(TAIWAN) — Taiwan People’s Party legislator-at-large Li Zhenxiu said on February 3, 2026 that authorities in her hometown of Hunan, China, rejected her formal application to renounce her PRC citizenship, thrusting her eligibility for office into a widening cross-strait citizenship dispute.
Li made the disclosure during her swearing-in ceremony, as questions over renunciation of citizenship and dual nationality moved from a personal status issue into a political and legal test for Taiwan’s rules on public office.
The case has drawn attention because Li was born in China and naturalized in Taiwan, and she is set to become the first China-born individual to serve in Taiwan’s parliament, the Legislative Yuan.
Li holds a Taiwanese passport and has lived in Taiwan for over 30 years. “I love Taiwan and the Republic of China and swore an oath of loyalty to the nation. my only passport is Taiwanese,” she said.
Legal requirement and procedural stakes
Taiwan’s Nationality Act (Article 20) stipulates that any individual holding a second nationality must renounce it within one year of taking public office. The requirement can turn on paperwork, timing, and what counts as acceptable proof that another citizenship has ended.
For Taiwan’s authorities, citizenship compliance for public officials also carries a trust dimension, as eligibility disputes can quickly become framed through national security and political influence concerns.
The immediate problem for Li is procedural and geopolitical at once: the PRC does not recognize the Republic of China (Taiwan) as a sovereign state. Chinese authorities often refuse to process “renunciation” applications for the purpose of serving in Taiwan’s government, because doing so would imply recognition of Taiwan’s statehood.
That puts officials and lawmakers in Taiwan in a bind when they must meet a legal standard that depends on a foreign government’s actions. In such disputes, the outcome often hinges on whether the foreign authority formally accepts a renunciation, what documentation it issues, and whether the office-holder can show good-faith attempts to comply.
How nationality conflicts play out
The broader mechanics are familiar in nationality conflicts: some governments treat citizenship as ending only when a foreign authority issues a formal acceptance, while others focus on whether the person has taken the required steps. Taiwan’s public-office compliance concept ties the renunciation requirement to assuming office.
The PRC’s position on Taiwan’s sovereignty adds a specific complication, because administrative refusals can prevent a person from obtaining a document Taiwan might consider definitive. That can turn an identity filing into a governance flashpoint, particularly when the person serves in a sensitive public role.
In such disputes, documentary systems — household registration, nationality files, passport records — can collide, and different governments or agencies may prioritize different records as authoritative.
Comparative perspective: United States context
In the United States, the Li case echoes a different but related concept: the U.S. legal system often treats renunciation language as binding for U.S. purposes while recognizing that foreign citizenship outcomes may remain contested overseas.
The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services outlines a renunciation commitment in naturalization through the oath framework. According to the USCIS Policy Manual (Chapter 2 – The Oath of Allegiance), naturalizing citizens must declare: “I hereby declare, on oath, that I absolutely and entirely renounce and abjure all allegiance and fidelity to any foreign prince, potentate, state, or sovereignty, of whom or which I have heretofore been a subject or citizen.” (Last Reviewed/Updated: January 27, 2026).
That oath language reflects the U.S. concept of allegiance at the point of naturalization, but the framework does not inherently function as proof that another country has ended a person’s citizenship. A foreign state can continue to treat someone as its national under its own rules.
The U.S. government position described also addresses dual nationality more broadly. In a press briefing on August 12, 2025, a State Department official noted that certain regimes (citing Iran as an example) “do not recognize dual nationality,” leading to “consular and legal challenges” for those attempting to change their status.
Those challenges can appear in travel and identity situations, where two governments make conflicting claims over a person’s nationality status. Even when U.S. law permits dual nationality, practical conflicts can arise when another state restricts or denies it, or continues to assert obligations tied to citizenship.
Early 2026 brought heightened attention to citizenship integrity within U.S. agencies as well. In January 2026, DHS reportedly issued a memo regarding “Denaturalization and Citizenship Insecurity,” emphasizing stricter vetting for naturalized citizens who maintain significant ties or active household registrations in foreign countries deemed “hostile” or “adversarial” to U.S. interests.
