Brian Hioeby Brian Hioe
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Photo Credit: Taiwan Alliance for Myanmar/Facebook
TAIWANESE CIVIL SOCIETY groups held a demonstration earlier this month to commemorate the fifth anniversary of the military coup in Myanmar. At present, Myanmar remains locked in a civil war, with resistance forces of differing backgrounds clashing with the military junta.
The demonstration was held outside of the Nanshijiao MRT. The area around Nanshijiao in Zhonghe is sometimes referred to as “Little Burma,” given the tens of thousands of residents in the area who are mostly ethnically Chinese Burmese. The political orientation of many residents of Little Burma hews toward the National League for Democracy, Aung San Suu Kyi’s party, which has now reshaped itself as the National Unity Government, a government in exile. Apart from that millions have been displaced by the civil war, the Myanmar military junta is thought to detain over 30,000 political prisoners, with airstrikes continuing to take place even after a devastating earthquake last year.
Civil society groups focused their criticisms on the Taiwanese government, however. In spite of the brutality of the Myanmar military junta, which carries out airstrikes daily on civilian populations and engages in other atrocities, Taiwan has done little to fulfill promises to assist with Burmese asylum seekers.
A number of Burmese asylum seekers face the possibility of deportation back to Myanmar. To begin with, Taiwan does not have any asylum law, as a result of which asylum seekers are usually pressured by immigration authorities to turn back–even if this may result in imprisonment or death.
As raised at the rally, the Taiwanese government originally promised not to deport Myanmar nationals back under the provisions of a temporary residency status. However, several years later, the actual issuing of this status is close to zero. Occurring as a project under the National Immigration Agency of the Ministry of the Interior in 2023, after fifty applications, none have been approved. That the Legislative Yuan passed resolutions promising not to deport Myanmar nationals has not been sufficient to pressure the Ministry of the Interior.
Myanmar nationals stranded in Taiwan, likewise, have no work permits. As such, this has pushed many of those currently in Taiwan to work illegally to survive. Without the ability to renew their identity documents, given that their country is currently in the middle of a war and an authoritarian regime controls government institutions, this has stranded Myanmar nationals in an administrative morass.
The Taiwanese government, then, was criticized for otherwise seeking to tout Taiwan as an exemplar for human rights and democracy in the region and then failing to take action on a humanitarian crisis on its doorstep. This occurs even when the Taiwanese government otherwise frequently touts the slogan that “Taiwan Can Help” and has used the promise of aid to seek admission to international institutions.
Indeed, with the military junta seeking to build legitimacy for itself by holding sham elections, fears were that the Taiwanese government would use the elections as a pretense to end its current policies for Myanmar asylum seekers–flimsy as they already are. This has been the line taken by the Trump administration and other regional powers that hope for a quick return to the status quo, so as to regularize relations with the Myanmar military junta. Consequently, Taiwanese civil society groups, in collaboration with regional civil society, issued a statement last year against ending current provisions for Myanmar. Yet it is still to be seen if the government proves recalcitrant.