Overview:

• Recognition and registration are amalgamated with a focus on the latter as legal registration with few to no mechanisms put in place to achieve existential recognition; emphasis is placed on financial benefits of legal registration; also, due to the structure of the present system, a lack of provisions are put in place for the registering of religious buildings which demonstrates why most places of worship are not registered but are instead categorised as the personal property of religious leaders.

• Segmentation of the registration process between national and provincial procedures creates restriction and inconsistency in the system especially because national recognition (via an establishment permit) is not possibility for certain groups which in turn creates a situation of vertical recognition.

• The establishment permit is a restrictive policy in the process of preregistration.

• The financial quotas in place are fairly unique restrictions to Taiwan, especially the stipulation for a certain amount of real estate having to be owned by the group; additionally restrictive is that property of the group need be located in at least seven of the administrative regions.

• The misregistration of the Falun Gong Society demonstrates there exists issues within the recognition system.

Positive elements:

• Freedom of religion or belief is broadly though not universally upheld by the government in practice.

Recommendations:

• Dismantlement of the present segmented structure.

• Revoke laws surrounding the establishment permit in preregistration including the dissolution of financial quotas.

• Establish a revitalised recognition system that can provide both existential recognition and legal registration to all belief systems and at multiple levels of activity without creating a situation of vertical recognition.

• To classified as dynamic, set up an independent recognition agency to manage the system.