More than 10,000 naturalized Taiwanese citizens from China did not provide proof that they renounced their Chinese citizenship as the law stipulates, the National Immigration Agency (NIA) told lawmakers yesterday.
NIA officials made the remarks a day after the agency said in a news release that a minority of Chinese-born naturalized citizens had received warnings over their failure to submit documentation proving that they do not have dual citizenship.
Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Chuang Jui-hsiung (莊瑞雄) during a legislative session asked whether government actions had been motivated by the deportation of three Chinese-born influencers over the past few weeks who made public statements supporting China using force to invade Taiwan.
Photo: Liao Cheng-hui, Taipei Times
He also asked officials the number of Chinese immigrants holding citizenship in Taiwan who might be in breach of the ban on dual citizenship stipulated by 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).
The NIA has no political motive for the notices, as officials have been serving them to naturalized citizens not in compliance with the law since before the controversy regarding the three influencers, NIA Deputy Director-General Chen Chen-cheng (陳建成) said.
In 2004, Taiwan promulgated amendments to the law that require naturalized citizens born in China to legally renounce their Chinese citizenship, Chen said.
The number of Chinese immigrants not in compliance with the amendments is a minority compared with the total number of 140,000, he said, adding that the NIA revoked the citizenship of 676 Chinese immigrants.
Most immigrants in breach of that law failed to provide documentation due to paperwork issues or health problems related to the COVID-19 pandemic, he said.
The amendments apply to people who obtained citizenship via marriage before 2004, Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) Deputy Minister Liang Wen-chieh (梁文傑) said.
The MAC has received complaints from Chinese spouses, including reasonable ones that officials are helping to resolve, he said.
Separately, DPP caucus chief executive Rosalia Wu (吳思瑤) said party lawmakers support government actions insofar as they follow the law.
Practical difficulties in the law’s implementation should be negotiated, she said.
DPP Legislator Huang Jie (黃捷) cited the act as saying that Chinese nationals who obtained Taiwanese citizenship should have renounced their citizenship and household registration in China within six months of the law’s promulgation.
The authorities should protect the lawful rights of immigrants who had lost their documents or could not realistically be expected to return to China to obtain their papers, she said.
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) caucus whip Fu Kun-chi (傅?萁) said enforcing immigration offenses that might have been committed 20 years ago past their statute of limitations is a violation of human rights.
The government should work on dealing with a looming global economic depression, not finding domestic enemies, he added.
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) is expected to start construction of its 1.4-nanometer chip manufacturing facilities at the Central Taiwan Science Park (CTSP, 中部科學園區) as early as October, the Chinese-language Liberty Times (the Taipei Times’ sister newspaper) reported yesterday, citing the park administration. TSMC acquired land for the second phase of the park’s expansion in Taichung in June. Large cement, construction and facility engineering companies in central Taiwan have reportedly been receiving bids for TSMC-related projects, the report said. Supply-chain firms estimated that the business opportunities for engineering, equipment and materials supply, and back-end packaging and testing could reach as high as
CHAMPIONS: President Lai congratulated the players’ outstanding performance, cheering them for marking a new milestone in the nation’s baseball history Taiwan on Sunday won their first Little League Baseball World Series (LLBWS) title in 29 years, as Taipei’s Dong Yuan Elementary School defeated a team from Las Vegas 7-0 in the championship game in South Williamsport, Pennsylvania. It was Taiwan’s first championship in the annual tournament since 1996, ending a nearly three-decade drought. “It has been a very long time ... and we finally made it,” Taiwan manager Lai Min-nan (賴敏男) said after the game. Lai said he last managed a Dong Yuan team in at the South Williamsport in 2015, when they were eliminated after four games. “There is
Democratic nations should refrain from attending China’s upcoming large-scale military parade, which Beijing could use to sow discord among democracies, Mainland Affairs Council Deputy Minister Shen You-chung (沈有忠) said. China is scheduled to stage the parade on Wednesday next week to mark the 80th anniversary of Japan’s surrender in World War II. The event is expected to mobilize tens of thousands of participants and prominently showcase China’s military hardware. Speaking at a symposium in Taichung on Thursday, Shen said that Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi (王毅) recently met with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi during a visit to New Delhi.
FINANCES: The KMT plan to halt pension cuts could bankrupt the pension fund years earlier, undermining intergenerational fairness, a Ministry of Civil Service report said The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) caucus’ proposal to amend the law to halt pension cuts for civil servants, teachers and military personnel could accelerate the depletion of the Public Service Pension Fund by four to five years, a Ministry of Civil Service report said. Legislative Speaker Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜) on Aug. 14 said that the Act Governing Civil Servants’ Retirement, Discharge and Pensions (公務人員退休資遣撫卹法) should be amended, adding that changes could begin as soon as after Saturday’s recall and referendum. In a written report to the Legislative Yuan, the ministry said that the fund already faces a severe imbalance between revenue
RSS