Deadline nears for Taiwan’s Chinese immigrants to prove no China household registration : NPR
Chang Chih-Yuan when he was a child, with his Taiwanese mother and father, while they still lived in China.
Chang Chih-Yuan
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Chang Chih-Yuan
TAIPIEI, TAIWAN – The clock ticks around 12,000 Chinese immigrants in Taiwan, who so far as to prove on Monday that they abandoned their household recording in China. The fact of not respecting the deadline could mean the loss of residence rights, according to the Taiwan government – and a possible expulsion.
The Taiwan Continental Affairs Council announced the deadline from June 30 to April in the midst of a wave of national security measures after President Lai Ching-Te called China as “hostile foreign force”. Lai’s administration wants to strengthen the defenses against Chinese influence, but many immigrants fear that this can have a personal cost.
Chang Chih-Yuan, a 34-year-old shoe creator, was born in China from a Chinese mother and a Taiwanese father, and arrived in Taiwan at the age of four. Since then, he has lived in Taiwan, serving five years in the army.
On April 8, Chang’s mother received a letter from the Taiwan national immigration agency asking her to prove that she had abandoned her household registration in China. After contacting the immigration agency, Chang said he learned that he had faced the same requirement. In Taiwan and China, the registration of a person’s households attaches their legal identity and access to public services to a specific location.
According to the Continental Affairs Council, most of the affected immigrants are women like Chang’s mother, born in China and married Taiwanese men. Some, like Chang, immigrated as a child.
The National Immigration Agency estimates that around 140,000 Chinese spouses have a permanent residence in Taiwan, a democratic and autonomous island that China claims as a territory.
After receiving the letter, Chang’s mother, who wanted to be identified by her surname Liang, said: “I cried for two days. After living in Taiwan for three decades, if my Taiwanese household recording was canceled now … Isn’t that a person without a country?” Even if she respected the deadline established by Taiwan, she asked NPR not to use her full name because she fears that Taiwan or China will refuse her residence rights in the future.
She took a month of leave to go to China and get evidence that she and her son no longer held household recording in Guangdong province. This required to submit sensitive documents such as their Taiwanese identifiers and their domestic addresses to the Chinese authorities-a risky but necessary step, she said.
At the end of May, they received confirmation from the immigration agency, their documents were accepted as proof of having abandoned the residence in China.
As of June 23, the Taiwan continental council said that nearly 5,200,000 affected immigrants had submitted proof of no Chinese residence. About 2,400 extensions requested difficulties or difficulties reported.
Lin Xuan-Yue, a graphic designer living in Taipei, is the daughter of a woman from Jiangxi, in southern China, who married a Taiwanese whom she met in Shenzhen, China, before moving to Taiwan in the late 1990s. In April, the mother of Lin received a similar letter from the immigration agency asking for her registration for Chinese household. Having lived so long in Taiwan, she didn’t know what to do. The family always discusses their options.
“I understand the intention of the government – to protect national security,” said Lin to NPR in a text message. “But the way in which this policy is implemented seems to be precipitated and deeply unfair for immigrants. My mother still has not submitted the documents. She can even be deactivated as a resident. What does that mean? That her last years are not enough – because now she has to be reassessed to see if she is to stay?”
The fan of HSIU -YU legal researcher from the National University of Taiwan notes that some immigrants may have lost important documents years ago – or see the prospect of returning to China and dealing with the authorities as a personal risk.
After the outcry, the day after its initial announcement, the Taiwan continental council announced that some immigrants unable to provide documents could submit a affidavit declaring that they do not hold Chinese household registration. But this option only applies to those who do not want to return to China, explains Fan, because such affidavits lose strength if an immigrant never returns China. She also notes that the restriction on the holding of the recording of Chinese households also applies to Taiwanese citizens of origin.
The Conseil of Continental Affairs has not specified whether it will expel those who do not respect the deadline of June 30. But fans and other legal experts claim that expulsion is a possibility for immigrants who lose residence rights in Taiwan. In a statement, the continent’s business council “calls on the parties concerned not to test the government’s determination”. Last week, he also declared that as long as immigrants who are missing the deadline of June “show a positive attitude and submit relevant needs and explanations as soon as possible”, the government will not immediately revoke its right to live in Taiwan.
The legislator of the ruling party, Huang Jie, whose committee supervises the Conseil in continental affairs, said that the elimination of the residence of immigrants “should only be used.”
The legislator of the Progressive Democratic Party Huang Jie.
Huang Jie
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Huang Jie
The Democratic Stockier of the Progressive Legislator Puma Shen explains that most of the naturalized citizens of Taiwan must abandon their home citizenship. But within the framework of the Taiwan Constitution, continental China is not treated as a completely separate country. The Constitution was adopted for the first time in 1947 by the Government of the Republic of China, which retired to Taiwan after losing the Chinese civil war and has been changed several times since.
“Under the law, we cannot ask Chinese immigrants to give up their nationality. So the closest thing we can do is ask them to give up their Chinese household registration,” said Shen. “This is risk management. I know that many love our country. But a small number are involved in spying or other activities in the name of the [Chinese Communist Party]. Our work consists in drawing a red line between these two groups. “”
Shen added that the requirement was based on a law that appears in books since 2004, but was not universally applied.
Taiwan’s opposition parties hold a majority combined in the Legislative Assembly and voted to reduce defense expenses.
“Without a majority in the Legislative Assembly, it is difficult for us to adopt new laws. So the application of existing laws is the only way to protect our national security more,” said Shen.
William Yang, analyst of the International Crisis group, says that politics probably responds to a wave of high -level spy cases discovered in March. But cases show that China’s infiltration “has already deeply reached the civil society of Taiwan,” he said, beyond Chinese immigrants to many Taiwanese of authoritarian origin at the highest levels of government and the army.
The residents of Taipei pass in front of the Arc de la Place Liberty in the district of downtown Zhongzheng in the city.
Cendré Valentin
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Cendré Valentin
“If they continue to make this campaign known, it will stigmatize these people,” he said, referring to Chinese immigrants “and, unfortunately, deepen the existing divisions in Taiwan.”
Recently, Taiwan expelled three Chinese immigrants for having published videos promoting “armed unification” with China.
Liu Jun-Liang, director of the youth defense of immigrants based in Taipei, helped dozens of Chinese immigrants on the deadline by helping them find documents and understanding government regulations. He calls on the new unjust and lacking in transparency policy, and says that it has increased the existing distrust of Chinese immigrants, “by causing crossed tensions”.
The opposition legislator KMT Chen Yu-Zhen represents Kinmen, an island a few kilometers from China and at home for many Chinese immigrants. Chen calls the new unconstitutional and illegal policy, and has received many complaints from its voters. Unlike the Taiwan power party, the KMT promotes closer links with China.
The legislative opposition KMT Chen Yu-Zhen opposes the policy of the deadline, calling it “unconstitutional and illegal”.
Ashish Valentine for NPR
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Ashish Valentine for NPR
Chen says that many immigrants have lived in Taiwan for decades, and some now refuse to comply with politics despite government warnings not to test its determination. “Many of them want to see who is the last,” she said. “They are furious.”
Chen warns that the targeting of Chinese immigrants would undermine Taiwan’s reputation for human rights in the eyes of Chinese citizens. “If people in China see that Taiwan no longer maintains these values, they may wonder if democracy is a good thing after all.”
Sharon Lin contributed to this Taipei report.
