The government yesterday thanked Japan for revising rules that would allow Taiwanese nationals married to Japanese citizens to list their home country as “Taiwan” in the official family record database.
At present, Taiwanese have to select “China.”
Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) said the new rule, set to be implemented in May, would now “correctly” identify Taiwanese in Japan and help protect their rights, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement.
Photo: Lin Tsuei-yi, Taipei Times
The statement was released after Nikkei Asia reported the new policy earlier yesterday.
The name and nationality of a non-Japanese person marrying a Japanese national is added to the spouse’s family registry, and the existing rule, in place since 1964, listed Taiwanese as being from China, Nikkei Asia reported.
Starting in May, the registry’s nationality entry for non-Japanese would be changed to “nationality/region,” allowing Taiwanese to choose Taiwan instead of China, it said.
Taiwanese who are already registered as being from China would also be able to change their nationality to Taiwan, the report added.
Government statistics showed that about 800 to 1,000 Taiwanese marry a Japanese national every year.
The ministry said that Taiwanese expats in Japan have been calling for a change to the registration system for decades.
Thanks to their decades-long efforts and the support of the Japan-ROC Diet Members’ Consultative Council — a cross-party group in the Japanese Diet dedicated to promoting ties between Taipei and Tokyo — the Japanese government finally agreed to the change, the ministry said.
As of June 30 last year, there were about 67,000 Taiwanese living in Japan, the ninth-largest group among foreign residents.
The ministry said that the last time Japan made a similar change of allowing Taiwanese living in Japan to list their nationality as Taiwan was in 2012, on residence cards issued to foreigners living in the country long term.
Japan does not recognize Taiwan as a nation. The Japanese Ministry of Justice said the change came about so that the government could better understand which foreign laws would apply in cases such as a marriage.
It would also align the family registry with other government systems, such as a residence identification card that already allows regions to be registered as places of origin, the official said.
Although the Japanese justice ministry characterizes the change as a technical one, it touches on a sore spot for Japan-China relations, as Tokyo has voiced its concerns over Beijing’s military ambitions in the region out of worries there might be a spillover from a conflict over Taiwan.
Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman Guo Jiakun (郭嘉昆) yesterday said that “the question of Taiwan is purely an internal affair of China, which brooks no foreign interference.”
“We urge Japan to stop making a sideshow on the question of Taiwan, and stop sending conflicting or wrong messages,” he added.
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