Recently, the controversy over the de-registration of mainland spouses in Taiwan has been heating up. The Immigration Office has launched a household registration check on more than 12,000 mainland spouses and their second generation, requiring them to supplement 'proof of cancellation of mainland household registration.' Those who do not comply by the deadline may have their Taiwanese identity revoked; the Mainland Affairs Council has also confirmed that the residence permit and household registration of a mainland spouse, Qian Li, were revoked in August this year due to her 'actions that endanger national security and social stability.' In the legislature, there have been proposals that mainland spouses should renounce their original nationality and swear allegiance to Taiwan in order to obtain an identity card. This controversy, on the surface, is due to the special nature of cross-strait relations—the mainland spouses come from a region that claims sovereignty over Taiwan and is defined by the government as an 'external hostile force,' making their situation different from general immigration policies. However, renouncing mainland nationality is easier said than done, as the editor 'Fucha' found out when he went to the mainland to renounce his nationality and was arrested and sentenced, and is still not free. More importantly, if we take a broader view, this controversy actually hides a more universal problem: what standards a society is willing to use to determine who has the right to 'exist' in that society. Recently, a popular Hong Kong TVB drama 'Non-Portion Guilt' has given me a perspective to think about this problem. This drama, which was initially considered a 'bottom-of-the-barrel' production, turned out to be very attractive from the first episode. This episode tells a story that seems unbelievable at first glance. Wu Qi-hua, a doctor, marries a Filipino overstay, and they have two daughters. The wife and two daughters never have identity cards, so the daughters have never been to school, never seen a doctor, never had a passport, cannot travel abroad, have no bank accounts or credit cards, and cannot do anything that requires an identity card. The family has to be very careful to avoid the police. Since Wu Qi-hua is a well-off doctor, these family members without documents are not the 'black mouths' that people imagine living in Chungking Mansions. They can still learn piano and golf, dress fashionably, and do everything as usual as long as they don't need an identity card. But such a life eventually leads to tragedy. At first, many viewers thought the plot was 'absurd' and cursed the scriptwriter for making it up. However, it is based on a true story. The reason viewers find it absurd is that this world is far from our 'normal life.' But this is a part of society that we cannot see, existing right beside us in reality. After watching this story, my first thought was, if this story happened in the United States, would the tragedy still occur? The answer is: no. The reason is not only because the United States has birthright citizenship, but also because the United States and Hong Kong have a fundamental institutional difference in the relationship between the state and the individual. Hong Kong's identity card is a control tool To understand why the tragedy of 'Non-Portion Guilt' could happen in Hong Kong, we must first understand the historical origins of Hong Kong's identity card system. Hong Kong's compulsory identity card system has two sources, both related to 'control,' not to 'serving citizens.' The first source is the traditional Chinese 'Qimin Bianhu' ideology. From the Qin Dynasty, China's state governance relied on the household registration system to register and control the population. Every person must be registered and entered into the records to be considered 'legally existing' in the eyes of the state. Those not registered do not receive state protection and are not recognized. This tradition has deeply influenced the understanding of identity in Chinese society. The identity card is not just an identification tool, but proof of 'whether the state recognizes your existence.' Without an identity card, you are non-existent in the system. The second source is the population control needs of the British colonial government in Hong Kong. Hong Kong's compulsory identity card system was significantly strengthened in the 1980s, directly in response to a large-scale influx of illegal immigrants from mainland China. The colonial government needed an effective tool for the police to check citizens' identities at any time on the streets and identify illegal immigrants from legal residents. The identity card thus became an enforcement tool, not a convenience tool. Without an identity card, you are considered a suspicious person. These two genes together shape a deep-rooted institutional logic in Hong Kong: the state has the right to know who you are, and you have the obligation to prove your identity at any time. Going to school requires an identity card, seeing a doctor requires an identity card, opening a bank account requires an identity card, and applying for any government service requires an identity card. The identity card permeates every corner of life, and without it, you cannot exist normally in this society. The tragedy of 'Non-Portion Guilt' is a direct product of this institutional logic. Two girls born and raised in Hong Kong are completely excluded from normal society simply because of their mother's identity issues. They