A sharp decrease in the number of Taiwanese marrying Chinese is likely due to businesses relocating away from China, a researcher said on Saturday.
In 2003 there were 34,109 cross-strait marriages registered in Taiwan, but only 6,262 last year, said Academia Sinica Institute of Sociology research fellow Lin Thung-hong (林宗弘), citing information from the Ministry of the Interior.
In 2003 the number of cross-strait marriages was so high that the government began conducting interviews with registrants to filter out fake marriages, Lin said.
“In the early years there were many fake marriages involving Chinese coming to Taiwan for work, but circumstances on both sides have changed,” a Mainland Affairs Council official said on condition of anonymity.
For the past several years the government has been promoting closer economic ties with Southeast Asian countries, which has resulted in a change to marriage patterns, Lin said.
However, while the annual number of cross-strait marriages has been declining, Chinese still account for the majority of non-Taiwanese spouses registered in Taiwan at nearly 350,000, or 65 percent of all non-Taiwanese spouses, he said.
There are 190,000 spouses from Southeast Asian countries registered in Taiwan, he said.
Of the Chinese spouses, 130,000 are naturalized, while 110,000 have Alien Resident Certificates and 110,000 have entry permits for family visitation, he said.
While the large majority of the Chinese spouses are women, 19,000 of them are men, he said.
In 2010, Taiwanese investment in China began to wane and there was a sharp decline in 2014 following the Sunflower movement, Lin said, adding that the number of marriages involving Chinese spouses registered in that period also declined.
In 2014 there were only 9,322 cross-strait marriages registered — the first year the number dropped below 10,000.
At the same time, China’s economy was strengthening and the number of Chinese wanting to have children also declined, both of which contributed to fewer Chinese wanting to move to Taiwan, he said.
The number of marriages to foreign spouses registered in Taiwan — roughly 20,000 annually — has not changed, but the countries those spouses are from has changed, he said, adding that in 2017 registration of Southeast Asian spouses was greater that for Chinese spouses for the first time.
Taiwan’s healthcare and education systems are major draws for Chinese, Lin said.
The issue of how to offer healthcare services to the Chinese spouses has been debated and policy changes are likely to affect cross-strait marriage numbers, he said.
The brilliant blue waters, thick foliage and bucolic atmosphere on this seemingly idyllic archipelago deep in the Pacific Ocean belie the key role it now plays in a titanic geopolitical struggle. Palau is again on the front line as China, and the US and its allies prepare their forces in an intensifying contest for control over the Asia-Pacific region. The democratic nation of just 17,000 people hosts US-controlled airstrips and soon-to-be-completed radar installations that the US military describes as “critical” to monitoring vast swathes of water and airspace. It is also a key piece of the second island chain, a string of
A magnitude 5.9 earthquake that struck about 33km off the coast of Hualien City was the "main shock" in a series of quakes in the area, with aftershocks expected over the next three days, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Prior to the magnitude 5.9 quake shaking most of Taiwan at 6:53pm yesterday, six other earthquakes stronger than a magnitude of 4, starting with a magnitude 5.5 quake at 6:09pm, occurred in the area. CWA Seismological Center Director Wu Chien-fu (吳健富) confirmed that the quakes were all part of the same series and that the magnitude 5.5 temblor was
The Central Weather Administration has issued a heat alert for southeastern Taiwan, warning of temperatures as high as 36°C today, while alerting some coastal areas of strong winds later in the day. Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門) and Pingtung County’s Neipu Township (內埔) are under an orange heat alert, which warns of temperatures as high as 36°C for three consecutive days, the CWA said, citing southwest winds. The heat would also extend to Tainan’s Nansi (楠西) and Yujing (玉井) districts, as well as Pingtung’s Gaoshu (高樹), Yanpu (鹽埔) and Majia (瑪家) townships, it said, forecasting highs of up to 36°C in those areas
IN FULL SWING: Recall drives against lawmakers in Hualien, Taoyuan and Hsinchu have reached the second-stage threshold, the campaigners said Campaigners in a recall petition against Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Yen Kuan-heng (顏寬恒) in Taichung yesterday said their signature target is within sight, and that they need a big push to collect about 500 more signatures from locals to reach the second-stage threshold. Recall campaigns against KMT lawmakers Johnny Chiang (江啟臣), Yang Chiung-ying (楊瓊瓔) and Lo Ting-wei (羅廷瑋) are also close to the 10 percent threshold, and campaigners are mounting a final push this week. They need about 800 signatures against Chiang and about 2,000 against Yang. Campaigners seeking to recall Lo said they had reached the threshold figure over the
RSS