Second-class citizen? Taiwanese lawyer feels the island’s people get little respect in mainland China
Chen Ming-Tsung feels Taiwanese are treated ‘as foreigners’ on the mainland
Chen Ming-Tsung, 39, was born in Miaoli county in Taiwan and came to the mainland in 2005. Trained in Taiwanese and mainland law, Chen worked for a Taiwanese manufacturer in southern China and later taught at a university in Nanjing. He is ambivalent about his time on the mainland – while he loves the dynamic atmosphere he also feels that Taiwanese like himself are viewed as second-class citizens. After failing to obtain funding for a research project, Chen returned to Taiwan while he waits for another job opportunity to arise on the mainland.
When did you move to the mainland?
At the time I worked for Well Shin Technology, which makes electrical power cords and cables. In 2005, they stationed me as a legal adviser in Dongguan [an industrial city in Guangdong province where many Taiwanese businesses are located]. Before coming to the mainland, all I really wanted was a stable career in Taiwan. But by then the relatively developed eastern coastal area was full of people from the inland who had flocked to the cities to seek their fortune. The situation was very similar to Taiwan in the 1980s when everyone was working overtime almost every day.
How was your first job there?
I worked at Well Shin until 2007. At the time, the mainland legal system was far from perfect. It was not a place ruled by law. Some companies did not sign contracts with their employees and their regulations were incomplete. So there were lots of labour disputes. One time, a security guard at Well Shin beat an employee so badly that the victim was left in a vegetative state. The company had not signed a contract with him, so he was uninsured. His uncle petitioned on his behalf and Well Shin spent almost three years reaching a settlement.
Because of my profession, I had to deal with my company’s mainland managers, local officials and other legal specialists. But they often questioned my ability, asking , “Do you understand Chinese law?” or, “Can you solve legal problems in China?”
It sounded to me like humiliation. I have a law degree from Taiwan but I got no respect. I was trained to solve all kinds of legal issues, and even if I did not have enough knowledge of Chinese law at the time, I was able to pick it up very quickly.
What’s the difference between mainland and Taiwanese law?
Compared with Taiwan’s legal system, the mainland still has much room to improve, especially in public and procedural law. But business and labour laws on the mainland are nowmore advanced than those in Taiwan, maybe because the mainland economy is much more developed than Taiwan at present.