the fingerprinting regulations, which takes place with immediate effect, is stipulated in a legal amendment put forward by the agency.
The amendment was approved last month by the Ministry of the Interior and made public on Friday, Hsieh said, adding that about 300,000 Chinese spouses of Taiwanese would benefit from the new measure, as will other Chinese citizens who are in Taiwan on special resident permits and who are also required to have their fingerprints taken.
Mandatory fingerprinting of Chinese nationals was introduced at a time when many Chinese people were trying to enter Taiwan using false identification documents, according to Hsieh.
The regulations were revised because cross-strait exchanges and marriages have become more common, he said.
Nevertheless, Chinese visitors to Taiwan will still be fingerprinted at points of entry if immigration officers have cause to question their identification.
This, he said, is because cosmetic surgery has become more popular in recent years, and people’s faces are sometimes markedly different their ID photos.
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The Chinese military has built landing bridge ships designed to expand its amphibious options for a potential assault on Taiwan, but their combat effectiveness is limited due to their high vulnerability, a defense expert said in an analysis published on Monday. Shen Ming-shih (沈明室), a research fellow at the Institute for National Defense and Security Research, said that the deployment of such vessels as part of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) Navy’s East Sea Fleet signals a strong focus on Taiwan. However, the ships are highly vulnerable to precision strikes, which means they could be destroyed before they achieve their intended
About 4.2 million tourist arrivals were recorded in the first half of this year, a 10 percent increase from the same period last year, the Tourism Administration said yesterday. The growth continues to be consistent, with the fourth quarter of this year expected to be the peak in Taiwan, the agency said, adding that it plans to promote Taiwan overseas via partnerships and major events. From January to June, 9.14 million international departures were recorded from Taiwan, an 11 percent increase from the same period last year, with 3.3 million headed for Japan, 1.52 million for China and 832,962 to South Korea,
REWRITING HISTORY: China has been advocating a ‘correct’ interpretation of the victory over Japan that brings the CCP’s contributions to the forefront, an expert said An elderly Chinese war veteran’s shin still bears the mark of a bullet wound he sustained when fighting the Japanese as a teenager, a year before the end of World War II. Eighty years on, Li Jinshui’s scar remains as testimony to the bravery of Chinese troops in a conflict that killed millions of their people. However, the story behind China’s overthrow of the brutal Japanese occupation is deeply contested. Historians broadly agree that credit for victory lies primarily with the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT)-led Republic of China (ROC) Army. Its leader, Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石), fled to Taiwan in 1949 after losing a
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