Marital Immigration and Graduated Citizenship: Post-Naturalization Restrictions on Mainland Chinese Spouses in Taiwan

Abstract

The late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries have witnessed dramatic transformations in migration and immigration patterns in East Asia, with many immigrant-sending nations becoming immigration destinations themselves. In Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and Hong Kong, this in-migration has largely taken the form of family reunification, with marital immigration as the main path to naturalized citizenship. Chinese spouses, primarily female, have constituted a major source of new immigrants to these countries, and although they pose different kinds of challenges in their new homes, only in Taiwan are they viewed overdy as a potential threat to national integrity and sovereignty because of the contested political relationship between China and Taiwan. This article examines how the Taiwan government regulates immigrants who are racially, ethnically and linguistically similar but who come tainted by persistent political conflicts across the Taiwan Strait. Through analyzing policies that create a second-class citizenship status for naturalized Chinese spouses, I show how concerns about a demographic and ideological invasion from Chinajustify restricting the rights granted to former Chinese citizens. These