Law a humanitarian crisis
The current situation regarding naturalization and loss of nationality in Taiwan is very clear, both according to the law and in practice: Non-nationals wishing to acquire Taiwanese nationality are required to first renounce their current nationality (Enforcement Rules of the Nationality Act, Article 8), while current nationals who acquire a foreign nationality may — but are not required to — apply to renounce their Taiwanese nationality (Nationality Act, Article 11).
In practice, the vast majority of nationals here are unaware of this discrepancy in the Nationality Act, because for the most part, Taiwanese nationals know that they can be dual nationals without losing Taiwanese nationality. However, they should be very concerned.
The act goes against the UN Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness. The 1961 convention requires that loss of nationality should be conditional upon the prior possession of another nationality. However, Taiwan’s act requires the certificate of stateless status to be submitted with the application for naturalization: A person must become stateless without prior possession of — or assurance of acquiring — another nationality.
This results in the horrible situation where a spouse who divorces during the naturalization process after having already renounced their original nationality is stuck in Taiwan as a stateless person. This is exactly what the UN Convention seeks to prevent, as people are left without the protection of any government.
There are many thousands who are forced to remain in the nation, unable to return to their country of origin; many are not even able to reunite with their families or children. Taiwan receives neither economic nor social benefits from these people and yet it is Taiwan’s own nationality law that exacerbates the problem and continues to cause undue harm and suffering.
Further, the law encourages foreigners to make decisions based on the quality of their country of origin, rather than their loyalty to Taiwan. US and European nationals who might want Taiwanese nationality refuse to apply because the price they pay is simply too high, while foreigners from less economically and socially developed countries are happy to make the switch.
According to government figures, since 1982 fewer than 30 nationals from the US and western Europe have acquired Taiwanese nationality, while more than 110,000 individuals from Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam, Philippines, Myanmar and Cambodia have renounced their nationalities to become Taiwanese.
Is this the system the nation wants? One where people choose nationality based on economic benefits, rather than loyalty to Taiwan?
Here is a proposal for amending the act: Repeal Article 9. Allow other countries to determine when and if nationality should be revoked based on the acquisition of Taiwanese nationality, the same way Taiwan protects its own nationals in Article 11. Thousands of stateless people remain stranded in Taiwan today as a result of Article 9.
Let us call on the government to repeal Article 9 and end this humanitarian crisis immediately.
Edward Greve,
New Taipei City
In their New York Times bestseller How Democracies Die, Harvard political scientists Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt said that democracies today “may die at the hands not of generals but of elected leaders. Many government efforts to subvert democracy are ‘legal,’ in the sense that they are approved by the legislature or accepted by the courts. They may even be portrayed as efforts to improve democracy — making the judiciary more efficient, combating corruption, or cleaning up the electoral process.” Moreover, the two authors observe that those who denounce such legal threats to democracy are often “dismissed as exaggerating or
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) caucus in the Legislative Yuan has made an internal decision to freeze NT$1.8 billion (US$54.7 million) of the indigenous submarine project’s NT$2 billion budget. This means that up to 90 percent of the budget cannot be utilized. It would only be accessible if the legislature agrees to lift the freeze sometime in the future. However, for Taiwan to construct its own submarines, it must rely on foreign support for several key pieces of equipment and technology. These foreign supporters would also be forced to endure significant pressure, infiltration and influence from Beijing. In other words,
“I compare the Communist Party to my mother,” sings a student at a boarding school in a Tibetan region of China’s Qinghai province. “If faith has a color,” others at a different school sing, “it would surely be Chinese red.” In a major story for the New York Times this month, Chris Buckley wrote about the forced placement of hundreds of thousands of Tibetan children in boarding schools, where many suffer physical and psychological abuse. Separating these children from their families, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) aims to substitute itself for their parents and for their religion. Buckley’s reporting is
Last week, the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP), together holding more than half of the legislative seats, cut about NT$94 billion (US$2.85 billion) from the yearly budget. The cuts include 60 percent of the government’s advertising budget, 10 percent of administrative expenses, 3 percent of the military budget, and 60 percent of the international travel, overseas education and training allowances. In addition, the two parties have proposed freezing the budgets of many ministries and departments, including NT$1.8 billion from the Ministry of National Defense’s Indigenous Defense Submarine program — 90 percent of the program’s proposed
RSS