Denmark reportedly changes status of Taiwanese residents to ‘citizens of China’ | Taiwan News

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — Denmark has reportedly recently started changing the nationality of some Taiwanese residents to “Chinese.”

Danish newspaper Berlingske on Sunday (March 24) reported on the case of a Taiwanese woman identified as Liao Tzu-jung (35), who with her Danish partner Daniel Mulnaes (36) recently moved to Denmark. However, when they received notification of their residence cards in February, Liao was shocked to see that her Danish residence card listed her status as “Citizen of China.”

These residence ID cards are similar in size and appearance to driver’s licenses in Denmark and show proof that a foreign national has permission to reside in the country. In the past, Taiwanese were allowed to list their country of origin on these cards as “Taiwan.”

Liao said she was “surprised and shocked” by the erroneous entry on the card. “My partner has always said that Denmark is a country that respects everyone. It is a country for freedom,” said Liao.

According to the newspaper, at least 10 Taiwanese residents have reported to have been subjected to this new policy in Denmark. The government department responsible for creating such ID cards, the Agency for International Recruitment (SIRI), said that changing the country of origin for Taiwanese was the correction of a “regrettable mistake.”

The agency said that in the past, it had by “mistake” registered Taiwanese as being from Taiwan. It claimed that for many years it had a “non-uniform practice” for registering the country of birth for Taiwanese.

According to SIRI, it became aware of the “nonsense practice” and “reinforced” to agency staff that holders of Taiwanese passports must be registered as citizens of China. SIRI officials explained that because Denmark does not recognize Taiwan as a state, Taiwanese must be registered under a recognized country.

Since 1978, Taiwanese have been able to list their country of birth as Taiwan. However, in 2021, the Ministry of Interior sent a letter to all municipalities presenting a contradictory directive that although neither Taiwan nor Palestine are officially recognized as countries by Denmark, Taiwanese must be registered as coming from China, while Palestinians can list their country of origin the Palestine.

One of the reporters for the piece, Alexander Sjoberg explained to Taiwan News that the Danish government made an exception to the rule for Palestinians due to “protests from citizen groups.” Sjoberg said although the decision was made a few years ago, it is not clear why Denmark has only recently started enforcing the rule with Taiwanese citizens.

In response to the change, Taiwan Corner Chair Michael Danielsen said, “It is shocking that Denmark is telling Taiwan’s 24 million inhabitants that they are Chinese and may no longer stand by its ‘one-China policy,’ which until now has not taken a position on Taiwan’s status.” Danielson added that this is a “paradigm shift in Denmark’s policy, and we are going alone in the EU.”

Danielson pointed out that this policy change has political ramifications because it demonstrates a departure from Denmark’s previous “one China” policy, in which it recognizes China as the sole representative of China, but holds an ambiguous stance on whether or not this means Taiwan is part of China. This new policy points to a shift toward following Beijing’s “one China” principle, which claims that there is only one China and that Taiwan is an integral part of China.

Although the Danish government said that the residence IDs are only used for the residence permit and the country of origin on the cards should not have any effect on the rights of its holders, Liao said, “We have heard about many things that can go wrong if I am registered as Chinese. If I have the wrong nationality, it could mean problems with banks, insurance, and so on.”

Liao also noted that if she and Mulnaes get married in Denmark, she will be registered as “Chinese.” She worried that this could cause problems if she tried to return to Taiwan because of her new status as a “Chinese citizen.”

When asked by Taiwan News for comment, Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) spokesperson Jeff Liu (劉永健) obtained relevant information and instructed its representative office in Denmark to express serious concern to the Danish government, urging it to promptly correct this issue. Liu said MOFA will closely monitor developments and continue to urge Denmark to rectify the situation to “safeguard the dignity of our nation and the rights of Taiwanese nationals residing abroad.”

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs Denmark has yet to respond to a request by Taiwan News for comment on its policy toward Taiwanese.