CRITICAL ASIAN STUDIES 167 The BSPP further expanded the category of potential foreigners to legally recognized citizens who allegedly had significant foreign ties, particularly blood ties with neighboring countries.104 Those who were not legally or administratively classified as foreigners but had one foreign parent, were naturalized citizens, or could not prove that their parents were citizens at the time of their birth found their involvement in government service and elected positions increasingly limited.105 The 1974 Constitution required members of parliament to be born of two citizen parents. In addition, the minimum age for a seat in parliament was set at twenty-eight, effectively blocking anyone descended frommigrants who moved to Burma in the twentieth century. Dr. Maung Maung, the primary drafter of the 1982 Citizenship Law, clarified restrictions on naturalized citizens in a speech to BSPP party members in Rangoon in 1980: There are sometimes those from outside who have been accepted as members of the family for the sake of the interests of the household. They are like naturalized citizens. A stranger is not easily accepted into a family. The unity, peace, and tranquility of the family have to be taken into consideration.106 The 1982 Citizenship Law provided a pathway to citizenship for South Asians if, at the time the law came into effect, they were married to a Myanmar citizen and held a FRC, or if they or their ancestors had entered Burma prior to independence in 1948 and had been living in the country ever since. The 1982 Law did not allow naturalization of anyone who entered the country after 1948 or their descendants. Nor did it allow anyone who was granted either “guest citizenship” (associate citizenship) or “permitted citizenship” (naturalized citizenship) to pass citizenship on to their children at birth. Instead, children of associate or naturalized citizens have to apply for citizenship when they turn eighteen. In summary, the 1982 Law limited citizenship by birth to a single descent-based pathway. The tiered citizenship system the law created is aimed at residents whom the state sees as having filial ties with India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, or China, making this class of citizens not only potentially less trustworthy due to their foreign ties, but potential foreigners themselves.107 By removing all non-taingyintha from the category of natural born citizens, the law created a situation in which those categorized as potential foreigners would have their citizenship status scrutinized by the state before they could obtain documentation or pass on their nationality to their children. Previous BSPP rhetoric linked foreign status, foreign ties, and mixed ancestry to imperialism, black-market trading, and questionable loyalty to the Burmese state and the socialist system.108 After 1982, with the dissolution of citizenship acquisition by birth for all non-taingyintha, a person’s degree of “foreign” ancestry became more explicitly linked to a hierarchized citizenship type, legally connecting political fears, social discrimination, and citizenship status. 104 Nyi Nyi Kyaw 2019; Rhoads 2023b. Nyi Nyi Kyaw 2019; Roberts 2016; Aung Ko Ko et al. forthcoming; Rhoads 2023a; Taylor 2006, 678. The Working People’s Daily, July 4, 1980. 107 The Working People’s Daily 1982; Rhoads 2023a and 2023b. 108 Nyi Nyi Kyaw 2019; Ikeya 2020; Hanthawaddy 1974. 105 106