Taiwan-China: Love, suspicion, spy
charges By Antoaneta Bezlova
TAIPEI and BEIJING - Despite the long-standing
enmity between mainland China and separately governed
Taiwan, numerous intermarriages bridging both sides of
the Taiwan Strait have been taking place - and they are
often stories of passion, hatred, suspicion and torn
loyalties that rival Shakespearean dramas.
These
marriages - and especially how mainland wives are
treated and mistreated in Taiwan - open a window on
Taiwan's pervasive suspicions about the mainland.
Numerous wives claim they have been discriminated
against, prevented from working, insulted and even
accused of spying for Beijing. Many came to the island
expecting a better, freer life in the beautiful Formosa
of folk tales. Now they feel despised.
While
leaders of the two sides of the strait have not met in
more than five decades, tens of thousands of Taiwanese
men have tied the knot with mainland women over the
years. Against the backdrop of historic hostility, the
nuptials have been sealed under the pending menace of
war over what China considers its breakaway island
province.
As a result, mainland brides who
arrive on the island to live with their Taiwanese
husbands are often met with a suspicion deeply rooted in
the bitter rivalry between the Chinese Communist Party
(CCP) and the Nationalist Party or Kuomintang (KMT),
which fought a civil war over the rule of China. The KMT
lost and fled to Taiwan in 1949. Eventually old KMT
soldiers returned to China - and took young brides.
Mainland brides are communist spies, mainland
agents under cover and lazy country bumpkins who love
money - these are just a few of the accusations leveled
against them. They are poorly educated, speak with funny
accents and betray their husbands for few easy bucks
earned late at night in the bars. The list of alleged
crimes and failings goes on.
Southeast Asian
brides treated better than mainlanders "No one is
more hated than us," says Pu Jianqun, a mainland wife
who came to Taiwan in 1997. "We speak the same language,
we have the same customs and still, we are the internal
enemies. Foreign brides who come from Southeast Asia
have more rights than us, get better reception than we
do."
Compared with any other nationality,
Chinese brides do face the toughest restrictions before
they are allowed to live permanently on the island of 23
million people.
Mainland wives can apply for
citizenship only after living in Taiwan for eight years,
and for most of that period, they are not permitted to
work. Brides from other countries, such as Vietnam,
Thailand and the Philippines, can become naturalized in
four years, and they can work after the first six
months.
"I have two children but none of them
can live with us," says Wang Derong, a mainland wife who
came to Taiwan from Chongqing in central China. "We have
been married for six years and only this year I was
allowed to start working. My husband could not support a
wife and two children on his fisherman's pay and we had
to send the children to live with my parents in China."
Wang and Pu are among many mainland women caught
in the spat between Beijing and Taipei. Official figures
in Taiwan show that 190,000 Taiwanese men have married
Chinese women, and at least 100,000 mainland wives now
live on the island.
On a rainy afternoon in
March, four of them shared with Inter Press Service the
succession of struggles and accusations they have
encountered since their arrival in Taiwan.
Naive bridal expectations of a better, freer
life With no previous experience of living
abroad, all of the women arrived in Taiwan with
expectations that were a mix of the images in Chinese
folk songs of beautiful Formosa island and anticipation
of a freer and better life.
"People say we are
lazy, they say we have come to live off our husbands,"
says Xi Yulian, a soft-spoken woman from Chengdu. "The
truth is that we are not allowed to work for the first
six years. We have to be supported by our husbands and
we are looked down by our mothers-in-law."
After
more than six years spent in Taoyuan, near the capital
Taipei, Xi eventually got a work permit and applied for
a job in a factory assembling mobile phones. She says
she was rejected initially, because she was a "mainland
little sister" - a derogatory term used by Taiwanese to
describe mainland women.
"I had to go through a
middleman to get that job," Xi continues. "I work 12
hours on a night shift every day. I have to assemble at
least 700 phones an hour or my boss would swear at me.
But in the end, I get NT$8,000 [US$243] less because the
middleman takes his percentage from my salary."
