Puma Shen's 'State of Emergency' Tests Taiwan's Democracy

Taiwan's Legislative Yuan is considering granting political participation rights to spouses of Taiwanese citizens from China, known officially as "Mainland Spouses." 

Whether to amend the relevant legislation is an issue of debate, with members of the Kuomintang and People First Party in support and the Democratic Progressive Party in opposition. 

DPP legislator Puma Shen described the situation on Facebook  using a Japanese term for "state of emergency."

Shen's logic is tenous, and the resulting confusion within the entire DPP in turn poses a genuine "state of emergency" to Taiwan's hard-won legal system and human rights.

The right of spouses from China to participate in politics as a byproduct of cross-strait exchanges has never ostensibly been an issue. 

Taiwanese law already sets a high threshold for these individuals to participate in the country's elections, requiring them to reside in Taiwan for at least six years before being granted household registration (a requirement for exercising full citizenship rights in Taiwan) and then wait a further ten years before they can stand for election.

Furthermore, citizens from Mainland China are not considered Taiwanese nationals and must give up their household registration and passport from Mainland China in order to acquire Taiwanese residence. Taiwanese law also prohibits dual nationals from public office.

These measures have had an effect. Over the 38 years since direct people-to-people cross-strait exchanges began, only a handful of the nearly 400,000 spouses from Mainland China who have moved to Taiwan have run for and won elections, with known positions limited to five village or neighborhood chiefs in Taiwan.

In a notable case in Hualien, a village chief originally from the Mainland successfully appealed a dismissal of his position in court. However, the Ministry of the Interior subsequently issued instructions in late 2022 for local governments to annul these positions, with non-compliant offices being reported to the Control Yuan for investigation.

This was problematic for a number of reasons. 

Firstly, the classification of village chiefs as public officials remains debatable. While elected, they receive "administrative fees" rather than public employee salaries, lack civil service positions, and face no re-election barriers, allowing reelection indefinitely with public support.

However, they are subject to heavier penalties under anti-corruption statutes similar to civil servants—an anomaly given their quasi-feudal administrative role. Using state resources to pressure local governments into dismissals seems excessive. 

Secondly, while spouses from China can technically run for election according to the Ministry of the Interior and the Mainland Affairs Council's interpretation of the relevant law governing their status in Taiwan, recent amendments to a separate law governing nationality effectively stipulate that they may not assume office even if elected. The Ministry of the Interior's reliance on a single directive to alter long-standing legal interpretations of the legal rights of spouses from China poses questions about whether our laws actually have a legal basis or are merely the whims of the executive. 

Political Rhetoric Targeting Mainland Spouses — DPP's Missteps

The greatest contradiction here lies in the fact that cross-strait special relations are premised on still being in a period“before national unification.”

Using former president Ma Ying-jeou's words, “the two sides of the Strait do not recognize each other's sovereignty, but do not deny each other's governing authority.”

Even though former presidents Chen Shui-bian and Tsai Ing-wen advocated caution against Beijing, they also both repeatedly emphasized that cross-strait affairs would be handled in accordance with the Constitution of the Republic of China and the Cross-Strait Act and never attempted to change longstanding definitions of key legal terms in those documents. 

For more than 30 years, Taiwan has protected the lawful rights of mainland Chinese spouses —yet now, because of a single thought from Lai Ching-te or the DPP, one mere official notice is being used to strip those rights away. Is this not the very definition of government disorder?

Because of the unique nature of cross-strait relations, neither side recognizes the other's nationality, and by extension, neither side has a legal mechanism for allowing citizens from the other side to revoke or renounce their nationality; the only existing practice is that obtaining household registration on one side of the Taiwan Strait cancels household registration on the other.

And so we arrive at the ridiculous situation of a mainland spouse who has already lived in Taiwan for thirty years and is elected as a village chief, needing to submit proof that they cancelled their household registration in China to apply for a Taiwan ID card.

They long ago had no mainland household registration, PRC ID card, or passport. They now enter and leave mainland China using a Taiwan Compatriot Permit and an ROC passport. How, then, are they supposed to obtain proof of renouncing PRC nationality? 

What is even more outrageous is that the DPP is painting an entire group of individuals as enemies in disguise.

In the words of Puma Shen: "If, under the name of the Republic of China, we allow forces from an enemy state to enter, that is not constitutional protection—it is suicide." ​

He calls the entire group of mainland spouses“enemy forces,” ignoring the fact that those running for office have lived in Taiwan for more than ten or even several dozen years, paid taxes according to the law, and fulfilled their civic obligations.

The government questions their loyalty, yet still requires their children to serve in the military. Up to now, the highest office in Taiwan any mainland spouse has won is that of Shih Hsueh-yen, who even lost her re-election bid. One can count all such cases on one hand, and all at the borough chief level.

Of course, Shen's is not really concerned with hassling borough chiefs. If the Taiwan People's Party were not set to run nominee Li Chen-hsiao, herself a mainland spouse, as part of next year's local elections, this whole topic would be mute. 

Shen's call to strengthen national security and financial vetting across the board is worth supporting. But if there are to be more thorough investigations, they should be universal, without distinctions based on identity, and they should include Shen and his family as well.​