MAC defends military med school rejection of China-born student

Taipei, May 8 (CNA) Taiwan's Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) on Thursday defended a decision by the military-run National Defense Medical Center (NDMC) to revoke the admission of a China-born student, citing the applicant's failure to meet the requirement of having held household registration in Taiwan for at least 20 years.

"Students who do not meet the requirements set out in Article 21 of the Cross-Strait Act, are, unfortunately, not eligible to apply [to the NDMC]," MAC deputy head and spokesperson Liang Wen-chieh (梁文傑) said at a news briefing in Taipei.

Liang explained that Article 21 of the Act Governing Relations between the People of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area (Cross-Strait Act) stipulates that after an individual's status transitions from Chinese to Taiwanese, they must hold household registration in Taiwan for 20 years before being eligible to serve in multiple positions in national defense agencies.

Operated by the Ministry of National Defense (MND), one of the primary missions of the NDMC is to train military medical personnel and support the healthcare needs of Taiwan's armed forces.

The student, who was born in Nanjing, was granted permission to settle in Taiwan at the age of three and later obtained household registration after providing proof that their registration in China had been canceled, Liang said.

The submission of the deregistration document confirmed that the student had been registered in China's household system after birth, Liang said. As a result, the 20-year residency requirement was counted from the time the student was granted permission to settle in Taiwan at age three-- meaning the 18-year-old has not yet met the eligibility threshold.

Liang's remarks followed a Tuesday post on the local online forum Dcard that drew widespread attention, in which a student who had long aspired to become an emergency room doctor said an offer of admission to NDMC was revoked during the preliminary review.

The student cited the reason provided by the NDMC: "Born in Nanjing, has not held nationality of the Republic of China (ROC, Taiwan's official name) for 20 years."

"I'm willing to commit to more than a decade of service...and to shoulder the responsibility of becoming a military doctor," the student wrote, noting that the NDMC's decision was "enough to upend all of my expectations and plans."

The student said they grew up in Taiwan and held ROC nationality from a young age, adding that their parents were working in Nanjing at the time of their birth and claimed they had never held household registration in China -- a claim that contradicts the MAC account.

Having returned to Taiwan at the age of 2 -- a year earlier than MAC's account -- the student questioned whether, under the 20-year requirement, they would have to wait until 22 to be eligible to apply to the NDMC.

Liang said the student's case was "by no means an isolated one," noting that over the years, there have been other students who applied to the NDMC but were disqualified for not meeting the requirements set out in Article 21 of the Cross-Strait Act.

The MND also issued a statement on Wednesday, in which it mentioned that Article 19 of the "Regulations on Student Status of Military School Undergraduates and Graduate Students" stipulates that individuals from China who have been permitted to enter Taiwan "must have held household registration [in Taiwan] for 20 years before they are eligible to apply for admission."

A National Immigration Agency review on April 17 found that the student was born to a mother with Chinese nationality and, upon applying for household registration in Taiwan in 2009, deregistered the one in China and was approved to settle in Taiwan, the ministry said.

The student -- having held household registration in Taiwan for around 16 years -- therefore does not meet the 20-year requirement, the MND added.