Money also becomes a cause of domestic tension
because the government erects financial barriers to
obtaining permanent residency for the women. Taiwanese
men who apply for foreign brides to become citizens of
Taiwan are required to prove they have assets worth at
least NT$380,000 ($11,515).
Officials seek to
limit fake marriages of convenience The financial
restrictions are meant to limit what officials call
"fake marriages", or marriages of convenience that some
mainland women resort to in exchange for an opportunity
for a better life in Taiwan.
The ironic result
of this policy, however, is that it victimizes even
women who have genuine marriages.
"If your
husband is more than 65 years old or he is crippled,
then you can start working almost immediately," says
Huang Su-eng, general secretary of the Female Labor
Rights Association. "But if you married a normal man of
your age, then in that case you are not allowed to work,
[you must remain] all alone at home, having to endure
all kinds of attacks from your mother-in-law."
May-to-January marriages between people with
wide age differences here have historical precedents.
The first men from Taiwan who married mainland women
were old Kuomintang soldiers well in their 60s.
Defeated by the communist army of Mao Zedong in
1949, Kuomintang troops retreated to Taiwan, which they
ruled with an iron fist, imposing martial law and
keeping troops ready to regain the mainland.
For
nearly 40 years of martial law, no one from Taiwan was
allowed to visit mainland China. Former KMT soldiers who
arrived on the island, young and single, were forbidden
from marrying local women - their goal was to return to
China.
"It is a sad subject of history," says Dr
Antonia Chao, a researcher who has written on the
history of cross-Strait marriages. "It was these old KMT
guards who pleaded fervently with the parliament in
1987, after martial law was lifted, to be given the
right to go back to mainland China and visit their
relatives."
Old KMT guards took young
mainland brides They were the first to return to
Taiwan with mainland brides, many of them 40 years their
juniors.
Ironically, although the financial
restrictions on mainland women were imposed during KMT
rule, social workers say that discrimination against
mainland women has increased since the KMT lost power in
2000 and the governing party became the Democratic
Progressive Party (DPP).
The government of
President Chen Shui-bian, DPP leader, has vigorously
promoted a "Taiwan first" policy, talking of a paramount
separate Taiwanese identity, as preceding Chinese
consciousness. Relations with China have been frosty.
"The rising number of cross-Strait marriages
scares Chen's government because they think it could
dilute the purity of Taiwanese identity and eventually
help Beijing in their quest to reunite with Taiwan,"
says Huang Su-eng.
The anti-China bias in Chen's
administration is reflected in attempts - which failed
last year for lack of a legislative majority - to extend
the required period for obtaining citizenship from the
current eight year to 12 years and to raise the amount
of assets required for citizenship from NT$380,000 to
NT$5 million ($152,000).
"When I came to Taiwan,
I supported Chen Shui-bian," says Pu Jianqun, one of the
disgruntled mainland wives. "I thought one difference in
being here is having a democratic government, something
we don't have back home."
Chen had promised
to help mainland wives in 2000 She charges,
however, that Chen did not keep the promises he made to
mainland wives during the presidential campaign in 2000
- to help them integrate by easing rules on obtaining
work permits and permanent residency.
"We are
not here for political reasons," adds Zheng Aiping, who
came from Ningbo in China's Zhejiang province. "We came
here for our husbands. We came hoping to make some money
and help our families back home. What happens is that we
need our [mainland] families' help to raise our
Taiwanese children. Is that fair?"
But all four
of the wives also say they have no intention of going
back to the mainland. "To divorce and go back to
mainland China means to be even more despised than
here," throws in Wang Derong. "We want the government
here to treat us equally with other foreign brides. We
want to tell them, 'We are China's daughters and
Taiwan's mothers. Don't make us the enemies, don't treat
us with hatred'."
As all four loudly list their
woes and argue their demands in a packed coffee shop in
downtown Taipei - observed but undisturbed by curious
onlookers - they are oblivious to at least one right
they have gained by coming to Taiwan: the freedom to
speak out freely, even against the government.
