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 German city of Hamburg on Oct. 14 named a bridge “Kaohsiung-Brucke” after the Taiwanese city of Kaohsiung. The footbridge, formerly known as F566, is to the east of the Speicherstadt, the world’s largest warehouse district, and connects the Dar-es-Salaam-Platz to the Brooktorpromenade near the Port of Hamburg on the Elbe River. Timo Fischer, a Free Democratic Party member of the Hamburg-Mitte District Assembly, in May last year proposed the name change with support from members of the Social Democratic Party and the Christian Democratic Union. Kaohsiung and Hamburg in 1999 inked a sister city agreement, but despite more than a quarter-century of

Taiwanese officials are courting podcasters and influencers aligned with US President Donald Trump as they grow more worried the US leader could undermine Taiwanese interests in talks with China, people familiar with the matter said. Trump has said Taiwan would likely be on the agenda when he is expected to meet Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) next week in a bid to resolve persistent trade tensions. China has asked the White House to officially declare it “opposes” Taiwanese independence, Bloomberg reported last month, a concession that would mark a major diplomatic win for Beijing. President William Lai (賴清德) and his top officials

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) yesterday expressed “grave concerns” after Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong (黃循財) reiterated the city-state’s opposition to “Taiwanese independence” during a meeting with Chinese Premier Li Qiang (李強). In Singapore on Saturday, Wong and Li discussed cross-strait developments, the Singaporean Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement. “Prime Minister Wong reiterated that Singapore has a clear and consistent ‘one China’ policy and is opposed to Taiwan independence,” it said. MOFA responded that it is an objective fact and a common understanding shared by many that the Republic of China (ROC) is an independent, sovereign nation, with world-leading

‘ONE CHINA’: A statement that Berlin decides its own China policy did not seem to sit well with Beijing, which offered only one meeting with the German official German Minister for Foreign Affairs Johann Wadephul’s trip to China has been canceled, a spokesperson for his ministry said yesterday, amid rising tensions between the two nations, including over Taiwan. Wadephul had planned to address Chinese curbs on rare earths during his visit, but his comments about Berlin deciding on the “design” of its “one China” policy ahead of the trip appear to have rankled China. Asked about Wadephul’s comments, Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman Guo Jiakun (郭嘉昆) said the “one China principle” has “no room for any self-definition.” In the interview published on Thursday, Wadephul said he would urge China to