The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) said yesterday that Taiwan's representative to Brazil Chou Shu-yeh (周叔夜), who has permanent residency in the South American country, tendered his resignation a few days ago.
“Three of the MOFA’s diplomatic representatives have permanent residency in foreign countries. They are the representatives to Japan, Brazil and Bahrain,” ministry spokeswoman Phoebe Yeh (葉非比) said at a regular press briefing.
A report in the Chinese-language United Daily News said that an investigation by the Central Personnel Administration found that about 30 of the approximately 1,000 diplomatic officials posted overseas have permanent foreign residency status.
However, that number includes not only ministry personnel, but also public servants posted overseas by other government agencies, Yeh said.
She said the ministry has approximately 650 employees assigned overseas, and none of them hold dual citizenship. Only one political appointee, representative to Switzerland George Liu (劉寬平), has US citizenship, she said.
The report also stated that the Central Personnel Administration will keep a record of public officials who have permanent residency in foreign countries, but would not ask them to renounce their status.
President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) administration has come under fire from the opposition over the foreign residency issue, with some legislators questioning the loyalty of officials who hold foreign residency status.
The issue came under the spotlight after Minister of Foreign Affairs Francisco Ou (歐鴻鍊) apologized for obtaining a US green card in 2005 when he was serving as the nation’s ambassador to Guatemala. He said he had officially given up his green card one month before assuming his current position on May 20.
Democratic Progressive Party lawmakers have, however, come to the defense of the former representative to Japan, Koh Se-kai (�?�), arguing that Koh had no choice but to apply for permanent residency in Japan because he was blacklisted by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) government for more than 30 years and stripped of his passport because of his pro-independence remarks.
China has reserved offshore airspace in the Yellow Sea and East China Sea from March 27 to May 6, issuing alerts usually used to warn of military exercises, although no such exercises have been announced, the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported yesterday. Reserving such a large area for 40 days without explanation is an “unusual step,” as military exercises normally only last a few days, the paper said. These alerts, known as Notice to Air Missions (Notams), “are intended to inform pilots and aviation authorities of temporary airspace hazards or restrictions,” the article said. The airspace reserved in the alert is
NAMING SPAT: The foreign ministry called on Denmark to propose an acceptable solution to the erroneous nationality used for Taiwanese on residence permits Taiwan has revoked some privileges for Danish diplomatic staff over a Danish permit that lists “Taiwan” as “China,” Eric Huang (黃鈞耀), head of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ Department of European Affairs, told a news conference in Taipei yesterday. Reporters asked Huang whether the Danish government had responded to the ministry’s request that it correct the nationality on Danish residence permits of Taiwanese, which has been listed as “China” since 2024. Taiwan’s representative office in Denmark continues to communicate with the Danish government, and the ministry has revoked some privileges previously granted to Danish representatives in Taiwan and would continue to review
More than 6,000 Taiwanese students have participated in exchange programs in China over the past two years, despite the Mainland Affairs Council’s (MAC) “orange light” travel advisory, government records showed. The MAC’s publicly available registry showed that Taiwanese college and university students who went on exchange programs across the Strait numbered 3,592 and 2,966 people respectively. The National Immigration Agency data revealed that 2,296 and 2,551 Chinese students visited Taiwan for study in the same two years. A review of the Web sites of publicly-run universities and colleges showed that Taiwanese higher education institutions continued to recruit students for Chinese educational programs without
A bipartisan group of US senators has introduced a bill to enhance cooperation with Taiwan on drone development and to reduce reliance on supply chains linked to China. The proposed Blue Skies for Taiwan Act of 2026 was introduced by Republican US senators Ted Cruz and John Curtis, and Democratic US senators Jeff Merkley and Andy Kim. The legislation seeks to ease constraints on Taiwan-US cooperation in uncrewed aerial systems (UAS), including dependence on China-sourced components, limited access to capital and regulatory barriers under US export controls, a news release issued by Cruz on Wednesday said. The bill would establish a "Blue UAS
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