The legislature yesterday approved two proposals to probe the nationality of all lawmakers and government officials, following recent queries by the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) over Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Diane Lee's (李慶安) US citizenship status.
The legislature resolved that information on all legislators should be submitted to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) within a week after the next plenary session ends on June 3, while allowing government agencies to submit information on all public officials within three months from June 3.
However, any legislator can also propose a reconsideration of the bill before June 3.
The proposals — one by the DPP to investigate all legislators and the other by the KMT to include all public officials — were passed after a brief closed-door negotiation session between the DPP and the KMT caucuses yesterday morning.
The two initiatives were proposed in March after the Chinese-language Next Magazine accused Lee of having US citizenship, a claim that she denied.
The KMT proposal was put forward to counteract the DPP’s initiative.
Both proposals were put forward for further cross-party negotiation in March, but the DPP caucus successfully added the two initiatives to yesterday’s plenary agenda.
Article 20 of the Nationality Act (國籍法) prohibits anyone with foreign citizenship from holding a government position.
Any lawmaker or government official found to have dual citizenship would be relieved of his or her job and forced to return his or her salary.
Lee has said she obtained permanent residency in the US in 1985 and citizenship in 1991, but gave up her US citizenship after becoming a public official.
She has also cited Section 349(A)(4) of the US Immigration and Nationality Act, saying that she had lost her citizenship when she began to serve as a public official and took an oath of allegiance in relation to the job.
If Lee were found to be a US citizen, she would be required to give back all the salary she received as a Taipei City councilor between 1994 and 1998 and as a legislator since 1998, an amount estimated to be NT$100 million (US$3.29 million).
When approached by reporters yesterday, she declined to comment on the matter further.
KMT Chairman Wu Poh-hsiung (吳伯雄) said the party believed all government personnel should be investigated.
He did not comment when asked on his way to the KMT caucus meeting if he still believed Lee.
MOFA said yesterday it had not received any official instructions from the Legislative Yuan to undertake responsibility for verifying the nationality of legislators.
However, the ministry hinted that the task would be daunting because “there are close to 200 countries in the world, each with their own set of immigration laws.”
MOFA spokeswoman Phoebe Yeh (葉非比) said that the ministry’s previous experience on seeking assistance from the US, the UK and Japan on verifying whether the presidential and vice presidential candidates possessed dual nationality showed that many nations require the consent of the individual before any investigation could take place regarding their status.
ADDITIONAL REPORTING BY JENNY W. HSU
The CIA has a message for Chinese government officials worried about their place in Chinese President Xi Jinping’s (習近平) government: Come work with us. The agency released two Mandarin-language videos on social media on Thursday inviting disgruntled officials to contact the CIA. The recruitment videos posted on YouTube and X racked up more than 5 million views combined in their first day. The outreach comes as CIA Director John Ratcliffe has vowed to boost the agency’s use of intelligence from human sources and its focus on China, which has recently targeted US officials with its own espionage operations. The videos are “aimed at
STEADFAST FRIEND: The bills encourage increased Taiwan-US engagement and address China’s distortion of UN Resolution 2758 to isolate Taiwan internationally The Presidential Office yesterday thanked the US House of Representatives for unanimously passing two Taiwan-related bills highlighting its solid support for Taiwan’s democracy and global participation, and for deepening bilateral relations. One of the bills, the Taiwan Assurance Implementation Act, requires the US Department of State to periodically review its guidelines for engagement with Taiwan, and report to the US Congress on the guidelines and plans to lift self-imposed limitations on US-Taiwan engagement. The other bill is the Taiwan International Solidarity Act, which clarifies that UN Resolution 2758 does not address the issue of the representation of Taiwan or its people in
US Indo-Pacific Commander Admiral Samuel Paparo on Friday expressed concern over the rate at which China is diversifying its military exercises, the Financial Times (FT) reported on Saturday. “The rates of change on the depth and breadth of their exercises is the one non-linear effect that I’ve seen in the last year that wakes me up at night or keeps me up at night,” Paparo was quoted by FT as saying while attending the annual Sedona Forum at the McCain Institute in Arizona. Paparo also expressed concern over the speed with which China was expanding its military. While the US
SHIFT: Taiwan’s better-than-expected first-quarter GDP and signs of weakness in the US have driven global capital back to emerging markets, the central bank head said The central bank yesterday blamed market speculation for the steep rise in the local currency, and urged exporters and financial institutions to stay calm and stop panic sell-offs to avoid hurting their own profitability. The nation’s top monetary policymaker said that it would step in, if necessary, to maintain order and stability in the foreign exchange market. The remarks came as the NT dollar yesterday closed up NT$0.919 to NT$30.145 against the US dollar in Taipei trading, after rising as high as NT$29.59 in intraday trading. The local currency has surged 5.85 percent against the greenback over the past two sessions, central
RSS