2025 Statelessness & Citizenship Review I 7(2) INTRODUCTION The Republic of China (‘Taiwan’), an island nation with an ambiguous international status, has at present one of the most contested citizenship regimes in the world. The statehood of Taiwan has long been understood as a debatable issue in international law, particularly due to its lack of de jure recognition by the majority of the world’s states and its complex relationship with the People’s Republic of China (‘China’).1 According to Gëzim Krasniqi’s research comparing Kosovo and the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, states with different degrees of international recognition and state-building find that sovereignty has an influence upon their citizenship regimes.2 For instance, Kosovo passport holders have faced significant inconvenience when travelling abroad, as their passport is among the weakest globally. This reflects the dysfunctional and liminal nature of their citizenship as shaped by Kosovo’s contested statehood.3 Indeed, these states can be understood as having a contested citizenship due to their contested sovereignty. This insight can also be applied to Taiwan. While the contestation of its statehood represents a challenge to full de jure sovereignty for Taiwan, the statehood’s contained uncertainty also results in an ongoing contestation for Taiwanese citizenship. Research hitherto has paid little attention to the perspectives of Taiwanese people on their contested citizenship. 4 This article explains in more detail the complexities of Taiwanese’s contested citizenship, situating Taiwan in its political and legal context. Focusing on international disputes, the paper explores the impact of government-level mis-recognitions, denials and non-recognition on Taiwanese citizenship. First, it addresses the formulation of this liminal citizenship as attributable to Taiwan’s contested sovereignty. Second, it analyses the nature of Taiwanese citizenship by examining the genuine links between Taiwanese nationality and Taiwan. This article draws on Nancy Fraser’s account of mis-recognition as a form of status subordination, where authorities impose a singular cultural identity on a group, thereby concealing the power struggles within.5 The paper argues that, when applied to the international legal domain, such mis-recognition serves the political interests of some foreign authorities, while ignoring the complexities of contested citizenship and the basic rights of affected individuals. The central argument is that the mis-recognition of Taiwanese citizenship by foreign authorities amounts to denial of Taiwanese citizenship, and thus to a form of atypical citizenship deprivation, without appropriate safeguards in the interests of human rights and personal freedom. The distinctions between nationality and citizenship have long been discussed in various contexts. As Jo Shaw points out, although nationality may not 1 2 3 4 5 Hsuan-Yu Shane Lin, Charles K S Wu and Yao-Yuan Yeh, ‛The Statehood of Taiwan’ in Sabella O Abidde (ed) China and Taiwan in Africa (Springer International Publishing 2022) 37–8. Gëzim Krasniqi, ‘Contested States as Liminal Spaces of Citizenship [Comparing Kosovo and the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus]’ (2019) 18(3) Ethnopolitics 298. ibid. Chen Jing-Han, ‘Contested Citizenship and Statelessness in Question: An Analysis of Cases of Overseas Taiwanese People and Tibetan Exiles in Taiwan’ (PhD Thesis, University of Edinburgh, 2023) 115–52. Nancy Fraser, ‘Rethinking Recognition’ (2000) 3 (May/June) New Left 113. 102