The memo’s reported focus highlights an administrative reality that also appears in Taiwan’s cross-strait checks: identity, household registration, and nationality files can become decisive records. The same underlying theme applies across systems—official determinations often turn on documentation consistency rather than narrative claims.
Taiwan’s administrative checks and social impact
Taiwan, for its part, has increased vetting tied to PRC-linked status, including checks for PRC household registration or related status. The Ministry of the Interior (MOI) has vetted hundreds of thousands of civil servants since March 2025 to ensure they do not possess PRC household registration.
Such records can become pivotal because they are concrete, searchable, and treated as authoritative, even when a person insists their lived reality has changed. In cross-strait cases, a household registration or nationality file can function as the decisive indicator of a person’s status, irrespective of where they reside or which passport they use day to day.
Li’s situation illustrates how those documentary systems can collide. Taiwan’s legal requirement demands renunciation, while the PRC’s non-recognition position can block a renunciation process that Taiwan expects to see completed.
The dispute also shows how citizenship compliance questions quickly become politically charged for public officials, who face scrutiny over loyalty, eligibility, and the risk that another government might claim leverage through citizenship status.
Taiwan’s government has framed the issue through national security. The Taiwan government (led by the DPP) argues that a legislator holding PRC citizenship poses a “grave danger” to state secrets due to China’s National Intelligence Law, which requires all Chinese nationals to cooperate with state intelligence operations if called upon.
In that framing, the concern is not just a technical mismatch in paperwork, but an asserted risk that legal obligations tied to PRC nationality could create vulnerabilities. The use of national security narratives can raise the stakes for what might otherwise be a routine administrative compliance matter.
Consequences and broader implications
For Li personally, the legal consequence is direct: she faces potential removal from office if she cannot provide proof of renunciation within one year. The one-year window is fixed by Taiwan’s Nationality Act (Article 20).
The case also carries broader implications for communities in Taiwan with PRC-linked personal histories. The dispute has been described as a precedent for over 380,000 “mainland spouses” currently living in Taiwan who may seek public office in the future.
For people in that situation, the practical question can become whether a foreign government will provide a document that Taiwan considers sufficient. If it will not, the dispute can become not only personal but structural, affecting who can realistically access certain public roles.
For U.S. readers, the case offers a guide to how cross-border citizenship conflicts can surface in unexpected ways, including when a foreign government’s records or policies conflict with personal history.
One recurring point is the difference between U.S. naturalization oath renunciation language and a foreign country’s legal termination of its citizenship. The U.S. oath is a U.S. legal commitment about allegiance, while foreign citizenship termination depends on the foreign state’s rules and administrative acceptance.
Another theme is the importance of consistent disclosures across forms, travel, and identity documents. Where names, places of birth, citizenship claims, or prior registrations vary across documents, authorities can treat discrepancies as a compliance problem even when a person believes the variations are explainable.
Documentation practices also matter because different agencies control different determinations. In the U.S., citizenship determinations, travel documents, and security vetting can involve different parts of government, and the records each relies on may not match what a foreign state maintains.
The same logic applies across borders: one office may treat a passport as the primary identifier, while another prioritizes household registration or nationality files. People can find themselves caught between systems that value different kinds of proof.
Practical advice and documentation
Keeping a personal documentation file can help when citizenship status becomes disputed across jurisdictions. In practice, that means preserving certified records where available, maintaining consistent translations, and keeping a timeline of status changes, applications, and responses from authorities.
When a foreign government refuses to issue a renunciation document, the evidentiary question often shifts toward what proof of attempt exists—receipts, filings, written responses, and dated records that show what was submitted and how the authority replied.
Diplomatic context and official statements
The dispute has also been placed within a wider diplomatic context involving the U.S. and Taiwan. It says the U.S. State Department praised Taiwan as a “vital partner” on January 28, 2026, following the signing of the “Pax Silica Declaration.”
Li’s statement at her swearing-in distilled the dispute into a personal claim of allegiance and documentation: “I love Taiwan and the Republic of China and swore an oath of loyalty to the nation. my only passport is Taiwanese,” she said.
Resources
U.S. government resources cited include the USCIS Policy Manual, which contains the oath language and reflects how USCIS frames allegiance for naturalization purposes.
The resources also include the USCIS Newsroom and DHS Press Releases for official updates.
