The legislature recently passed amendments to the Act Governing Relations Between the Peoples of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area (台灣地區與大陸地區人民關係條例), granting Chinese nationals married to Taiwanese the right to work in Taiwan as well as complete inheritance rights. The wait for Chinese spouses applying for citizenship has also been shortened from eight years to six years.
This stands as the government’s first human rights accomplishment since the legislature passed the Act Governing Execution of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (公民與政治權利國際公約及經濟社會文化權利國際公約施行法) in April.
Transnational immigration researchers have long acknowledged that legal immigrants should have the right to work and that residence requirements for citizenship applications should be shortened. Such preposterous and discriminatory regulations as an inheritance cap for people from particular countries are rare in the international community.
The government’s efforts to push the amendments only brought the nation a bit closer to meeting human rights standards, but this small step may symbolize the advent of new progress.
When the cross-strait relations act was established in 1992, not long after the lifting of Martial Law, Taiwan did not have a deep understanding of human rights and apprehended burgeoning cross-strait exchanges.
When it was in power, the Democratic Progressive Party based its political capital on animosity toward China and treated Chinese spouses like enemies.
Chinese spouses have been treated even worse than other foreign spouses.
President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) and Mainland Affairs Council Chairwoman Lai Shin-yuan (賴幸媛) have repeatedly declared that all immigrants are treated equally. But the reality is very different.
Civil organizations have proposed to the legislature a more comprehensive version of the amendment to extend fair treatment to Chinese spouses, but it failed to gain government support.
If the government really wanted to revise discriminatory laws, why not amend more articles in the cross-strait relations act?
The legislature’s recent acceptance of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, an achievement proudly touted by the Ma government, offers a new opportunity for the government to further amend laws.
The covenant, for example, prohibits differential treatment based on national origin. The ban on discrimination based on national origin is an important human rights principle dismissed by Taiwan: When the government deals with immigration matters, it is not allowed to discrimination against people of different origin.
Taiwan, however, has dismissed this principle.
In accordance with the Act Governing Execution of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, government at all levels should amend all laws and regulations that violate the covenant within two years.
Discriminatory laws such as the Act Governing Relations Between the Peoples of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area must be amended.
The government’s sincerity in revising this act will show whether Taiwan measures up to the covenants and reveal the truth of Ma’s declarations.
Bruce Liao is an assistant law professor at National Chengchi University.
TRANSLATED BY TED YANG
George Santayana wrote: “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” This article will help readers avoid repeating mistakes by examining four examples from the civil war between the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) forces and the Republic of China (ROC) forces that involved two city sieges and two island invasions. The city sieges compared are Changchun (May to October 1948) and Beiping (November 1948 to January 1949, renamed Beijing after its capture), and attempts to invade Kinmen (October 1949) and Hainan (April 1950). Comparing and contrasting these examples, we can learn how Taiwan may prevent a war with
Taiwan is rapidly accelerating toward becoming a “super-aged society” — moving at one of the fastest rates globally — with the proportion of elderly people in the population sharply rising. While the demographic shift of “fewer births than deaths” is no longer an anomaly, the nation’s legal framework and social customs appear stuck in the last century. Without adjustments, incidents like last month’s viral kicking incident on the Taipei MRT involving a 73-year-old woman would continue to proliferate, sowing seeds of generational distrust and conflict. The Senior Citizens Welfare Act (老人福利法), originally enacted in 1980 and revised multiple times, positions older
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) has its chairperson election tomorrow. Although the party has long positioned itself as “China friendly,” the election is overshadowed by “an overwhelming wave of Chinese intervention.” The six candidates vying for the chair are former Taipei mayor Hau Lung-bin (郝龍斌), former lawmaker Cheng Li-wen (鄭麗文), Legislator Luo Chih-chiang (羅智強), Sun Yat-sen School president Chang Ya-chung (張亞中), former National Assembly representative Tsai Chih-hong (蔡志弘) and former Changhua County comissioner Zhuo Bo-yuan (卓伯源). While Cheng and Hau are front-runners in different surveys, Hau has complained of an online defamation campaign against him coming from accounts with foreign IP addresses,
Taiwan’s business-friendly environment and science parks designed to foster technology industries are the key elements of the nation’s winning chip formula, inspiring the US and other countries to try to replicate it. Representatives from US business groups — such as the Greater Phoenix Economic Council, and the Arizona-Taiwan Trade and Investment Office — in July visited the Hsinchu Science Park (新竹科學園區), home to Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co’s (TSMC) headquarters and its first fab. They showed great interest in creating similar science parks, with aims to build an extensive semiconductor chain suitable for the US, with chip designing, packaging and manufacturing. The
RSS