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Bride ad ban denies 'goodness' of cross-strait marriages
By Flora Wang
July 30, 2004
Kuomintang (KMT) lawmakers yesterday accused the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC)
of discriminating against mainland spouses since MAC plan to ban all
advertisements of cross-strait matchmaking from Aug. 1. Legislator Hsu
Shao-ping called MAC's move as "governing the country with two systems," and
questioned MAC's motive of only restricting ads for cross-strait marriages.
"The government should supervise illegal ads instead of denying the goodness of
matchmaking across the strait," said Hsu. "If the government would like to ban
matchmaking ads, why didn't it set restrictions on ads for brides from
Southeast Asia, too?" Hsu asked.
Lawmaker Huang Teh-fu said both mainland and foreign spouses are now Taiwanese
wives and should be treated equally.
Showing a sample of cross-strait matchmaking ads, he said the wording does not
violate the Act Governing the Relations between Peoples in Taiwanese Area and
Mainland Area, and therefore there's no need to ban the ads.
Legislator Apollo Chen claimed although the government has promised to improve
the living conditions of mainland spouses, it is in fact setting more and more
restrictions on them.
"If only cross-strait matchmaking ads are banned, it is discrimination for
sure," said Chen.
Liu Shyang-chi, chairman of the Care Cross-Strait Family Foundation said the
organization was against all action taken by the government to be
discriminatory.
"Advertisements for spouses from the mainland should not be the first to be
banned," said Liu, adding that most of the recent cross-strait marriages have
had less and less to do with matchmaking.
A mainland spouse surnamed Liang, who has stayed in Taiwan for five years,
brought her daughter to the press conference. She said the government regulated
spouses from the mainland more strictly than those from other countries.
"Why does the government discriminate against us?" Liang asked the officials
from MAC.
"If the government is really confident of its democracy, it should help
mainland brides adapt to Taiwanese society," Liu said.
Sung Kuo-yeh, deputy chief of MAC's law division, said although matchmaking of
cross-strait marriages is not forbidden, it is not appropriate to be advertised
because brides are not merchandise.
He also mentioned that there was going to be a restriction on the advertising
of foreign marriages as well.
The government is not discriminating and there's no ideology in the
restriction, MAC officials assured Huang and Hsu.
According to the interior ministry, the media carrying advertisements for
mainland brides and the matchmaking companies will be fined from NT$100,000 to
NT$500,000, starting from Aug. 1.
MAC claimed that the restriction is meant to curb the "wife-shopping" trend in
cross-strait marriages.
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