How to get Taiwan Citizenship - Primer, FAQ, and Resources

llary · January 5, 2012, 2:29pm

So I still have no confirmation that anybody received my application for renunciation, and the Taipei pseudo embassy will not issue a receipt or proof that it was sent out.

I have a personal Visa card that I hardly ever use because for most things I use the company card or amex. The UK home office don’t accept amex so I used the Visa.

A few nights ago while I was on holiday my bank called to confirm whether a purchase of iPhone apps was fraudulent (I don’t have an iPhone).

Nobody will give me a straight answer about where the application is or my notarized documents, so I assume they are lost and no department is willing to take the blame. What a shitty government.

bismarck · January 5, 2012, 4:50pm

I feel your pain, mate. I had the same story from the Saffas. How many weeks have you been waiting now?I finally feel like I’m in the final stretch. Six months to go. It’s going to be an interesting year, 2012.

Wish you the best and hope it comes through soon.

bismarck · February 7, 2012, 4:39am

Getting closer now, just over five months (164 days) to go. Can’t wait to get this over with.

Omniloquacious · February 7, 2012, 5:01am

What a dismal situation, Ilary. And it deepens my foreboding about taking the next step in my own naturalization process.

I took it as far as getting the renunciation certificate 3 years ago, but put it on hold while I pushed for a revision of the renunciation provisions of the law. That came to nothing, as I reported here. But then I was too busy to go to the UK trade office for the next step, and let the 2-year validity of the renunciation certificate slip by. Now I’m thinking about getting another renunciation certificate (which I assume shouldn’t present any problems) and going ahead with the renunciation application.

I have a couple of questions about that, if I may ask you? I’ve already translated the old certificate into English, but haven’t got the translation notarized. Am I right to suppose that you were required to present a notarized translation? Did it require any other kind of formalization? And does the UK trade office still accept and forward the application to the Home Office? They did when I inquired about it 3 years ago, but I’m wondering if that’s changed since they’ve been shedding other consular services, such as forwarding passport applications.

[quote=“llary”]British nationality is passed on as long as the father or mother was British at the time of birth.

Honestly though I don’t think it’s a big deal if they do or don’t have it.[/quote]

I tend to agree with that. I can’t see myself applying for restoration of my British citizenship if and when I do finally succeed in renouncing it.

speed_maniac · February 7, 2012, 8:37am

ha ha, yup this will be, by far, one of the longest years of your life! I cannot belive, that it will be nearly 2 years since I got my ID card.

bismarck · February 7, 2012, 3:19pm

ha ha, yup this will be, by far, one of the longest years of your life! I cannot belive, that it will be nearly 2 years since I got my ID card.[/quote]
Amazing how time flies after you get it, right?

Satellite_TV · February 7, 2012, 4:50pm

ha ha, yup this will be, by far, one of the longest years of your life! I cannot belive, that it will be nearly 2 years since I got my ID card.[/quote]
Amazing how time flies after you get it, right?[/quote]

A dozen years for me already

A-ha · March 9, 2012, 2:37pm

Here is a question for all of you who recently received your Taiwan IDs:

Is the one year waiting period counted from the date on your citizen/naturalization certificate or from the date on the TARC?
After the 1 year wait, you need to do and application for a “Registered Permanent Residency Certificate” at the NIA. Will they notify you to come and do it (and your medical, etc) or do you just check the calendar and go when it is time? (See question 1)

Just wondering…

bismarck · March 10, 2012, 3:52am

[quote=“A-ha”]Here is a question for all of you who recently received your Taiwan IDs:

Is the one year waiting period counted from the date on your citizen/naturalization certificate or from the date on the TARC?
After the 1 year wait, you need to do and application for a “Registered Permanent Residency Certificate” at the NIA. Will they notify you to come and do it (and your medical, etc) or do you just check the calendar and go when it is time? (See question 1)

Just wondering… [/quote]
From my chat with the NIA guys, you won’t be notified because your TARC is valid for three years. If you don’t apply in that time, you may get a notification to renew your TARC after 3 years. You need to take note of the date of issue on your TARC, or when they first issued it to you. I lost my wallet and had to get everything. including my TARC, replaced. Now, the date of issue on my TARC is 16 August. I flipped when I saw that, but the NIA guys told me I just need to remember my original date of issue (20 July - that’s how it is in the system) and can apply from that date, unless I’ve left the country during the year.