have done nothing wrong, but the system has given them no way out. The United States has never had a national identity card The situation in the United States is fundamentally different. The United States still does not have a unified national identity card. This is not due to technological backwardness, but a conscious institutional choice. The spirit of the founding of the United States is naturally wary of government power. Americans firmly believe that the government does not have the right to know who you are and where you are at any time. Proposals for a national identity card have never been popular in American politics because they are seen as the first step towards a surveillance state. The closest to a national identity card is the REAL ID Act passed in 2005 after 9/11, which standardized driver's license standards across states for boarding domestic flights and entering federal facilities. However, REAL ID is voluntary. You can get a driver's license without getting a REAL ID, but you will need to present other documents to board a plane or enter a federal facility, which is less convenient. But even this relatively limited measure is strongly opposed by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), which sees it as a slippery slope for violating civil liberties. In daily life, Americans identify themselves through a loose 'patchwork' system—driver's licenses issued by various states, social security numbers issued by the federal government, and passports. These documents have different uses, and none is an 'all-purpose document' that you must carry at all times and present at any time. More importantly, many of the most basic life services in the United States, from the institutional design, do not require the presentation of identity documents. Schools are a typical example. In 1982, in the historic case of Plyler v. Doe, the United States Supreme Court ruled 5-4 that: regardless of immigration status, all children in the United States have the constitutional right to receive public education. This ruling clearly states that state governments cannot refuse to enroll children based on immigration status. Public schools cannot require students or parents to present immigration documents, cannot ask about immigration status, and cannot hand over related information to immigration enforcement agencies. Hospitals are the same. Federal law EMTALA (Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act) requires any hospital that accepts federal medical insurance to provide emergency medical services to all who come to the emergency room, regardless of their ability to pay or immigration status. Hospitals cannot ask about immigration status before providing emergency treatment, nor can they refuse treatment due to identity issues. These are not special exemptions designed for undocumented immigrants, but the basic logic of the entire American institutional design: certain basic human rights should not be made conditional on identity documents. Birthright citizenship: cutting off the root of tragedy In the United States, the story of 'Non-Portion Guilt' would not have taken a tragic turn from the beginning, for another fundamental reason: birthright citizenship. According to the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, all persons born in the United States, regardless of their parents' status, are American citizens from birth. The two daughters of the doctor played by Wu Qi-hua and his Filipino wife, if they lived in the United States, would receive a birth certificate upon birth, followed by a social security number, becoming full-fledged American citizens. More importantly, in this process, parents do not need to present any immigration documents. Hospitals register newborns' births without asking about parents' immigration status. Applying for a birth certificate does not require parents to present legal residency documents. There are clear 'firewalls' between different government departments—the department responsible for handling birth registrations and the department responsible for immigration enforcement are independent of each other and do not share information. Parents can safely let their children be born in the hospital, register the birth certificate, without worrying about exposing their own identity. This design is not accidental. It is based on a clear policy idea: children should not pay the price for their parents' choices. A child's starting point in this world should not be predetermined by their parents' legal status. Two national ideologies, two fates The tragedy of 'Non-Portion Guilt' is, on the surface, a family story, but it reveals two completely different national ideologies. Hong Kong's system inherits the traditional Chinese 'Qimin Bianhu' ideology and the population control logic of British colonizers. Under this system, the state exists before the individual, and the individual must prove their identity to the state to gain the qualifications for survival and service. Those not registered and recognized by the state do not exist in the system and are not protected by the system. The United States' system is based on a completely different ideology: the government exists to serve the people, not to control the people. The government does not have the natural right to know who every person is. Certain basic human needs—education, medical care, birth registration—should not be made conditional on identity documents because these are basic human dignity.

FACT BOX

  • Source: PR Times
  • Category: 其他