Marriage-immigrants eyed

Taiwan is screening about 60,000 immigration applications filed by Chinese hoping to live here with their Taiwanese spouses, an official said yesterday. The government will approve the applications and let the couples live together as long as their marriages are verified, Liu Teh-hsiun (劉德勳), vice chairman of the Mainland Affairs Council, was quoted as saying by the semiofficial Central News Agency. The relationships are rigorously scrutinized because some criminals have smuggled prostitutes to Taiwan by using fake marriages. Authorities have already verified about 140,000 marriages between Chinese and Taiwanese since the late 1980s, when Taiwan lifted a ban on travel to China, Liu was quoted as saying.