Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Shyu Jong-shyoung (徐中雄) and several activists yesterday urged the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) and the legislature to approve a proposed amendment that would relax rules on Chinese spouses bringing children from previous marriages to live with them in Taiwan.
Shyu told a press conference that he had proposed an amendment to the Act Governing the Relations Between the Peoples of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area (兩岸人民關係條例) that would allow the children of Chinese spouses under the age of 20 to seek Taiwanese residency as a dependent.
Under current regulations, only children under the age of 12 can apply for residency as a dependent.
Shyu said his proposal would also allow Chinese spouses and their Taiwanese husband or wife to adopt the Chinese spouses’ children in China whether or not they have children in Taiwan.
Current laws only allow couples to adopt a spouse’s children in China if they do not have any children of their own in Taiwan.
Shyu said the current regulations were a violation of the human rights of Chinese spouses.
A Chinese spouse identified as Hsiao-wen (小文) said that although she had worked hard to look after her family in Taiwan, her family would never be complete without her daughter in China.
Hsiao-wen said her husband had been unable to adopt her 10-year-old daughter in China because they now have a child in Taiwan.
“I married my husband in Taiwan five years ago, but I have been separated from my child [in China] because of my remarriage,” she said.
Wang Chuan-ping (王娟萍), chairwoman of the New Immigrants Labor Rights Association, urged the government to protect the right of Chinese spouses to be with their children.
Shyu said he would forcibly push through his proposed amendment if the MAC could not propose other measures to guarantee the rights of Chinese spouses.
Actress Barbie Hsu (徐熙媛) has “returned home” to Taiwan, and there are no plans to hold a funeral for the TV star who died in Japan from influenza- induced pneumonia, her family said in a statement Wednesday night. The statement was released after local media outlets reported that Barbie Hsu’s ashes were brought back Taiwan on board a private jet, which arrived at Taipei Songshan Airport around 3 p.m. on Wednesday. To the reporters waiting at the airport, the statement issued by the family read “(we) appreciate friends working in the media for waiting in the cold weather.” “She has safely returned home.
A Vietnamese migrant worker on Thursday won the NT$12 million (US$383,590) jackpot on a scratch-off lottery ticket she bought from a lottery shop in Changhua County’s Puyan Township (埔鹽), Taiwan Lottery Co said yesterday. The lottery winner, who is in her 30s and married, said she would continue to work in Taiwan and send her winnings to her family in Vietnam to improve their life. More Taiwanese and migrant workers have flocked to the lottery shop on Sec 2 of Jhangshuei Road (彰水路) to share in the luck. The shop owner, surnamed Chen (陳), said that his shop has been open for just
Global bodies should stop excluding Taiwan for political reasons, President William Lai (賴清德) told Pope Francis in a letter, adding that he agrees war has no winners. The Vatican is one of only 12 countries to retain formal diplomatic ties with Taiwan, and Taipei has watched with concern efforts by Beijing and the Holy See to improve ties. In October, the Vatican and China extended an accord on the appointment of Catholic bishops in China for four years, pointing to a new level of trust between the two parties. Lai, writing to the pope in response to the pontiff’s message on Jan. 1’s
MUST REMAIN FREE: A Chinese takeover of Taiwan would lead to a global conflict, and if the nation blows up, the world’s factories would fall in a week, a minister said Taiwan is like Prague in 1938 facing Adolf Hitler; only if Taiwan remains free and democratic would the world be safe, Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Francois Wu (吳志中) said in an interview with Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera. The ministry on Saturday said Corriere della Sera is one of Italy’s oldest and most read newspapers, frequently covers European economic and political issues, and that Wu agreed to an interview with the paper’s senior political analyst Massimo Franco in Taipei on Jan. 3. The interview was published on Jan. 26 with the title “Taiwan like Prague in 1938 with Hitler,” the ministry