Naturalization Citizenship/Immigration Reform Must Happen For Taiwan to Become the Hub of Asia

If Taiwan wants to achieve its goal of becoming the Silicon Valley of Asia, it desperately needs to overhaul its archaic immigration regulations, including the archaic rule that foreign nationals renounce citizenship.

Won’t happen without the locals changing their personal attitudes towards non-Taiwanese, which I don’t think is gonna happen anytime soon.

Though I agree with most points, including, yes, this reform is a necessary tool for advancement of Taiwan, not just regarding human rights but most of all, in economy -knowledge based kind mostly, I must point out that the APRC is not a requirement for nationality. You can skip APRC and hgo straight to nationality… if you renounce that is.

I would suggest to change/delete this part:

3.Permanent Residency Required: Unless you’re getting married, you must obtain an APRC to apply for citizenship in most cases. Many other countries such as Japan do not require this.

No. This is a misconception common in locals, that they think you must be married to acquire nationality. Actually, you need less money and it is less hassle to obtain nationality than an APRC.

The only thing you need to apply for nationality is time. You do the time, you can choose how to stay here.

As to locals, most do not know and hardly understand. I recently went on a tour with mostly strangers and most Taiwanese were surprised -did not know- we furriners pay and get jianbao -NHI- or even some sort of laobao. It is not in their daily experince. Unless -and even when- they deal with foreigners or have foreigners in their families, they do not even know what it entails. So they cannot support what they think should be like their cousin Bill Lee in NY. Their experinec and knowledge is limited to maybe the wailao that takes care opf ama, and hence tinted. Think of the misinformation we get from different government agencies. It simply does not register.

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^ This

In addition , Taiwanese don’t care as it’s not even on their radar. The government sees foreigners as a disposable resource so no push to help us out, plenty more where we came from. I’m even surprised we are allowed to have health care, i guess they figure most foreigners would go without private insurance and show up to the hospital without being able to pay, so best have all of us chip in.

I’m impressed with Korea though, you can go there and there is a clear path to citizenship, without having to renounce. The government decided to step up and do the fair thing.

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They are likely worried about an influx to the population of the island.

While an increase to the population would be great for the country, however resources are rather limited for an island nation.

This issue can only be addressed if they have a solution for space and resources (in my humble opinion).

At least resuming your renounced citizenship isn’t against the rules. The problem is that not all countries make it straightforward for their past citizens to resume citizenship. But most of the countries which people immigrate to Taiwan from, do.

In some cases, their views are based on accurate information, namely what was accurate before certain revisions to the law.

It is pretty amusing though, in the age of the interwebs, when a bureaucrat tells you you’re not eligible for something because you’re a foreigner, and then the supervisor tells you the same, and when you ask where they’re getting this from, the supervisor pulls out a printed copy of the law… from decades ago! :doh:

Mass immigration and granting of citizenship to foreigners is not an unalloyed good. It doesn’t seem to be working out particularly well in several Western nations right now.

There is a lot to be said for the social cohesion, safety, etc. of Taiwan.

Although I doubt there will be millions of people knocking on Taiwan’s door. Taiwan is no USA, Canada, or Australia.

The ones that would come and naturalize already have by way of marriage to Taiwanese farmers, and they have no problems renouncing since Taiwan is much better than where they came from.

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Yep but they are considered disposable wombs and hence, it is in locals`interests that they do not get nationality.

PI think Korea GETS globalization.
You might not like all those hairy foreigners or dark people but they come as part of the package.
Sealing yourself off doesn’t work too well (look at Taiwan…I’m guessing we are the ‘bad’ example these days)

Here we are dealing with a fairly insular island mentality.
There was a time there were stuff happened , Taiwan was a business hub. There were also significant numbers of Americans here.

Now we are kind of a backwater again except for computer chips or regional tourism.

Let’s face it this is a tiny island off the coast of China, if you don’t want to deal with globalization and international markets you are going to have to settle with stagnation and being an offshoot of the mainland.

Korea wants to stride the stage, Taiwan seems happy walking the back lanes.

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Nobody is talking about mass immigration.

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They aren’t worried about this,I’ve heard what, one person ever express this sentiment.

Schools in the countryisde are half empty as are the unis as are some of the towns. KAohsiungs population is actually dropping, so is Taipei city’s.

There are probably far more business people (millions of people) worried about declining economy from declining population.

Taoyuan and Taichung population is growing from internal migration.

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What makes you think that people would come if the nationality law was like more up to date?

They still won’t come in big numbers but a lot more may stick around!

If the money were like 5 times better people would naturally come then stick around.

There’s truth in that, but it’s a question of economics rather than legislation.

The thing is, who would be bothered with a Taiwanese citizenship? The welfare state barely exists and it’s not like the passport is particularly impressive.

The OP seems to be suggesting that loosening the requirements for naturalisation or making dual citizenship possible for foreigners would help make Taiwan the “Silicon Valley of Asia” (that name alone is fucking cringy). I don’t want to sound rude but please, give me a break. The economy is like as dead as it could be, even if all the rules were cancelled, no talent would come here with all those bullshit offers. Not to mention how pathetic Taiwan is for families with the laughable education and the traffic and the pollution etc. You know, the stuff posters here constantly complain about. They can’t even keep the locals from running away like refugees, let alone attract foreign talents from better-off places.:roll:

We don’t even have to go that far. How many of the posters here would be bothered with applying for a Taiwanese passport if dual citizenship was possible? How many expats residing in a regional hub, say Singapore, have even considered becoming Singaporean? I’m sure there are some, but they are few and far between, or from poor-ass countries, which makes it a human rights issue, not an economic one.

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A post was split to a new topic: From dual nationality

I would. I suspect most of the non-Taiwanese working in the different university and public school systems also would. Material logical reason: a pension. Plus, heck, I’ve lived a giant chunk of my adult life here and I mostly enjoy living here and I pay taxes and it’d sure be nice to vote.