A thorough investigation of more than 370,000 military personnel, civil servants and public-school teachers identified two people with Chinese citizenship, Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) Minister Chiu Chui-cheng (邱垂正) said on Friday.
Chiu made the remarks in an interview with the Chinese-language Liberty Times (sister paper of the Taipei Times), adding that the first stage of the investigation focused on agencies’ military personnel and civil servants and public-school teachers, and the scope would be expanded in following stages.
Taiwanese are prohibited from applying for or holding a Chinese passport, otherwise their Taiwanese citizenship would be revoked, according to the Act Governing Relations Between the People of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area (兩岸人民關係條例), he said.
Photo: Reuters
Chinese citizens are prohibited from working as military personnel, civil servants or public-school teachers, he said.
The investigation scoured the Presidential Office, the Ministry of National Defense and its affiliated units, the 52 administrative agencies of the five branches of the government and 209 public schools at all levels in the first stage, he said.
Of the 373,821 investigated people required to sign an affidavit, 371,203 people, or 99.3 percent, have complied, he said.
That demonstrated strong public support for the investigation, he said, thanking all military personnel, civil servants and public-school teachers.
Two people were found to have a Chinese ID card and 75 hold a Chinese residence permit, and the government would set up a scheme to help them annul their Chinese citizenship, he said.
Chiu warned against Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Chen Yu-jen’s (陳玉珍) and other KMT legislators’ proposal of amending the Offshore Islands Development Act (離島建設條例) to set up a “free-trade zone” in Kinmen County.
Setting up a free-trade zone in Kinmen was put forward as early as during former president Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) administration, but it has not been implemented given the implications, Chiu said.
There are concerns that such a trade zone would become a hotbed of illicit transshipment of Chinese products as the US-China tariff and trade war is escalating, he said.
To prevent Kinmen or Lienchiang (Matsu) counties from being exploited for illicit transshipment of freight or small packages, the government would need to monitor whether there is a surge in the number of packages delivered by international shipping or through the “small three links,” he said.
The “small three links” refer to commercial, transportation and postal exchanges between Taiwan’s outlying islands and China’s Fujian Province.
The MAC would discuss the issue with authorities in Kinmen and Matsu and clamp down on illicit transshipments, Chiu said, adding that the Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of Economic Affairs have tightened regulations on Chinese packages transported to the US.
A “made in Taiwan” policy is being developed to implement a series of tight checks in customs to ensure that the nation would not be exploited, he said.
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