Can I buy a Passport?

[Erica1973]

I'm Swedish, and have a PARC. I want to apply for a Taiwan citizenship, so I may leave Taiwan for 2-3 years to work in USA or Japan.

To my knowledge there are no Chinese ancestors in my family the past 7 generations (trying to find out though...).

I don't want to give up my Swedish citizenship (we get free education, pensions etc worldwide...) for a Taiwanese one.

I have asked the Swedish government about re-applying for a Swedish citizenship once I become Taiwanese, but I will be required to live in Sweden for three years... no thank you!

So I'm looking into the option to BUY a passport from some small "banana republic", or other country. Inform the Taiwan government that my PARC should be changed to this new country, a month or so later apply for a Taiwanese passport and give up my "banana republic" citizenship.

Questions:
1. Anyone knows where and how to obtain such a passport?
2. When I give up my "new" citizenship, will they check if I'm also citizen in other countries? Or do I need to give up ALL my citizenships?

You gotta be kidding me! Why would you want a Taiwanese passport? If so, I think the fastest way to have it is to marry a Taiwanese girl and then legally you can have a dual citizenship while you can still keep your Swedish one. It all sounds too weird to me that you want a Taiwanese passport but will consider working at somewhere else for 2-3 years. Sounds weird to me!

[Bu Lai En]

the fastest way to have it is to marry a Taiwanese girl and then legally you can have a dual citizenship while you can still keep your Swedish one.

No you can't.

[PeiAn]

Living here 14 years and still be treated without any rights at all is a good reason enough to apply for a citizenship!

I want to be free to take a temporary "leave" from Taiwan (overseas job or extended vacation) without coming back home to Taiwan and being treated as a tourist without my APRC.
I don't want to loose my track record of 14 years here with a full APRC.

My current employeer wants to send me to China to head up the R&D department there for a year or more, but I have to refuse since I would loos my APRC. It would be a great experience, but to give up my APRC would be too devastating.

With an APRC I can choose NOT to work, or work for ANYONE I wish to work for, I can have my own home office legally. It's a great privilege that I don't ever want to be without.

Marriage doesn't improve anything, not even getting kids give me any higher status here.

I see the Taiwan government practising apartheid, having different laws and regulations for different races. This is not fair in my opinion and I intend to fight the system and be recognized as a "new Taiwanese".

[ironlady]

I believe that you can apply to the government as an PARC holder to be granted special "leave" from Taiwan. I'm sure that if your Taiwanese employer wanted to send you to the Mainland, this would be viewed favorably as it's building the Taiwanese economy (isn't it?) Does your boss have any connections at all? Check the application for exceptions before you go buying any banana republic passports and, more telling yet, get yourself roped into ROC military service or worse. (If there is worse... )

[PeiAn]

I'm 35 years old now, read somewhere that men under 42 getting ROC citizenship needs to serve the military for 22month or so.

Since there are no requirements for Chinese speaking and comprehension getting a ROC citizenship, could I not just play really dumb and totally misunderstand any order given to me in the military? Who wants to have a guy in the army saying that all chinese look the same, don't know who to shoot (referring to a mainland and Taiwan war situation)?
I would be more of a liability than an asset in such a case.

I have no problem serving the Taiwanese military in case of a war.

[ironlady]

You are assuming an organization where efficiency is valued.

They don't give a crap whether you speak Chinese or not...you WILL do military service, and you are not likely to enjoy it, particularly if you don't speak Chinese. Unless you can prove you're mentally disabled...in which case I don't think that would help your immigration status much.

Just learn to use the rules already in place about PARC. Should be good enough.

[Bu Lai En]

PeiAn, I can really understand where you are coming from (here and in the other thread). If I finally decided that I was staying here for life (as is possible, but only 50/50 at the moment), I would want Taiwanese citizenship too. But of course there's no way in hell I'd relinquish my NZ citizenship. Christ, I'd even consider the military service (maybe), but I doubt I'd get in for medical reasons. Oh, and apparently if you don't want to do actual military service you can help out in tourist visitor's centres and the like. But no, I probably don't want to throw out the best part of 2 years of my life, so I'd probably wait until I was 45 or they scrapped the military service, whichever came first.

Getting back to the original point. I too think that if I wanted to live in a country my whole life, I'd want citizenship of that country, and would not want to be discriminated in my application for that citizenship on racial grounds (ie 'Chinese' can have dual citizenship, others can't).

Brian

[Mr He]

If you dodge the draft, the authorities are likely to take a very dim view of your attempt to get off the hook. More surefire methods to avoid Taiwanese conscription would be to perform some act of self-mutilation, like for instance getting rid of the pesky index finger on your right hand, cutting off a leg etc. Fattening yourself up does not work according to Poagao in his book.

En anden methode ville vere at vente til du fylder 42 aar.

[Hartzell]

. . . . . . I'm looking into the option to BUY a passport from some small "banana republic", or other country. Inform the Taiwan government that my APRC should be changed to this new country, a month or so later apply for a Taiwanese passport and give up my "banana republic" citizenship.

This won't work.

Regarding your current status -- You certainly will have fulfilled, a five year, or seven year, residency requirement based on your status as a Swedish citizen, in order to get the APRC. Hence, your nationality (based on your accumulated residency) is Swedish. As has been discussed in other threads on forumosa.com, the immigration authorities view you as having the nationality of the passport with which you enter the Taiwan area.

If you obtain the nationality of a "banana republic," you would be required to re-enter the Taiwan area with that passport in order to be considered a national of that country. However, as soon as you do that, you are no longer the original person who had the APRC status. (This does not matter to the Household Registration authorities, if you are married to a local Taiwan citizen. They will change the data on the Household Registration record, however, it is more complicated with the immigration authorities.) Hence, with the "banana republic" passport, you would have to begin your process of getting an ARC all over again, and then accumulate the necessary residency qualifications and other criteria in order to apply for Taiwan nationality. I believe the minimum period of time is three years if you are married to a local citizen.

[PeiAn]

Richard, really appreciate this reply.

I thought that this might have been a possible way to get around the system, but obviously the government has been thinking... they really don't want to make it easy to immigrate here...

So there is only one last option then... to discover that I'm in fact Chinese... need to do some research, seven generations is what I've heard, is that correct? My ancestors do they need to be from a special area, race or any other condition?
Once I discover some old ancestor how can I prove this? Or will they prove I'm not?

As I mentioned in another thread the Swedish government doesn't allow us to become stateless (not even for a day), so I cannot do like you Americans and go to Hong Kong and give up my citizenship.
Does this mean that if I cannot find a Chinese blood relative I will never ever be able to immigrate here???

I could do like Lian Chan to prove that I love Taiwan by kissing the ground if it's good for him I guess it's good for me too? He never gave up his US passport... why should I give up my Swedish one???