Brian Hioeby Brian Hioe
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AFTER MANY YEARS of advocacy, Taiwanese and Chinese gay marriages are now recognized by the Taiwanese government. The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) made the announcement earlier this week. This took place after the recognition of the marriage of a Taiwanese-Chinese couple referred to as Ryan and Righ in the media, in August.
Ryan and Righ had married in the US in November 2019, but Righ’s application was initially rejected by the National Immigration Agency (NIA) because Righ could not provide marriage documents from China, which has not legalized gay marriage. Although a partial legal victory in 2022 through the Taipei High Court allowed for a marriage interview, this was still rejected by the National Immigration Agency four months later, without any interview taking place and apparently defying the orders of the Taipei High Court.
Although the Executive Yuan ordered the Ministry of the Interior, which is the overseeing body of the NIA, to take appropriate legal action in May 2023, this was then complicated in efforts by the NIA and MAC to force responsibility onto the other. It is relatively common for legal cases involving immigrants in Taiwan to involve bureaucratic turf wars between the NIA, as a subordinate body of the Ministry of the Interior, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and the MAC if it involves cross-strait issues pertaining to individuals from China, Hong Kong, or Macau.
Gay marriages between Taiwanese and Chinese couples will face higher barriers than for couples of other nationalities. Following the precedent of Ryan and Righ, such cross-strait couples will need to be married in a third location before their marriage is recognized in Taiwan. Likewise, such couples will need to pass a marriage interview.
The status of individuals from China, Macau, and Hong Kong, is often complicated by the fact that China is not technically a separate country from China, according to the laws of the ROC, and so Chinese nationals are not technically foreigners. For example, this impacted the ability of Chinese students to enter Taiwan after borders were shut because of the COVID-19 pandemic, and this is why the lifting of limits on transnational gay marriages that were initially in place after the legalization of gay marriage in Taiwan in May 2019 did not allow for cross-strait marriages.
Similarly, there is likely hesitation from the government that legalizing gay marriage could potentially provide Chinese infiltrators with a way to reside in Taiwan. This is why the government has proved hesitant in past years to make it easier for Hongkongers to secure permanent residency in Taiwan, citing the potential risks to national security if Chinese nationals mix in with Hongkongers as potential infiltrators.
Facebook post by the Taiwan Alliance to Promote Civil Partnership Rights on the decision
As early as 2020, one year after gay marriage was legalized, the Judicial Yuan completed a draft bill that would lift some of the currently existing limits on transnational same-sex marriages in Taiwan. Likewise, groups that had played an instrumental role in the legalizing of gay marriage, such as the Taiwan Alliance to Promote Civil Partnership Rights began campaigning for the lifting of barriers on transnational same-sex marriages.
When gay marriage was originally legalized in 2019, for Taiwanese individuals to marry individuals of other nationalities, that person would also have to be from a country that had legalized gay marriage. Other shortcomings of the legalization included that for gay couples to jointly adopt a child, that child needed to be the biological child of one of the members of that couple.
There were several years of legal back-and-forth before the barriers to transnational gay marriage were lifted, even though there were individual cases in which a couple was able to get married but this did not change overall laws.
As early as 2020, one year after gay marriage was legalized, the Judicial Yuan completed a draft bill that would lift some of the currently existing limits on transnational same-sex marriages in Taiwan. Likewise, groups that had played an instrumental role in the legalizing of gay marriage, such as the Taiwan Alliance to Promote Civil Partnership Rights began campaigning for the lifting of barriers on transnational same-sex marriages. But it would be several years before barriers were finally lifted, which took the form of an announcement by the Ministry of the Interior as one of the outgoing acts of Premier Su Tseng-chang’s cabinet.
Indeed, the Mainland Affairs Council spent a great deal of time dragging its feet on the issue of cross-strait gay marriages. As early as January 2021, the MAC announced that it was exploring options for marriage between mainland couples. In December 2021, the MAC stated that it intended to amend current laws regulating transnational gay marriages in such a manner that international marriages are recognized, including for Chinese spouses. Yet it is only in 2024 that there was finally movement on the issue.