I’ve perused through most of the posts here and haven’t really seen concrete info on ABC/CBC’s etc… obtaining Taiwanese citizenship/ID. The thread on blood lineage got a little off track.
Is it easier for us? Meaning less paperwork and not having to renounce country of citizenship. I have no ancestral/maternal/paternal ties to Taiwan whatsoever .
Can we in fact obtain dual citizenship? I’d like my cake and eat it too you see.
[quote=“hakkaboy”]
Is it easier for us? Meaning less paper work and not having to renounce country of citizenship. I have no ancestral/maternal/paternal ties to Taiwan whatsoever .
Can we in fact obtain dual citizenship? I’d like my cake and eat it too you see.[/quote]
The necessary and sufficient condition is that your father, grandfather, or great grandfather was, or has been an ROC citizen (having a ID number) AND has a residency record in the “free region” of ROC. Mainly claiming that you have Chinese/Taiwanese/Aboriginal blood won’t make you an ROC citizen. It also means that if you don’t even have a Chinese surname then you can pretty much forget about it.
Isn’t it true that if a foreign guy marries a Taiwanese woman, he still can’t get Taiwanese citizenship, not even if their child was born in Taiwan?
I think the government should allow foreigners(those who work and live here legally for say, 4 years) to obtain Taiwanese citizenship more easily. But the problem is most Taiwanese people can care less about the rights of foreigners.(quite opposite to the popularity and perks foreigners think they get)
The funny thing is, almost all the politicians seem to argue that Taiwan is a “multi-cultural” society, as if they know what that means.
Bollocks mate. Please read thru some of the posts by people like myself who are white guys who have become ROC citizens.
Marriage to an ROC national is not a pre-requesisite to becoming an ROC national.
4 of the white guys I have helped were not married when becoming ROC natioanals. I was also not married at the time either although I had been married to an ROC national.
There is a period of legal residence to meet then you can apply. The requirement now is 5 years I believe. It was 7 when I applied ten years ago.
When you become an ROC national you are no longer a foreigner so don’t need to get all hung up about foriegner rights yada yada yada.
Not that foreigners are so restricted here in what they can and can’t do nowadays anyways.
If you become a ROC citizen doesn’t that mean you have to serve in the army as well? why would anyone want that? can you imagine being a private in an army full of people who don’t understand you?
No. I didnt server in the Army, neither did Cooling Tower or Gov Attache and we are all white males with ROC nationality.
However many women also become ROC citizens are they are not drafted anyways.
As for being in an Army where the people don’t understand you Paogao has written a book on that.
Of course being a private in an army full of people who don’t understand you would mean that the one with the communication problem is you and not the rest of the army. But marchng can be learnt pretty easily.
[quote=“Yellow Cartman”][quote=“hakkaboy”]
Is it easier for us? Meaning less paper work and not having to renounce country of citizenship. I have no ancestral/maternal/paternal ties to Taiwan whatsoever .
Can we in fact obtain dual citizenship? I’d like my cake and eat it too you see.[/quote]
Sorry, in your case, you are SOL.[/quote]
In general, I think that you’re “SOL” as Yellow Cartman puts it. However, if your father is a current holder of ROC citizenship, even if he has never set foot in Taiwan, then you are eligible. This may happen if your father left what is currently the PRC before the communists took power. Or it may mean your father grew up in the Fujian Province portion of the modern day ROC (i.e. Jinmen/Kinmen, Mazu) and has simply never traveled to Taiwan.
Who cares about ROC citizenship? If you got a US citizenship the people here will pretty much worship you. I plan to renounce mines as soon as I get citizenship from another western country like Canada or US… or if I can’t I’d just pretend I never had it…
4 of the white guys I have helped were not married when becoming ROC natioanals. I was also not married at the time either although I had been married to an ROC national…Not that foreigners are so restricted here in what they can and can’t do nowadays anyways.[/quote]
Sorry my knowledge was based on what i learned in junior high a decade ago. Things have changed. I did read through some of other threads in this forum right after I posted. I realized I was wrong in many ways. eg. A child of a Taiwanese woman and a foreign man has all the rights. But I was curious, why the word “national” kept popping up. Then I checked “National Act” …It says in “Article 10” that once you become a ROC national, you have to wait 10 YEARS before you can vote or hold government positions! WTF?
This is what Taiwanese think: “Foreigners don’t care about suffrage. Why would they? They either barely know enough Chinese or don’t have a loyalty to this country anyway. Besides, obviously we can’t let those Chinese brides vote. They should be satisfied with ROC NATIONAL”
I guess if you guys’ aren’t complaining… it’s none of my business.
I think you need to read that again. It doesn’t say anything about voting, and I’ve heard that Satellite TV has voted after being naturalized. It does prevent a naturalized citizen from holding high level government positions, which is unfortunate, but low level offices are open to naturalized citizens.
[quote=“hakkaboy”]I’ve perused through most of the posts here and haven’t really seen concrete info on ABC/CBC’s etc… obtaining Taiwanese citizenship/ID. The thread on blood lineage got a little off track.
Is it easier for us? Meaning less paperwork and not having to renounce country of citizenship. I have no ancestral/maternal/paternal ties to Taiwan whatsoever .
Can we in fact obtain dual citizenship? I’d like my cake and eat it too you see.[/quote]
Looking at the last post by jinhong on this topic:
This confirms what I read at tecoboston.org/passport_eng.html - which states that people from mainland China, Hong Kong, or Macao who have moved overseas can get ROC Overseas Passports.
Here is the relevant part of Article 19 of the Enforcement Rules of the Passport Act (I think this is what jinhong is refering to as “Section 19 of the Passport Regulations”):
Here is relevant part of Section 4 of the Hong Kong/Macao Relationship Act:
So jinhong lost out because holding the Canadian Passport meant that jinhong did not fit the technical, legal definition of a Hong Kong Resident. Blargh.
Anyways, from Article 19 and Article 4 I can determine that the only ABCs/CBCs/etc who are eligible to hold ROC Overseas passports are those whose parents are from Hong Kong or Macao. Furthermore, it is not entirely clear here, but it seems reasonable to assume that the parents must have been PRC nationals who only held a passport issued by Hong Kong/Macao when the ABC/CBC was born.
ABCs and CBCs who meet the above requires are eligible for ROC overseas passports. Interestingly, ABCs and CBCs who are from the mainland are NOT eligible for ROC Overseas passports - if your connection is through the mainland then you have to be from the Mainland Area (born there). No provision is made for overseas children of ethnic chinese from the mainland area, as seen in Article 18 of the Enforcement Rules of the Passport Act.
An ABC/CBC who gets an Overseas Passport still needs to get the Taiwan Area Residence Certificate in order to get permission to stay in Taiwan for one year. This looks significantly more difficult to obtain if one does not have immediate relatives with household registration in Taiwan (but on the other hand is easily obtained if one has immediate relatives with household registration in Taiwan).
Once you get the TAR then enter Taiwan on the ROC Overseas Passport, and then stay for a year - you get the ID. If you were born after 1984 and are male, you also immediately get drafted because you stayed for more than 183 days in a year. If you were born before 1984 and are male, you may be able to avoid getting drafted by leaving Taiwan for one day every 3 months and 29 days until the year is up, but I am not 100% sure of that.