The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) has again proposed allowing Chinese spouses to obtain Taiwanese citizenship in four years instead of six. Following the proposal, inequity between Chinese and non-Chinese spouses in the naturalization processes is being discussed. The difference needs to be clarified and the process should be reformed.
KMT lawmakers said that disparity in the naturalization process signifies discrimination against Chinese spouses, who have to wait six years to obtain Taiwanese citizenship under the Act Governing Relations Between the People of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area (臺灣地區與大陸地區人民關係條例), while spouses of other nationalities need only four years, according to the Nationality Act (國籍法).
The KMT made a hasty generalization over the differences of the naturalization processes of Chinese spouses and other foreign spouses. However, while other foreign spouses in most cases need to renounce their existing nationality to obtain Taiwanese citizenship, Chinese spouses only need to renounce their household registration in China, as Beijing does not allow dual nationality. Chinese spouses face difficulties in giving up nationality, as the authoritarian country sees Taiwan as its subordinate, not an equal.
Other foreign spouses are required to take a naturalization test to prove their language fluency and knowledge of civil rights and responsibilities, which Chinese spouses are exempt from.
Including to renounce their original nationality and to take the test, it takes six to eight years on average for other foreign spouses to obtain Taiwanese citizenship, according to the Ministry of the Interior — a period longer than average time for Chinese spouses.
More ironically, it would take at least 11 years for a Chinese spouse to apply for Macau citizenship and seven years for Hong Kong citizenship, although the two are “special administrations” of China. The spouses from other provinces in China need 10 years to get household registration in Beijing or Shanghai.
An online petition, which has collected more than 60,000 signatures in three days, demanding a halt to the KMT proposal said that Chinese spouses’ relatives could apply for multiple-entry visas for longer than six months, and parents older than 70 and children younger than 12 could reside in Taiwan and be included in the National Health Insurance system, while other foreign spouses’ first-degree relatives are limited to three to six-month visits.
Do not ignore the elephant in the room that some KMT lawmakers seem to be missing: China, which is persistently hostile toward Taiwan and has ambitions to take over the nation, implemented a National Intelligence Law in 2018 making it an obligation for all of its citizens to cooperate with its intelligence services — an obligation that applies to Chinese spouses based in Taiwan.
Democratic Progress Party Legislator Huang Jie (黃捷) on Monday last week introduced a draft amendment that would require Chinese spouses to swear an oath of loyalty to Taiwan and to take a test of civic knowledge.
There are more than 384,000 Chinese spouses in Taiwan, including 275,000 who were naturalized or got permanent residency, January’s immigration data showed.
Chinese spouses account for 66 percent of foreign spouses in Taiwan, they showed.
Naturalization regulations should be reformed to avoid discrimination for all foreign spouses, not just for Chinese ones. Although an oath could not necessarily guarantee loyalty to a nation, Huang’s proposal or similar mechanisms should be included. They could be a reminder that all Taiwanese have a responsibility to safeguard the nation’s sovereignty and security.
There is much evidence that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is sending soldiers from the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) to support Russia’s invasion of Ukraine — and is learning lessons for a future war against Taiwan. Until now, the CCP has claimed that they have not sent PLA personnel to support Russian aggression. On 18 April, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelinskiy announced that the CCP is supplying war supplies such as gunpowder, artillery, and weapons subcomponents to Russia. When Zelinskiy announced on 9 April that the Ukrainian Army had captured two Chinese nationals fighting with Russians on the front line with details
Within Taiwan’s education system exists a long-standing and deep-rooted culture of falsification. In the past month, a large number of “ghost signatures” — signatures using the names of deceased people — appeared on recall petitions submitted by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) against Democratic Progressive Party legislators Rosalia Wu (吳思瑤) and Wu Pei-yi (吳沛憶). An investigation revealed a high degree of overlap between the deceased signatories and the KMT’s membership roster. It also showed that documents had been forged. However, that culture of cheating and fabrication did not just appear out of thin air — it is linked to the
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT), joined by the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP), held a protest on Saturday on Ketagalan Boulevard in Taipei. They were essentially standing for the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), which is anxious about the mass recall campaign against KMT legislators. President William Lai (賴清德) said that if the opposition parties truly wanted to fight dictatorship, they should do so in Tiananmen Square — and at the very least, refrain from groveling to Chinese officials during their visits to China, alluding to meetings between KMT members and Chinese authorities. Now that China has been defined as a foreign hostile force,
On April 19, former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) gave a public speech, his first in about 17 years. During the address at the Ketagalan Institute in Taipei, Chen’s words were vague and his tone was sour. He said that democracy should not be used as an echo chamber for a single politician, that people must be tolerant of other views, that the president should not act as a dictator and that the judiciary should not get involved in politics. He then went on to say that others with different opinions should not be criticized as “XX fellow travelers,” in reference to
RSS