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Cross-strait Marriages between China and Taiwan Down 80 Percent over 15 Years

Statistics from the Taiwan’s Ministry of the Interior show that, since the opening of people-to-people exchanges in 1987 between mainland China and Taiwan, the number of intermarriages increased continuously until 2003, when it reached 34,109, accounting for 20 percent of the total number of marriages in Taiwan in that year. However, the trend reversed and declined, year by year, after that. By 2014, the number of newly cross-strait married couples fell below 10,000. In 2018, it was only 6,800. Over the past 15 years since 2003, the number of cross-strait marriages has shown a steady decrease.

According to the Taiwan based United Daily News (UDN), as a matter of fact, the cross-strait marriages already plummeted to 11,886 in 2004. The drop was probably due to the fact that, in 2003, the Taiwanese government Introduced a requirement for face-to-face interviews in order to prevent fake marriages.

The UDN report also mentioned that, among the cross-strait marriages, the percentage of Chinese women marrying Taiwanese men has gradually declined. In 2004, it was as high as 98.2 percent. In 2018 it fell to 87 percent. In contrast, the ratio of Chinese men marrying Taiwanese woman has gone up year by year.

Source: Voice of America, October 7, 2019
https://www.voachinese.com/a/number-of-cross-strait-marriage-declined-20191007/5113182.html