I live in Taiwan because, like many foreigners, I fell in love with and chose to align my life with a Taiwanese. In an era where personal freedoms are mandatorily ceded to government decree, I am thankful to the Taiwanese government for the spousal visa, as well as the lack of demeaning bureaucratic hoops and hurdles needed to get a work permit, residency permit and healthcare.
However, if I then choose to attempt citizenship, this enlightened attitude spasms to seizure, culminating in what appears to be blatant xenophobia.
In contrast to Western countries, the path to citizenship mandates a protracted period of demeaning, discriminatory and expensive bureaucratic challenges that eventually are rewarded in citizenship and equality under law.
Why does Taiwan start the process so graciously and then, in a bureaucratic absolute reminiscent of a religious dogma, demand that finally you forgo all nationalities but your new Taiwanese? Taiwanese nationals can hold more than one consecutive nationality, but the freshly minted “new Taiwanese” cannot.
Governments actively promote the concept that being a citizen of their country makes you belong to an elite with intrinsic cultural values so highly regarded that you are expected to fight to the death to preserve the integrity of your country.
Nationalism, tribalism or groupism — all social constructs of grouping that have potential to benefit those within the group, and equal potential to demonize those outside the group.
What is it about being born inside the geographical limits of a country that makes you special, an elite, or in this case, Taiwanese? Is it genetic complement?
Humans, having survived one or more historical bottlenecks, are genetically very similar. Humans are wanderers. A migratory species that has dispersed in pursuit of prey, resources or peace for millennia.
Countries are newcomers to human history, changing and dissolving over time, and the new exclusionist countries with borders that require passports are an invention of governments after World War I, little more than 100 years ago.
Countries are, at best, a politically agreed upon Rubicon that encircles people genetically very similar to those who live in neighboring countries.
Is there something special about being born on the land inside that political circle? Perhaps yes, if all people born inside a country’s boundaries receive citizenship and equality under law.
However, children who are born in Taiwan to foreigners with legal residence and work status are not given Taiwanese citizenship, despite being schooled in Taiwan and being as culturally Taiwanese as Taiwanese nationals. So it is not about geography per se.
Is it about the unifying effect of the culture inside a country’s boundaries?
Taiwan has 16 indigenous tribes, Hakka and Han ethnicities, numerous foreign workers and many Taiwanese nationals who have lived for extended periods in other cultures. All are free to display their ethnicity, use whatever language that most efficiently aides communication and adopt practices from other cultures. It is a living, growing interdependence of diversity that makes ascribing unique attributes as distinct to Taiwanese culture virtually impossible.
What defines a Taiwanese national if it is not genes, geography or culture? What remains is politics.
In these turbulent times of bellicose political posturing by nations, Taiwan tries to project an image of democratic internationalism, justly lobbying for recognition and inclusion in the international community. Justly trumpeting how Taiwanese expertise and experience can add to international aid, regulation and administration. Justly stating that it is immoral for a democratic country to be excluded by the international community because of historical animosity and the rules of an autocrat.
However, the parallels between the plight of Taiwan in the international community and the plight of foreigners born in Taiwan, or residing long-term in Taiwan, and the Taiwanese political bureaucrats who control the allocation of Taiwanese citizenship are obvious. The plea common to the government and foreigners inside Taiwan is: Let us be treated as equal.
Allowing long-term foreign residents to hold dual citizenship would provide an immediate security benefit to Taiwan by making conflict with China an event with international implications, rather than the regularly espoused domestic Chinese conflict.
The National Development Council’s Mandarin and English bilingual 2030 policy would benefit from allowing foreign professors to be included. They should have equal rights to employment in the Taiwanese academic community, and rights to apply for research funding from the Ministry of Science and Technology.
There are almost no foreign full professors permanently employed at Taiwanese universities. This is protectionism by design, which decreases the research output of Taiwan and the quality of tuition given to students.
It is morally wrong to deny dual citizenship to children born to foreigners in Taiwan. It is unjust to suggest that foreign long-term residents do not contribute economically and culturally to the nation.
Allowing foreigners to become Taiwanese citizens without renouncing their existing citizenship is not constitutionally impossible, as every year about a dozen priests, doctors, business people and tall people who play sport are put on parade as they are given dual citizenship in exchange for services rendered.
The government wants Taiwan to go out and be legitimately international on the world stage, but perplexingly, it does not want Taiwan to be an international community that practices equality under law inside the country.
With the stroke of a pen, these inequalities could be removed. Taiwan would gain the respect and loyalty of many new citizens. Please do it.
Peter G. Osborne is a professor working in the field of agriscience in Taitung County.
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