Great piece of work. Is there a Chinese translation too? This should somehow land on the desk of a Gorbatchev-type influential local politician. 
I think someone in Hsiao Bi-khim’s office translated the key points, for use in helping persuade other legislators to support the cause.
There’s 37 co-sponsors of the bill. That doesn’t guarantee all 37 would vote for it but it seems probable because the details of the bill are so short and straightforward, the co-signers would surely have understood what they were signing. In theory that would mean 21 more, but since the LFY is short a few seats this session with 110 seats taken, 56 votes will pass a law, that means just 19 more. Personally, I don’t think a “Repeal Article 9” bill would meet much resistance on the floor and should pass easily. The “Repeal Articles 9 and 10” bill would be harder to pass, and IMO was an overreach. Either way, that’s basically irrelevant since now we’re waiting for them to get discussed in committee and for the inevitable back-and-forth with the Executive Yuan. They’ll be discussed together when they do come up, which should be sooner now that both sides have sent almost the exact same bill to the committee, and the KMTs version only made it through 6 weeks ago. Best case scenario, DPP members in the Internal Affairs Committee can persuade the other members to support repealing both articles and that recommendation gets sent to the floor soon (in the first half of next year). With KMT submitting their own bill, it seems possible as they like to push bills through quickly. Also, it could be that the “9 only” bill is KMT’s response to the “9 & 10” bill, which might explain why they didn’t bring it up in committee over the last 18 months. Worst case scenario, it gets pushed another session or two and comes back without repealing Article 10, but in that case it would easily pass the 2nd and 3rd readings. Article 10 isn’t a huge deal, and Article 9 is really the meat and potatoes of the issue. We can work on Article 10 after we’re citizens!
To sum all that nonsense up: I think it’s a good bet to say that the renunciation requirement will be lifted before the end of this Legislative Yuan (end of 2016). If you’re thinking about renouncing to get Taiwanese citizenship: wait.
Great piece of work. Is there a Chinese translation too? This should somehow land on the desk of a Gorbatchev-type influential local politician. [/quote]
Again, a large part of the FAQ on this website is based on that article. I personally prefer it as an FAQ, but if anyone wants to translate the full text as is, I would gladly put it up on the site.
Well done, greves. Keep up the good work. Maybe, just maybe, our host lawmakers will be prompted to do the right thing at last. I won’t be holding my breath for it, but I will be nursing a small ray of hope.
Let’s also keep our fingers crossed that the change of premier and cabinet members will not bring progress to a shuddering halt.
If they are afraid of too many foreigners becoming ROC nationals, why don’t they just set the bar real high in their apparently long lasting evaluation process? I wonder what kind of question they will ask you.
Is Paogao still frequenting this board? He should know. 
I do think they need to change the language & government test. Significantly. It really shouldn’t be an unreasonable request to say that a citizen of a given country should be able to explain the basic workings of the government in the language spoken in that country, and for applicants to express things like why they want to become a citizen. Writing should not be required (from a linguists perspective, at least). The US test is oral, and the respondent must actually answer the questions asked, not choose an answer from a bank.
Well, there are many ways around the test. If you have studied here, you are extempt. It seems that my old Mandarin Training Centre sessions might prove useful eventually.
They prefer multiple choice here, and that’s likely because it’s easy to grade, and it is easy to pass if you just sit down and cram it.
[quote=“hannes”]If they are afraid of too many foreigners becoming ROC nationals, why don’t they just set the bar real high in their apparently long lasting evaluation process? I wonder what kind of question they will ask you.
Is Poagao still frequenting this board? He should know. [/quote]
It’s been at least two decades since I became a citizen, Hannes. Even if I could remember the details, I’m not sure they’d be entirely applicable in this day and age. And while I could have regained my U.S. citizenship in that time, I’ve chosen not to do so for various reasons.
[quote=“Poagao”][quote=“hannes”]If they are afraid of too many foreigners becoming ROC nationals, why don’t they just set the bar real high in their apparently long lasting evaluation process? I wonder what kind of question they will ask you.
Is Poagao still frequenting this board? He should know. [/quote]
It’s been at least two decades since I became a citizen, Hannes. Even if I could remember the details, I’m not sure they’d be entirely applicable in this day and age. And while I could have regained my U.S. citizenship in that time, I’ve chosen not to do so for various reasons.[/quote]
I wonder how people react when a foreigner-turned-citizen goes to a polling station to vote. I could imagine someone telling you, in broken English, “You no vote here, OK OK?” 
[quote=“hannes”][quote=“Poagao”][quote=“hannes”]If they are afraid of too many foreigners becoming ROC nationals, why don’t they just set the bar real high in their apparently long lasting evaluation process? I wonder what kind of question they will ask you.
Is Poagao still frequenting this board? He should know. [/quote]
It’s been at least two decades since I became a citizen, Hannes. Even if I could remember the details, I’m not sure they’d be entirely applicable in this day and age. And while I could have regained my U.S. citizenship in that time, I’ve chosen not to do so for various reasons.[/quote]
I wonder how people react when a foreigner-turned-citizen goes to a polling station to vote. I could imagine someone telling you, in broken English, “You no vote here, OK OK?” [/quote]
That’s never happened to me. It’s always been a very standard, by-the-book process, not just with voting but with most bureaucratic stuff like banks, etc. But then again, I just act normal, and if I’m not making a big deal about it, why should they? I don’t tend to go around shoving my ID card in people’s faces and making bets in expat-filled bars; in fact, if there’s no reason to mention it, I don’t. If I’ve learned one thing after over two decades as a national, it’s that being Taiwanese is not just about a piece of laminated plastic in your wallet.