A-ha · March 11, 2012, 6:29am

Thanks!

bismarck · March 11, 2012, 9:31am

No worries. But I’d still check with your guys and see if there are any regional discrepancies. One never knows with these things.

Pioneer_Kuro · March 12, 2012, 12:31am

[quote=“A-ha”]Here is a question for all of you who recently received your Taiwan IDs:

Is the one year waiting period counted from the date on your citizen/naturalization certificate or from the date on the TARC?
After the 1 year wait, you need to do and application for a “Registered Permanent Residency Certificate” at the NIA. Will they notify you to come and do it (and your medical, etc) or do you just check the calendar and go when it is time? (See question 1)

Just wondering… [/quote]
1.The year starts from the date on the TARC.
2.You will not get a notification from the NIA. Keep your medical certificate handy when you go to the NIA.

A-ha · March 12, 2012, 1:43pm

[quote=“Pioneer Kuro”][quote=“A-ha”]Here is a question for all of you who recently received your Taiwan IDs:

Is the one year waiting period counted from the date on your citizen/naturalization certificate or from the date on the TARC?
After the 1 year wait, you need to do and application for a “Registered Permanent Residency Certificate” at the NIA. Will they notify you to come and do it (and your medical, etc) or do you just check the calendar and go when it is time? (See question 1)

Just wondering… [/quote]
1.The year starts from the date on the TARC.
2.You will not get a notification from the NIA. Keep your medical certificate handy when you go to the NIA.[/quote]

Thanks for the info. I asked because the info on the flow chart given by the HHRO states “one year from the date of naturalization” which is the date on my certificate…and that pre-dates my TARC by a whole 3 weeks…meaning going somewhere for the summer vacation or staying put for another 6 months until the NEXT winter vacation. Oh well… :neutral:

Northcoast_Surfer · April 30, 2012, 8:50am

[color=#FF0000]
IMPORTANT DEVELOPMENTS
[/color]

According to the M.O.I., if you leave Taiwan ANY TIME AFTER you receive your Candidature Certificate, you MUST do another criminal record check from your home country. :loco: Really. No shit.

Case in point: US citizen

He applies for naturalization at his local HHRO. Language exam 100%, residency requirements met, monetary requirements met, health requirements met, Taiwan CCRD passed, FBI criminal record check passed, etc. etc. ad nauseum!
He is approved by the M.O.I. for candidature and receives his happy lappy Candidature Certificate which states that he’s got 2 years from the Candidature Certificate date in which to renounce his US citizenship, return to the HHRO with the official renunciation document to “complete” the naturalization process. Not really complete because as we all know too well that just turns into the STUPID T.A.R.C. prison sentence. But anyway, I digress…
He is invited to Malaysia to play golf in an invitational tournament. So, before he goes to the AIT to renounce his citizenship, he takes a three day trip to Malaysia to play in this tournament. He then returns to Taiwan.
He goes to the AIT, and jumps through ALL the rings of fire and renounces his US citizenship. He gets the renunciation certificate all authenticated and chopped and stamped and legalized and etc. etc. etc. ad nauseum! He’s stateless at this time. No citizenship.
He goes back to the NIA in Banqiao to get an updated Certificate of Residency and then with both the renunciation document and the Certificate of Residency heads back to his local HHRO to submit the “final” package with new pictures and the postal money order, etc. etc. HHRO accepted his package and told him the wait would be about one month until he receives his approval certificate with which he will need to head back to the Banqiao NIA to begin the T.A.R.C. period.
Two weeks elapse by and today 4-30-2012 he gets a phone call from the HHRO who tells him that the M.O.I. has said that because he left Taiwan for those three days to play golf that he now needs to provide a new US FBI background check in order for them to process his paperwork! You see, their reasoning is that he was still a US citizen at the time he traveled to Malaysia and hadn’t renounced US citizenship, yet. Are you fucking kidding me!?!?!??!?!

So, here we have John Q [color=#FF0000]non-citizen[/color] of any frickin’ country who did everything he was told and now is told that he needs to provide yet another FBI background check because he left Taiwan after he received his Candidature Certificate. WTF!?!?! :fume:

I’m in the process of doing another FBI background check right now which of course as we all know is a MAJOR TIME CONSUMING PAIN IN THE ASS!

