The family of basketball sensation Jeremy Lin (林書豪), who announced he would visit Taiwan to take part in a basketball camp after the NBA season wraps up, is adamant that he is of Taiwanese heritage, the New York Times reported yesterday.
Lin Chi-chung (林繼宗), Jeremy Lin’s 63-year-old uncle, said in an interview in Taipei that there was no doubt that the Harvard--educated younger Lin, as well as his family, are Taiwanese.
“For sure, they are Taiwanese,” Lin Chi-chung said. “I spoke to Jeremy Lin’s father, who is my younger brother, and he said: ‘Make sure you point this out,’” he told the Times.
Photo: EPA
Both of Jeremy Lin’s parents were born in Taiwan and hold dual citizenship of the Republic of China (ROC) and the US, he said. Jeremy Lin was born in California and has US citizenship, but he has been offered dual citizenship in the ROC as well by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, his uncle said.
Lin’s uncle said he and Jeremy Lin’s father were eighth-generation descendants of immigrants from Fujian Province, China, who moved to Taiwan in 1707. They were part of a large wave of Fujian migration from which most of Taiwan’s current residents are descended, the Times wrote.
A senior official in Zhejiang Province, China, suggested over the weekend that Jeremy Lin’s ancestral home was there because his maternal grandmother grew up in the province before moving to Taiwan in the late 1940s.
Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman James Chang (章計平) yesterday said in response to media inquiries that there was no record of Jeremy Lin ever applying for ROC citizenship.
“We have checked with the Bureau of Consular Affairs. The government has never received an application from Jeremy Lin for ROC citizenship,” Chang said.
Even though Jeremy Lin has US citizenship, he is eligible for ROC citizenship because both of his parents retain ROC citizenship and because Taiwan allows dual citizenship, he said.
Chang denied that the ministry had offered Jeremy Lin ROC citizenship, saying it was up to the basketball star to apply for it.
Meanwhile, Jeremy Lin has said he plans to return to Taiwan after the NBA season to take part in a basketball camp in which he helped out last year.
Lin said on Wednesday, after helping lead the New York Knicks to a 100-85 victory over Sacramento, that he was looking forward to his trip to Asia.
“I have a strong passion for the game and a strong passion for Taiwan,” Lin said. “Last summer, it was one of the highlights of my summer, so I’m going to do it again.”
Knicks games have become an Internet sensation because of Lin, a former Knicks bench-warmer who was given a chance to play and responded with the most points in his first five starts of any NBA player since 1976.
Japan has deployed long-range missiles in a southwestern region near China, the Japanese defense minister said yesterday, at a time when ties with Beijing are at their lowest in recent years. The missiles were installed in Kumamoto in the southern region of Kyushu, as Japan is attempting to shore up its military capacity as China steps up naval activity in the East China Sea. “Standoff defense capabilities enable us to counter the threat of enemy forces attempting to invade our country ... while ensuring the safety of our personnel,” Japanese Minister of Defense Shinjiro Koizumi said. “This is an extremely important initiative for
The nation’s fastest supercomputer, Nano 4 (晶創26), is scheduled to be launched in the third quarter, and would be used to train large language models in finance and national defense sectors, the National Center for High-Performance Computing (NCHC) said. The supercomputer, which would operate at about 86.05 petaflops, is being tested at a new cloud computing center in the Southern Taiwan Science Park in Tainan. The exterior of the server cabinet features chip circuitry patterns overlaid with a map of Taiwan, highlighting the nation’s central position in the semiconductor industry. The center also houses Taiwania 2, Taiwania 3, Forerunner 1 and
MORE POPULAR: Taiwan Pass sales increased by 59 percent during the first quarter compared with the same period last year, the Tourism Administration said The Tourism Administration yesterday said that it has streamlined the Taiwan Pass, with two versions available for purchase beginning today. The tourism agency has made the pass available to international tourists since 2024, allowing them to access the high-speed rail, Taiwan Railway Corp services, four MRT systems and four Taiwan Tourist Shuttles. Previously, five types of Taiwan Pass were available, but some tourists have said that the offerings were too complicated. The agency said only two types of Taiwan Pass would be available, starting from a three-day pass with the high-speed rail and a three-day pass with Taiwan Railway Corp. The former costs NT$2,800
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairwoman Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文) today accepted an invitation from Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) to lead a delegation to China next month, saying she hopes to promote the peaceful development of cross-strait relations and bring stability to the Taiwan Strait. “I am grateful and happy to accept this invitation,” Cheng said in a statement from the KMT chairperson’s office. Cheng said she hopes both sides can work together to promote the peaceful development of cross-strait relations, enhance exchange and cooperation, bring stability to the Taiwan Strait and improve people’s livelihoods. At today's news conference, Cheng said any efforts to
RSS