The Taipei Times reports that Taiwan’s Ministry of the Interior has drafted amendments to the regulations for acquiring ROC citizenship.

The amendments, which are still under discussion, would require naturalization applicants to possess basic language ability in either Mandarin, Hoklo (commonly known as Taiwanese), Hakka or any of the nation’s Aboriginal languages. I’m very glad of the inclusiveness of this test, which contrasts well with what is being done in China. (I’ll post about Beijing’s actions in Shanghai later.)

An exam on citizen rights and responsibilities, such as in regard to taxation and education, will be offered in any one of the above languages in both written and oral format. Applicants may choose either format, which will feature 20 questions. [emphasis added]

Those who have studied in private or public schools in Taiwan for more than a year or who have taken government-recognized classes for more than 200 hours will not need to take the exam.

Sample exam questions and answers should be available in about six weeks, with the final version of the proposal to be ready by the beginning of next year.

It may be too much to hope for a version of the test in romanization, but I’ll try to keep abreast of the progress of this.

source: Ministry floats draft changes to naturalization law

Addendum: The China Post, a much less reliable newspaper (in large part because it frequently relies on bad translations of badly written stories from the local Mandarin Chinese papers), reports this somewhat differently.