The Ministry of the Interior on Tuesday approved the applications of 18 foreign professionals to become Republic of China citizens, including radio and TV announcer Jeffrey Mindich.
They are among 50 foreign professionals in six fields — including science and technology, education and economics — to have been granted citizenship after five rounds of screenings, the ministry said in a statement.
Under the Nationality Act (國籍法) certain categories of foreigners seeking citizenship are not required to renounce their original nationalities, and are eligible to participate in part of Taiwan’s political process and various welfare benefits once they have earned citizenship.
Taiwan welcomes foreigners highly skilled in sports, arts and culture, and other areas such as religion, democracy and human rights, to become naturalized citizens.
Department of Household Registration Affairs Director Wanda Chang (張琬宜) said she hopes more foreign professionals will apply for citizenship.
Mindich, who worked for International Community Radio Taipei (ICRT) for many years, won a Golden Bell for his achievements in introducing Taiwanese culture to foreign audiences.
Others include a Thai woman who helps select tour guides, an Australian man in the wireless telecommunication industry and an Indonesian whose language ability in Chinese, English and Indonesian makes him an important contributor to the government’s New Southbound Policy, the ministry said.
Also on the list are a German professor, whose works on philosopher Immanuel Kant have been translated into Chinese and Korean, a South African artist who has helped with arts education, and an American who is a senior editor and publisher.
Those interested in becoming citizens can visit the ministry’s Web site (www.ris.gov.tw/763) to learn more.
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
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