Taiwan is Taiwan, not ROC nor PRC: USCIS

The US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) is not ambiguous about Taiwan’s status, it is a US executive branch that respects and honors Taiwanese people’s rights to call their country “Taiwan”.  In a memo dated Dec.1, 2008, it states that for purposes of the United States immigration law, Taiwan is to be considered a separate independent country despite the Department of State’s “one-China” policy.


Consequently, the United States passports may not be issued showing place of birth as “Taiwan, China,” “Taiwan, Republic of China,” or “Taiwan ROC,” but for the “mainlanders on Taiwan”, it may show “People’s Republic of China” as their country of birth, but their country of nationality (on application form N-400) should be listed as “Taiwan”.


Some excerpt from the memo:

The adjudicator must not require an applicant to list “Taiwan, PRC,” “Taiwan, China,” “Taiwan, Republic of China,” “Taiwan, ROC,” or “People’s Republic of China” as the country of birth or nationality on Form N-400 if the applicant has indicated “Taiwan” and the documentary evidence submitted supports their claim. 

Note that some applicants may have been born in the PRC but currently hold a Taiwan passport because they moved from the mainland (PRC) to Taiwan long ago. For those applicants, the country of birth should be listed as “People’s Republic of China” and the country of nationality should be listed as “Taiwan” on their Form N-400.

The ISO country code “virus”

Many organizations, corporations, governments claim that  they are “apolitical” and simply use the “standard” ISO country codes assigned for Taiwan to represent Taiwan, but on the ISO country coding system, Taiwan has been mistakenly listed in the country name’s “short form” as “Taiwan, Province of China” (note: the name is neither short nor reflect the reality of de-facto independent status of Taiwan).


This is a well-planned “virus” by the UN Statistical Division (which is under the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UNDESA) with a Chinese head, Sha Zukang since July 1, 2007) to annex Taiwan through the convenience of ISO “standardization” code, which is used by many businesses.  I have even noticed on many university advertisements on the internet for recruiting international students, Taiwan has been listed erroneously as a province of China due likely to this ISO country code “virus”.


On the surface, the ISO seems to show that this “short” name for Taiwan has existed since 1974 when the list was originally created, but I suspect the change of name actually took place in more recent year, otherwise it would have been noticed long ago by Taiwan’s government during the 8 years of DPP in power, and Taiwan’s lawsuit against ISO in Swiss court would have taken place in earlier year than 2007. 


The people of Taiwan are waiting for an explanation as to the progress of this lawsuit, has there been a judgment?  Did the plaintiff drop the charge?  When and why?  Was there a secret deal in which both Ma’s KMT-ROC and Hu’s CCP-PRC agreed to use a code “Taiwan, a province of China” so that each party could interpret the “greater China” the way each party likes, but not according to the will of the majority of Taiwan’s citizens?


The UN has no rights (see reference number 2 regarding MOU) to sign any memo against a non-member state (such as the WHO’s secret MOU with China regarding Taiwan’s communication with WHO be routed through China), nor to change a country’s name arbitrarily simply because of pressures from another bullying state.


The UN resolution 2758 resolves the question of who should represent China and mentions nothing about who should represent the 23 million people of Taiwan.


If UN is serious about promotion of human rights and human dignity, its geographic “experts” should be investigated for possible “pressures” from above, and the UNDESA under secretary should be probed for his “incompetence” and his role in helping the spread of the Taiwan ISO country code “virus” around the globe.


Reference:


1. A quick reference on Sha Zukang’s background revealed that he had previously served as Director-General, Department of Arms Control, Ministry of Foreign Affairs (1997-2001) and earlier as Ambassador for Disarmament Affairs, how ironic!


2. MOU should involve only the mutual beneficiaries of the signing parties, it should contain nothing about a 3rd party outside of the negotiation process.