Plans to relax rules for Hong Kongers to gain residency in Taiwan have been put on hold due to national security concerns, an Executive Yuan source said, adding that the government is discussing plans to narrow eligibility for those who are in Taiwan seeking asylum.
The administration of President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) had planned for the Ministry of the Interior to amend the Regulations Governing Residency or Permanent Residency for People of the Hong Kong Area and the Macau Area (香港澳門居民進入臺灣地區及居留定居許可辦法) and allow white-collar Hong Kongers to be eligible for residency if they worked in Taiwan for five years, stayed in Taiwan for 183 days in each of those years and earned at least twice the minimum wage by the final month of the fifth year.
However, the plans met opposition from Democratic Progressive Party lawmakers, who said that the proposed rules could lead to infiltration by Chinese agents.
The public also voiced opposition and the government put the plan on hold before it was scheduled to take effect in May, the source said in a Liberty Times (the Taipei Times’ sister paper) report yesterday.
The proposal was meant to resolve specific cases, but the proposed rules would have overgeneralized the issue and allowed all professionals with Hong Kong documentation to apply for residency in Taiwan, the source said on condition of anonymity.
With China’s pervasive efforts to infiltrate Taiwan, the proposed changes raised national security concerns, the source said.
The Mainland Affairs Council warned there were other issues to work out and suggested that national security agencies should be involved in the application process, the source said.
The council proposed that there should be a limit on how many applications would be accepted, while it warned that increasing the number of foreign professionals would affect career opportunities for Taiwanese, they said.
The council also proposed a five-year observation period, with the period starting at the date the new law is promulgated, they said.
The council suggested that each applicant should have their identity verified every year or two years, the source said.
The council believes there is an agreement that the eligibility parameters for residency should be walked back from the generalized description of “white-collar professionals,” but thus far the government has not agreed on a new definition, the source said.
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