John KuanMinister of Personnel, Examination Yuan
I can understand government agencies being pragmatic in hiring people, but unless the law is changed they must obey the law. As for the exemptions, it would be much better to clearly define the limits of "civil service," and to improve the definition of the term in the Civil Service Employment Regulations.
I think that it is OK to have dual nationals as members of the Academia Sinica or as Overseas Chinese Affairs commissioners. These are basically honorary positions, and these people are overseas to start with, they don't draw government salaries, and they only come back to be consulted by the government. There is no reason to ask them to give up their foreign citizenship.
In addition, people hired on a contract basis by government offices overseas should be allowed to have dual nationality. After all, they are hired in the first place because we want to draw on their understanding of the locality to promote our work.
In order to avoid focusing on exemptions for a few posts while missing out on many others for which there should also be exemptions, we plan to ask all agencies to report to us exactly which of their positions should by nature or function be able to utilize dual nationals or foreigners. This is the only way to put concrete meaning into the amended law.
As for high technology areas, it should be permissible to hire dual nationals. However, they should only be hired on a contract basis, and for a limited time. In principle we should reduce the number of such hirings.
It is sad that we must rely on foreigners in national development. I believe that we should develop our own talent, and that the hiring of skilled people from abroad should be merely transitional.