Number of foreigners in Taiwan surpasses 1 million — Taipei Times
The number of foreigners in Taiwan surpassed 1 million this year. At the same time, positive attitudes toward immigration have outweighed negative ones in surveys since 2010, although negative assessments have also increased, Taipei Times writes.
A petition on the website of Taiwan’s National Development Council, whose authors propose requiring non-citizens covered by national health insurance to pay contributions from birth through their current age, has collected 5,000 signatures. This is the threshold after which the authorities must provide a response.
Attitudes toward immigration
According to the Taiwan Social Change Survey, in 2003 fewer than 5% of respondents supported a significant increase in the number of immigrants, while 66.1% favored reducing it. The columnist also notes that the presence of migrants has become more noticeable in everyday life: multilingual announcements and menus are appearing not only in government institutions and on transport, but also in retail chains.
More current news is available on the UA.News Telegram channel Telegram.
Prejudice and citizenship
A study by a group of scholars led by Timothy S. Rich of Western Kentucky University found biased perceptions of immigration from Southeast Asia even when taking into account the qualifications of potential migrants. The strongest prejudice in the survey was recorded toward Indonesians, who at the time it was conducted were the largest group of labor migrants.
Taiwan’s Ministry of the Interior reported that on August 26 it approved citizenship for the 400th highly skilled professional. The columnist believes that the authorities could offer labor migrants with children an opportunity for permanent residence, and their children citizenship, provided they study in Taiwan.
