Is coronavirus "force majeure" (不可抗力)?

[Charlie_Jack]

@Rzarobbie

Is this china sickness deemed a force majeure reason ?

Disclaimer: I don’t practice law in Taiwan, I don’t have any firsthand knowledge of this issue, and I don’t know Chinese.

All I’ve been able to find so far is a Chinese-language page with the heading,

(3/18更新)【領務重大訊息】因應全球「新型冠狀病毒肺炎」疫情持續擴大，我國將限制全球非我國籍人士入境

When I plugged the above heading into Google Translate, it translated it as follows:

(Updated 3/18) [Major consular message] In response to the continuous expansion of the global “new coronavirus pneumonia” epidemic, China will restrict the entry of non-Chinese nationals worldwide

The page contains several Frequently Asked Questions. This is Number 3:

問題3：
已入境我國的外國人可否在臺延長簽證停留期限？

答案：
除非當事人有重大不可抗力事由，否則不得延長在臺停留期限。另外，我國並未因疫情限制外籍人士出境。倘外籍人士簽證停留期限即將屆滿，則應依規定離境。

On right-clicking it, I got the following translation from Google Translate:

Question 3 :
Can foreigners who have entered our country extend their visa stay in Taiwan?

Answer : The duration of stay in Taiwan must not be extended unless the parties have a major cause of force majeure. In addition, China* has not restricted foreigners from leaving the country due to the epidemic. If the visa stay period for foreigners is about to expire, they should leave China in accordance with regulations.

I haven’t been able to find anything on the page that says one way or the other whether the government considers the coronavirus outbreak to be a force majeure, but I don’t know Chinese, so I can’t translate the page myself.

The page is located here:

https://www.boca.gov.tw/cp-56-5392-49f27-1.html

*Please note that in the above, Google Translate translated “我國” (literally, “my country”) as China, but I’m virtually certain that the press release intends it to mean either Taiwan or the Republic of China. The following post will affirm that:

Bad news about getting an APRC for dependents

Yes it does (when written by an ROC bureaucrat), and no it isn’t. TL/DR: the law does not require a prospective buxiban teacher to be from one of the Seven Kingdoms “seven countries”, but a buxiban may legitimately want a teacher to have a certain accent and so on. The MOFA decides which countries are officially English speaking (regardless of what other countries actually think).