Taiwan requires most foreigners to give up their nationality if they want to get Taiwanese citizenship. A campaign now aims to change that demand.
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00:00Sam Khan and his wife Jane are testing their daughter's Chinese.
00:23Surprised at all the words she already knows.
00:25They bought this house a year ago and set up home here in Kaohsiung, Taiwan's largest
00:31port city.
00:33Khan gave up his Pakistani nationality to become Taiwanese, a decision he made for his
00:39daughter.
00:40You know, it's a highly developed country with very safe, good education, good quality
00:46standard of living and I wanted my daughter to have access to Taiwan, have the right to
00:52live here freely as a Taiwanese.
00:56But to his frustration, four-year-old Zara is still not Taiwanese.
01:00She was born here to Khan and his Filipino wife before he gained citizenship.
01:06And under Taiwanese rules, she has to renounce her Filipino citizenship too, which as a child
01:12she can't do.
01:15Unlike Khan, of the 3,000 to 4,000 foreigners who become citizens here each year, less than
01:21three percent don't have to give up their original nationality, deemed by the government
01:27to be highly specialized or to have made a significant contribution to Taiwan.
01:34Like the late US missionary and English teacher Doris Brougham, who was handed a Taiwanese
01:39passport by former President Tsai Ing-wen after 72 years in the country.
01:46Now a campaign is pressing the government to make it easier for foreigners to become
01:50Taiwanese, arguing that more citizens could even help Taiwan as it faces an existential
01:57threat from China.
01:59One of the things that China is putting its mark on Taiwan is to say that, well, you guys
02:06are mostly ethnic Chinese and hopefully with more diversity, with more countries and their
02:12people invested in Taiwan on a longer term basis, this will provide some type of even
02:18greater hesitation on the part of China to be like, well, we're just going to take it
02:22over.
02:23Nonprofit group Crossroads says that making foreigners renounce their original nationality
02:28is unreasonable and unfair, especially as Taiwanese can have dual nationality.
02:35The push to make it easier to gain citizenship comes as Taiwan ages fast. Next year it's
02:41set to become a super-aged society, meaning that more than a fifth of its population will
02:47be 65 or over. That means higher health care costs, fewer working-age people to pay for
02:54them and potentially slower economic growth. Activists say welcoming more people will help
03:00to offset all that.
03:02But the Ministry of Interior declined to say whether there were any plans to change or
03:06debate the nationality law, telling Taiwan Plus that foreigners must renounce their nationality
03:13to avoid active conflicts of nationality between parties in enjoying rights, performing
03:19obligations and national loyalty.
03:22Khan, who works for a firm making materials for high-tech devices, remembers his citizenship
03:29process as stressful, at times fearing he might become stateless. Despite that, he says
03:36he doesn't regret it. And if China does one day attack and many people flee, he will stay
03:43behind.
03:44Khan hopes his new country will make it easier for others to follow in his footsteps. People
03:57born elsewhere who do not just feel at home here, but want to proudly call themselves
04:03Taiwanese.
04:05Klein Wong and Louise Watt for Taiwan Plus.