The recent discovery of several prostitution cases in luxury hotels and apartments has brought to light the large number of Chinese residing and working illegally in the country after having entered the country legally, as most of the prostitutes are of Chinese nationality.
As more Chinese nationals are found to be working illegally as prostitutes — among other jobs — a National Immigration Agency (NIA) official revealed that since 1988, when Chinese nationals were first allowed into the country, 9,330 illegal residents from China have been found to be working as prostitutes, while 17,276 worked illegally in other occupations.
However, the official said that the real number of illegal residents and workers from China is certainly higher than the recorded number.
The NIA official said that initially illegal immigrants from China were smuggled into the country, then, they began to come into the country through “fake marriages,” as the number of cross-strait marriages increased.
As of last month, as many as 150 Chinese women who were born after 1970 have come to Taiwan after getting married to Taiwanese men and disappeared, the NIA said.
Recently, in accordance with government policy to allow Chinese to visit Taiwan for leisure and business, more people are arriving as tourists or businesspeople, but just staying and working illegally, the official said.
In March, more than 100 Chinese nationals were caught working as prostitutes in the landmark Tower 85 in Kaohsiung.
Further investigation found that all of the women came into the country as businesspeople.
“It costs only about 30,000 Chinese yuan [US$4,500] to get forged job certificates and forged invitations,” a Kaohsiung police officer said. “So a lot of [Chinese] who don’t even know how to read and write could become chief executives of some department store or real estate groups in China and come to Taiwan for ‘business.’”
The officer added that many of those who return to China after getting caught would come back again using different names or identities.
NIA officials said that more Chinese choose to come into Taiwan as businesspeople or tourists because it’s much harder to check their identity than through a fake marriage.
Police officers said that, although the government has relaxed entry regulations for Chinese nationals, “they don’t care if there is sufficient manpower to deal with the change.”
The inspection equipment and data transmission system for new robotic dogs that Taipei is planning to use for sidewalk patrols were developed by a Taiwanese company, the city’s New Construction Office said today, dismissing concerns that the China-made robots could pose a security risk. The city is bringing in smart robotic dogs to help with sidewalk inspections, Taipei Deputy Mayor Lee Ssu-chuan (李四川) said on Facebook. Equipped with a panoramic surveillance system, the robots would be able to automatically flag problems and easily navigate narrow sidewalks, making inspections faster and more accurate, Lee said. By collecting more accurate data, they would help Taipei
STATS: Taiwan’s average life expectancy of 80.77 years was lower than that of Japan, Singapore and South Korea, but higher than in China, Malaysia and Indonesia Taiwan’s average life expectancy last year increased to 80.77 years, but was still not back to its pre-COVID-19 pandemic peak of 81.32 years in 2020, the Ministry of the Interior said yesterday. The average life expectancy last year increased the 0.54 years from 2023, the ministry said in a statement. For men and women, the average life expectancy last year was 77.42 years and 84.30 years respectively, up 0.48 years and 0.56 years from the previous year. Taiwan’s average life expectancy peaked at 81.32 years in 2020, as the nation was relatively unaffected by the pandemic that year. The metric
TAKING STOCK: The USMC is rebuilding a once-abandoned airfield in Palau to support large-scale ground operations as China’s missile range grows, Naval News reported The US Marine Corps (USMC) is considering new sites for stockpiling equipment in the West Pacific to harden military supply chains and enhance mobility across the Indo-Pacific region, US-based Naval News reported on Saturday. The proposed sites in Palau — one of Taiwan’s diplomatic allies — and Australia would enable a “rapid standup of stored equipment within a year” of the program’s approval, the report said, citing documents published by the USMC last month. In Palau, the service is rebuilding a formerly abandoned World War II-era airfield and establishing ancillary structures to support large-scale ground operations “as China’s missile range and magazine
A 72-year-old man in Kaohsiung was sentenced to 40 days in jail after he was found having sex with a 67-year-old woman under a slide in a public park on Sunday afternoon. At 3pm on Sunday, a mother surnamed Liang (梁) was with her child at a neighborhood park when they found the man, surnamed Tsai (蔡), and woman, surnamed Huang (黃), underneath the slide. Liang took her child away from the scene, took photographs of the two and called the police, who arrived and arrested the couple. During questioning, Tsai told police that he had met Huang that day and offered to