Go to Banqiao NIA, have fingerprints taken.
DHL the FBI application with fingerprints to WADC.
Wait up to 3 months to get the completed check back.
Translate into Chinese.
Send original and translation to the TECRO in DC for authentication.
Have TECRO send it back to Taiwan.
Submit it to the HHRO who will in turn send it to those assholes in the M.O.I.

Has anyone else experienced this absolutely stupid turn of events? Has anyone else heard anything about what this former US citizen is now faced with? I mean…come on…he’s not even a US citizen anymore. [color=#FF0000]He’s a stateless individual [/color]who is about to request an FBI background check from the United States in order to satisfy the stupid Taiwanese bureaucracy! I wonder how this is going to fly.

===========================================================================================

[color=#FF0000]
So, according to the M.O.I., once you have received your Candidature Certificate you have two years from the date it was issued in which to renounce your citizenship and take the next baby steps toward citizenship. However, you MUST NOT leave Taiwan from the day you receive your Candidature Certificate or else you will be required to provide a new criminal background check from your home country! Which if done after you renounce your citizenship AIN’T YOUR COUNTRY NO MORE BECAUSE YOU’RE NOW STATELESS BITCH!!
[/color] :loco:

Omniloquacious · April 30, 2012, 12:33pm

That is just so utterly, unbelievably, imbecilically and indefensibly absurd!

It takes nonsensical bugger-you it’s-in-the-rules sticklery to a Kafkaesque level of surrealism and beyond.

But I suppose there’ll be someone coming on here to assert that it’s perfectly reasonable for Taiwan to want to protect itself against the danger that you’ve been on a criminal bender during those suspicious 3 days when you (he) departed these shores, ostensibly to play golf but when you could well have been committing serial murder, terrorist acts, piracy on the high seas, drug muling and bigamy, and that it needs to protect itself against the horrendous risk of taking a person of such heinous criminal depravity into the bosom of its citizenship.

Is Taiwanese/ROC citizenship really such a precious thing that it’s reasonable for it be made so much harder to obtain than any other citizenship on earth, and worth surrendering to such whimsical absurdity to obtain it? I’m really, really struggling to be convinced that it’s so.

Feiren · May 1, 2012, 4:18am

I think the real problem here is the lack of any accountability. The NIA/Ministry of the Interior simply make up internal rules like this on questionable authority and there is no timely, effective remedy.

I’m far from an expert on this topic but I think your friend should go back and demand to be allowed to file his application. Tell them you have a lawyer and you will appeal. Then consider filing at least an administrative appeal. It’s not really that hard. Of course by the time they act on the appeal, you will probably have the CCRD in hand and you will have not pissed them off. If you do piss them (they don’t like appeals), they may well try to find a way to make your life miserable, and they are good at finding ways.

They will do everything they can to avoid allowing you to file, because if you don’t file, they don’t have to act (‘make a disposition’). Without an official act, you have no standing to make an administrative appeal with the agency which is the prerequisite to filing an administrative action in the courts.

bismarck · May 1, 2012, 6:15am

I don’t want to be the one to piss on the rug here, but I thought we all knew this. I’m not going to go back and check now as this thread has ballooned to over 100 pages, but I’m pretty sure I even mentioned this before. This was the main reason why I didn’t leave after I got my Candidature Certificate, and also why (even though I could) haven’t applied for my Taiwanese passport yet. I just don’t want to go through the ass buggery of applying for a CRC from the Republic of Rape and Bureaucratic Inefficiency again.

I’m not saying it’s reasonable, but it is what it is. Knowing this, and knowing what it takes to get another CRC is why I haven’t left the island in four years or something. Just sayin’.

Northcoast_Surfer · May 1, 2012, 7:42am

I agree with what you’re saying. However, the US government won’t let you renounce your citizenship if you’re pending any legal action of a criminal nature. By allowing him to renounce his citizenship, the US government has attested that at the time of renunciation he had no pending criminal charges against him in the United States. If he had, his renunciation application would have been put on “legal hold” until the conclusion of the criminal case. But, Taiwanese policy fits nicely into a shoe box and any other situation that doesn’t fit nicely into the “shoebox mentality” is simply 不可能! :fume:

Omniloquacious · May 1, 2012, 8:47am

[quote=“bismarck”]I don’t want to be the one to piss on the rug here, but I thought we all knew this.

