Exploring Atypical Citizenship Deprivation and Spillover Effects between de facto and de jure recognition — supports its independent statehood.32 This author argues that this in-between status has shaped Taiwan’s identity as a contested sovereign entity. The statehood of Taiwan is contested externally and internally. Taiwan, having established a democratic system and self-governance over the years, still grapples with the legacy of being the seat of the former Chinese Government. This former status is still echoed in its official name, ROC, and its constitution, 33 which continues to claim sovereignty over all of China. The ROC’s transition to a democratic system in the late 1980s led to the localisation or indigenisation of politics, which in turn caused the Government to cease asserting sovereignty over China’s territory in the 1990s. The democratisation of Taiwan changed the landscape of the political regime, including its people’s concept of their nation — which moved from being part of China to becoming an independent Taiwan.34 Meanwhile, the constitutional amendments during the 1990s shifted the nationality of Taiwan’s people from ‘Chinese’ to ‘Taiwanese’, signifying a new citizenship.35 The constitution of the ROC preserved its main text, but amendments adapted it to the reality of Taiwan, creating a practical — yet controversial — structure for the continuation of the ROC legal regime. Although the content of Taiwanese citizenship and citizenship practices themselves have evolved within Taiwan, people attempting to travel on Taiwanese citizenship documents in international settings can experience difficulties. B Sovereignty’s Influence on Citizenship Taiwan’s ambiguous sovereignty has far-reaching implications for Taiwanese citizenship. After WWII, Taiwan’s sovereignty entered a legal limbo. The ROC assumed governance while simultaneously asserting sovereignty over all of China. Over decades of de facto rule in Taiwan, the island’s sovereignty and the ROC’s authority have become inextricably linked. The connection between the ROC’s governance and Taiwan’s sovereignty has created a close association between the two in the eyes of other nations. This link often leads other states to view Taiwan’s international status through the lens of the ROC’s past, even though circumstances have greatly changed in the modern day. The ROC’s historical pursuit of sovereignty over all China, and the modern fact of its governance over Taiwan, have contributed to this association, leaving Taiwan’s legal status situational and open to interpretation. The ambiguity surrounding Taiwan’s sovereignty directly affects Taiwanese citizens, rendering their citizenship status precarious in international contexts. The Taiwanese Citizenship report of the Global Citizenship Observatory, an online academic database of citizenship law and policies as well as analysis of citizenship worldwide, points out that Taiwanese citizenship has continued to evolve during the democratisation of Taiwan, and currently exists as a functional 32 33 34 35 Roth (n 27). Constitution of the Republic of China (Taiwan) 1947 (Taiwan). For changes in the population identifying as Taiwanese rather than Chinese, see Election Study Centre, ‘Taiwanese / Chinese Identity’ (n 15) Jiunn-rong Yeh, The Constitution of Taiwan: A Contextual Analysis (Hart Publishing 2016) 36. 107