A Taiwanese is a Chinese in Norway

A Taiwanese student in Norway has for more than a month tried to change his nationality on his Norwegian residency card, but without luck, Taipei Times reported.

On Thursday 5 September Taipei Times brought the story about the Taiwanese student Lu Yu-ta, who has spoken to the police and immigration authorities in Norway with the aim of changing his nationality on his residency card, where it said “Kina(China)-Taiwan” and not just “Taiwan”

From the authorities Lu was met with the message, that they understood how he felt about it, but as Norway do not recognize Taiwan as a country, they could not change the designation of his nationality. The response was not surprising for him, he said to Taipei Times.

“Although we are granted visa-free access to 140 countries, it’s sad that the suffering of not being recognized as citizens of an independent country persists,” he said.

“To ease a feeling of helplessness a bit” Lu told that all he could do was to hang a national flag in front of his window.

Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ Department of European Affairs director-general Zhang Ming-zhong said that the ministry had been in talks with the Norwegian government over the issue since April this year, after the ministry learned of similar cases.

The response received from Norway was that the rules were an adherence to the “one China” policy, Zhang said.
One reason Norway has failed to respond positively could be that it did not want to further complicate its relationship with China, he added according to Taipei Times.
Relations between Norway and China have been frosty since the Oslo-based Nobel committee awarded the Nobel Peace Prize to the prominent Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo in 2010.

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