Alleged racism in Taiwan's immigration system (2019 edition)

this is a terrible discrimination, but not a racist one, and it is a discrimination against its owe nationals too.

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Itā€™s xenophobic, whatever you want to call it.
In effect mixed kids of foreign fathers couldnā€™t become ā€˜Chineseā€™.

It is a gender discrimination rather than racial discrimination, though it is mixed with xenophobic, imo.

Itā€™s both.

This has been discussed many times. A few decades ago, anyone who was ā€œoverseas Chineseā€ (loosely defined, overseas ethnic Chinese associations were active in this) could get ROC nationality-without-citizenship (i.e. a passport without ID number). That is no longer true. These days, the main beneficiaries of that type of passport are descendants of ROC citizens (i.e. not PRC, not Malaysian Chinese, etc.). Race or ethnicity do not figure into it (anymore).

If someone wanted to mount a legal challenge to the current system (and had the money to do so), the way to do it might be to get someone to naturalize using the normal routeā€“but then sue the government prior to renouncing (these days one renounces the existing citizenship after ROC naturalization rather than before), on the basis that requiring new nationals, but not existing nationals, to renounce former citizenships violates the clause of the ROC constitution which states that all citizens / nationals must be treated equally.

Another route would be to sue on the basis of religious discrimination, since clergy from certain hierarchical, male-dominated religions have received a disproportionate number of exemptions from the renunciation requirement. (I donā€™t think there is anything specifically about religious discrimination in the law, but it would seem again to violate the principle that all ROC citizens / nationals are equal under the law.)

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I thought ROC nationals (rather than citizens) do not have to serve in the military right? I mean NWOHR term is somewhat ambiguous to me because by definition any normal Taiwanese loses their HR if they have left Taiwan for more than 2 years (which is why many immigrants come back once a year or so to maintain their NHI benefits, and gov. workers do the same to maintain their pension too), but they regain their HR as soon as they come back to Taiwan (once they register the address they live in). Makes sense because if I was of military age and I want to avoid the draft, I could just stay out of Taiwan for 2 years or more and not reestablish my HR when I come back. Clearly this doesnā€™t work because any Taiwanese citizen who comes back when they are of military age (older than 15) are denied exit once they come in, regardless of what other citizenship they hold.

FYI NWOHR does not have to serve in the military. So if you want to petition NWOHR or nationals to have the same rights and privileges of a Taiwanese citizen, you should suck it up and be drafted too. Just like American citizens have jury dutiesā€¦

Taiwan is practically abolishing the draft and doesnā€™t require for over 35s or whatever ageā€¦But yeah nobody requires special treatment. Just no double standards.
Draft and Jury duties being comparedā€¦Thanks for the lolz.
You got your two passports . Iā€™ve been paying taxes and working here for almost twenty years and they wonā€™t let me do the same.

Double standards
https://www.scmp.com/news/china/article/1200497/marriage-mas-eldest-daughter-stirs-security-and-privacy-uproar

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Iā€™m curious, if you donā€™t mind me asking. You said you became a national but gave it up. What caused you to do so?

And that gender discrimination was norm in before and in much of the 20th century. Iā€™m sure most countries had patrilineal citizenship laws before they reformed it sometime in the past 30 or so years.

Forcing me to give up original citizenship within one year, also travel restrictions, cannot exit Taiwan for at least one year or a very short period in two years. So how do I survive if I need to travel for work ? In practice you only have one year to show proof you abandoned original citizenship upon becoming a national . While you are a national they give you a crappy passport that you canā€™t do anything with, doesnā€™t even have an ID number. They want you to hang around as a second class person for no reason other than you applied for citizenship lol.

Incredible double standards for a country that has 100,000s foreign passport holders, enthusiastically embraces foreign birth tourism and supported by US government (without which it wouldnā€™t exist).

I donā€™t like this xenophobic system but if I was American Iā€™d be really pissed at it .

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Some countries, but far from ā€˜mostā€™.

Yes, I find it strange they will need you to go through another process of being on a TARC after naturalising and staying for a year before getting household registration. Itā€™s something I only found out reading through some of the topics here, and I agree itā€™s really wrong, why put them on the same starting as a ROC national by descent who has not stayed in Taiwan before.

Iā€™ll have to differ with you on this point though, IMO, weā€™ll probably find most countries would had been amended their citizenship laws in the past to allow for mothers to transmit their citizenship to their children.

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the residence requirement for naturalized nationals to get household registration is the same with ROC nationals by descent who cannot be directly added to ancestors HHR. The difference is the requirement of giving up ones original passport.

Never mind

iiuc, it means spouses from mainland China, Hong Kong and Macao are not foreigners, but are treated in the same way with foreign spouses. Is it a racist policy?

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Never mind

no, they are not foreigners, so they cannot do naturalization.

It doesnā€™t state if they have become citizens or not.

Anyway itā€™s another example of special treatment for these immigrants and not other immigrants paying their taxes and raising families.

Immigrants

spouses from mainland China, HK and Macau are treated in almost the same way with spouses from foreign countries, as stated.