Taiwanese and German Citizenship Reforms: Integration of Immigrants without Challenging the Status Quo, 1990–2000

The end of the 1990s witnessed the formulation of new nationality laws in both West Germany and Taiwan for the first time after more than 50 years of national division in each case. The adherence of West Germany and Taiwan to their pre-war nationality legislation allowed them to claim ethnic Germans and overseas Chinese constitutionally, but it resulted in the exclusion of long-term residents from their rightful positions in the German and Taiwanese citizenries. In the era of migration, the unregulated position of these foreign residents could no longer be tolerated. Confronted with the same problem, legislators in both states initiated a citizenship reform to facilitate the integration of foreigners. The author suggests that the citizenship reforms in the two cases facilitated the acquisition of nationality by foreigners without either state departing from its positions on jus sanguinis or dual nationality.