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Legislature to review
rules on Chinese spouses
By Tseng Wei-chen / Staff reporter
The Cabinet’s proposal to amend the Act Governing Relations between the People
of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area (臺灣地區與大陸地區人民關係條例) to shorten the
waiting period for immigrant spouses from China to gain a national
identification card is scheduled to be reviewed by the legislature’s Home and
Nations Committee on Thursday.
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) legislators said the amendment would protect
human rights, but Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) legislators said it was
aimed at influencing election results.
After President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) took office in 2008, the act was amended in
2009, to reduce the waiting period for Chinese spouses to gain Republic of China
(ROC) ID cards from eight years to six years.
After Ma was re-elected last year, the Cabinet said that for the sake of
“non-discrimination,” the act should be amended for Chinese spouses to have the
same treatment as immigrant spouses from other countries — a minimum four-year
waiting period to gain their ROC identification card.
KMT Legislator Johnny Chiang (江啟臣), who scheduled the proposed amendment to be
reviewed on Thursday, said the government has already signed the International
Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and the International Covenant
on Civil and Political Rights, so the nation should reconsider whether the
current regulations that were enacted in a different historical context were
still reasonable.
The Taiwan Solidarity Union (TSU) said it was concerned that the government’s
continuous efforts to reduce the waiting period is aimed at influencing the
political situation come election times, so it proposed to amend Article 21 to
stipulate Chinese spouses can only gain voting rights six years after they
obtain a ROC identification card.
There are more than 300,000 Chinese spouses in Taiwan and the number continues
to grow rapidly each year, and will soon outnumber the population of the
nation’s Aborigines, the TSU said.
However, the TSU’s proposal was boycotted by the KMT and did not reach the
committee for further deliberation.
Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Chen Chi-mai (陳其邁) said the
proportion of fraudulent marriages involving Chinese spouses has always been
high, and the government is not considering the serious impact that granting
suffrage to Chinese immigrants will cause to national security and society.
Chen said the government’s proposal to loosen the regulations again is only for
the benefit of the KMT at election time, adding that the DPP is strongly against
the proposal.
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