Poagao, I’d love it if you opened a Q&A thread in this forum about what it’s like being a citizen. I expect Taiwanese people are reasonably accepting of it, but when you use a Taiwan passport to enter other (particularly Western) countries, do you get looks of disbelief?
Most of the time, no particular reaction. Once in LA in 1999 the immigration guy mentioned that now he’d seen everything, but other than that, on subsequent trips to the US, the UK, Japan, France, Spain, China, South Korea, Laos, Malaysia, Singapore, Dubai, Oman and Jordan, nothing worth mentioning.
But I’m going off topic, and others should probably bring the thread back.
I an appreciate that, however one question there is about your original goal - was that to become Taiwanese or ROC citizen. That would be 2 rather different things I would think.
Yes, different things though intertwined at points. As they say on Facebook: “It’s complicated.”
How would mandatory military service be handled, if dual citizenship could be attained, I wonder? Or is Taiwan going to have a professional army soon? Not sure what the latest is on that front. Would there be an age limit, like, older then 40, not need to do that anymore kind of thing?
This doesn’t necessarily have to change. Dual citizens who live in Taiwan have to perform military service, and those who naturalize in Taiwan (like Poagao) also have to perform military service. So it’s perfectly reasonable for a foreigner who naturalizes in Taiwan into dual citizenship to still have to perform military service.
I don’t remember. I thought that they were still going with it, but the date had been pushed back a few times, and even after it was implemented there’d still be some mandatory military “training” or something required of all eligible males (but for a shorter time period).
That’s a good question. If I recall correctly, an unenforceable US law states that any US citizen who serves in a foreign military or takes a foreign government post automatically loses American citizenship. While obviously they can’t possibly make that happen, it would certainly concern me.
Actually, they are already incompatible. There are some cases where Taiwan say someone is still a Chinese national and mainland resident even though the PRC has already recognized that person’s renunciation of PRC nationality. (See Lord Lucan’s wife for an example.)
I really like this idea. Considering current state of affairs in US politics, I can easily see the GOP including a measure for this in order to sway some pro-business Democrats into supporting their immigration bill to counter the President’s recent unilateral executive actions, for example.
This is correct.
This is wrong. A person born in Hong Kong today who is born with Chinese nationality only, can still move abroad and obtain a foreign nationality while keeping Chinese nationality.
This is complicated. My understanding of this is that it has to do with the specific legal technicalities that make the HK interpretation possible. Basically, in cases where an HKer has dual citizenship, the foreign citizenship is not recognized. This circumvents the rule requiring the automatic loss of Chinese nationality - you can’t lose CHinese nationality if the foreign citizenship is not recognized! The foreign passport is, by HK law, only allowed to be used as proof of foreign right of abode and a foreign travel document, but it explicitly is not allowed to be used as proof of foreign citizenship without a declaration of change of nationality (which is a specific form that you fill out at HK ImmD). Basically, since they can’t recognize the foreign citizenships, a law involving possession of multiple citizenships wouldn’t cover anybody.
To resolve this ridiculous situation, the laws go one status down and talk about right of abode instead of citizenship. But anyone who has a citizenship from a country can be implied to have a right of abode there too. This is why the rule in HK about the HK Chief Executive says that the CE can’t hold foreign right of abode - this is meant to stop the CE from holding dual citizenship.
Agreed. Supposedly this was done to prevent the need of residents in HK from having to trace there genealogy back to the day HK became a british colony in order to prove that their ancestors had Chinese (or more accurately Qing dynasty) nationality.
Well, the regulations exist to deal with the post-handover business, but it’s also an ongoing policy. A lot of eligible people did not make an application until they moved back to HK, which might be many years after the handover. (Some might have been taking a wait-and-see attitude, others might have not intended to come back but changed their minds when life circumstances changed unexpectedly.) So the rules dealing with the handover transition can’t really be taken off the books until all those eligible have all passed away.
Do you have any evidence of indirect influence, or is this just your personal opinion?
I argue that the ROC nationality law is already more liberal than the HK interpretation. Here’s why:
For Hong Kong, if children are born overseas while their parents are settled abroad (either dual citizenship or a green card) and they also receive foreign nationality at birth, then they’re born foreigners only. Taiwan lets them have dual citizenship.
Hong Kong strictly requires that you renounce your former nationality to naturalize. Unlike Taiwan, which lets you off the hook if you are willing but unable to renounce, Hong Kong strictly forbids this. If you want to naturalize in Hong Kong but are from a country that won’t let you renounce, period, then you’re just out of luck.
I agree, they are very similar in some ways. Both generally require foreigners to renounce their former nationality to naturalize, and both generally permit dual citizenship. (In Hong Kong’s case, it’s permitted but not recognized, whereas in Taiwan it seems it is recognized outright.)
But they do have substantial differences as well. The HK interpretation of PRC nationality law is not completely compatible with the ROC nationality law.
No one has been naturalized in mainland China since the first PRC nationality law in 1980. I think that I read somewhere online that some public security bureaus were now accepting applications for naturalization, though… but this was very recent. (Like this year.)
I don’t see how it follows that, just because Taiwan and HK’s nationality stuff happen to be similar, that it necessarily means that Beijing has a lot of influence over changes to Taiwan’s ROC nationality law.
This isn’t quite right. That rule only applies if the person took a high ranking military or political position (e.g. a general in charge of military policy, or the president of a country).
Even then, the rule only applies if the position was taken voluntarily, so being conscripted would never trigger it. (Can you imagine being conscripted to being an army general though? What a bizarre idea.)
In practice, this rule is not actively enforced… a person who actually did violate the rule would probably be able to retain US nationality unless that individual went to a US consulate/embassy and filed out a Certificate of Loss of Nationality there.