The Republic of China (Taiwan) hasn't exchanged ambassadors with the United States since President Nixon chose, 35 years ago, to recognize the People's Republic of China (Beijing) as the government of all China. Taiwan and the United States have remained on good terms, and exchange, if not ambassadors, then persons called representatives who do much the same thing. Taiwan recently appointed a diplomat named Jason Yuan, a member of Taiwan's ruling Kuomintang party, to be its representative to the United States.
"Not so fast," said Taiwan legislator Kuan Bi-ling, who is of the opposition Democratic Progressive Party, who on Friday told the Taiwanese legislature (named the Yuan, as it happens), "Mr. Yuan applied for a USA green card in 2004 and is on the waiting list to get one." (She backed up her accusation by giving Mr. Yuan's immigration visa number.) Mr. Yuan is the second Taiwanese official to be caught on the green card list; last week Taiwan Foreign Minister Francisco Oh, for whom Mr. Yuan is about to work, apologized for holding a USA green card while he was the ambassador to Guatemala.
The Taiwan News, where I found this delightful story, doesn't give the ages of Messrs. Yuan and Oh. I'd guess that Mr. Oh is older and wiser; when the story hit about his green card, he apologized and said that he had already given it up. Mr. Yuan, on the other hand, said he would sue the legislators who had violated his privacy.
