The big story for awhile now has been that they will announce that Taiwanese can travel to USA without a visa. Well today it became official. Sure people are happy here, but I was always asking what the trade was. What does America get in return?
Well today reading the reports from foreign media outlets, it seems the trade was that Taiwan started importing USA beef again. A few years back Taiwan stopped importing the USA beef because of some toxins in it. Prices for beef went up, but then quickly went back down again. Why? because Taiwanese rarely eat beef, and I believe as mentioned before many people in Taiwan have a belief that beef is not good for females.
So in exchange for poisoning it's people, Taiwan can now go to America visa free. Well it does say they still need to register online first, I'm assuming this is their way of trying to be just as stringent as before. but it's much cheaper than before and doesn't require jumping through the hoops needed before. Which was getting forms from a variety of offices and getting them stamped at others, and then having a face to face interview where they seemed to just reject people by the look of them. It was all quite arbitrary who was allowed a visa and who wasn't.
Well this is a huge victory for Taiwan's president. His domestic policy is pretty poor, as he has been concentrating of foreign affairs. I believe that before he took office it was 54 countries which Taiwan could go to without a visa and now it's 128.
What's this mean for you? Well it means more American citizens. The big thing in Taiwan is to go to USA to have your baby. So women would get their visa in advance, go to America, stay in secret birthing hotels run by Taiwanese where pregnant women stay to have their baby and receive medical care. Then ta da, an American baby with American citizenship.
So with no more face to face interviews, it's made much easier for Taiwanese to go over and give birth to American babies. I used to tease my students who would do this, that their kids can enjoy the perks of being American but not have to pay the taxes for it (because they don't live in America and won't make a salary large enough to be taxed), and feign anger, but really I think it's great for their kids and admire their parents for going to such spy-like lengths to make it happen. However sometimes I do think about in the end while it benefits the child, what is the USA getting out of having all these foreign babies being born there, cause turning a blind eye to this out of the kindness in their hearts isn't really the American way. There must be some calculating reason behind allowing this to go on, I just have yet to figure it out. And by the time I do, it might be too late! (Insert scary music here).
Oh wait, I got it. Because Asians are the largest group of immigrant workers in the USA, America now makes it easier for Asians to have babies in the USA. So then when they grow up and come back to America to get a job, the government can count them towards the employment rate of American citizens, instead of as a foreigner. Genius!