I’m not saying it’s reasonable, but it is what it is. Knowing this, and knowing what it takes to get another CRC is why I haven’t left the island in four years or something. Just sayin’. [/quote]

Oh yes, we who have subjected ourselves to this process are or should be well aware that a departure from the island will necessitate our obtaining a new clearance certificate if we make the departure prior to obtaining the certificate of candidacy. But to require this after the applicant has received his certificate of candidacy and has actually gone through with the renunciation of original citizenship goes way beyond reasonableness or meaningful purpose. It is an absolutely outrageous case of putting up troublesome obstacles just for the bloody-minded sake of doing so. What Northcoast Surfer has written in his last post makes it all the more so, since the certificate clearly cannot serve its purported purpose in any way whatsoever in his friend’s case.

However, if I were the fellow concerned, I would send a strong letter of protest to the Minister of the Interior, explaining very clearly why this requirement absolutely should not be applied in such circumstances. And if he knows any reasonably senior civil servant or politician, he could also ask them to put in a word on his behalf. It might just be enough to get the requirement dropped.

Like you, Bismarck, I have not set foot off these islands in years, largely because I do not want the hassle of having to get another police certificate from the UK. Getting one for my APRC application was bother enough. When I was applying for my certificate of candidacy, I was told that I must get another police certificate from my home country. I pointed out that I had not left Taiwan since obtaining my APRC one, so it could not possibly serve any meaningful purpose. That was not enough for the junior civil servant handling my case, who insisted that the rules required me to get another certificate. So I wrote to the Minister of the Interior, and got one of my government contacts to call the MOI about it. Sure enough, as I’d expected, the requirement was immediately dropped and the certificate of candidacy promptly issued without any further ado.

Northcoast_Surfer · May 1, 2012, 9:01am

[quote=“Omniloquacious”][quote=“bismarck”]I don’t want to be the one to piss on the rug here, but I thought we all knew this.

I’m not saying it’s reasonable, but it is what it is. Knowing this, and knowing what it takes to get another CRC is why I haven’t left the island in four years or something. Just sayin’. [/quote]

Oh yes, we who have subjected ourselves to this process are or should be well aware that a departure from the island will necessitate our obtaining a new clearance certificate if we make the departure prior to obtaining the certificate of candidacy. But to require this after the applicant has received his certificate of candidacy and has actually gone through with the renunciation of original citizenship goes way beyond reasonableness or meaningful purpose. It is an absolutely outrageous case of putting up troublesome obstacles just for the bloody-minded sake of doing so. What Northcoast Surfer has written in his last post makes it all the more so, since the certificate clearly cannot serve its purported purpose in any way whatsoever in his friend’s case.

However, if I were the fellow concerned, I would send a strong letter of protest to the Minister of the Interior, explaining very clearly why this requirement absolutely should not be applied in such circumstances. And if he knows any reasonably senior civil servant or politician, he could also ask them to put in a word on his behalf. It might just be enough to get the requirement dropped.

Like you, Bismarck, I have not set foot off these islands in years, largely because I do not want the hassle of having to get another police certificate from the UK. Getting one for my APRC application was bother enough. When I was applying for my certificate of candidacy, I was told that I must get another police certificate from my home country. I pointed out that I had not left Taiwan since obtaining my APRC one, so it could not possibly serve any meaningful purpose. That was not enough for the junior civil servant handling my case, who insisted that the rules required me to get another certificate. So I wrote to the Minister of the Interior, and got one of my government contacts to call the MOI about it. Sure enough, as I’d expected, the requirement was immediately dropped and the certificate of candidacy promptly issued without any further ado.[/quote]

I advised him to go to his HHRO and see if they will dime out the specific person at the M.O.I. who has made this crappy decision. Then, he can call the person directly and explain it and if necessary try to get the AIT involved to explain that the renunciation was granted because of no pending criminal charges and then perhaps it won’t be necessary. However, I’ve already printed out the FBI fingerprint cards and he’s gone to the NIA to roll his fingerprints today just in case. We’ll see.

My wife was less than sympathetic. After I told her the whole miserable story, she simply replied, “活該!” Nice! :roflmao: