Rise in number of Taiwanese going missing or being detained in China sparks concern in Taiwan

TAIPEI – Taiwanese beauty technician May Chen has always wanted to see the Great Wall of China in Beijing, but she is increasingly concerned about the potential risks of travelling across the strait.

The Taipei-based 42-year-old last visited China a decade ago on a shopping trip to Guangzhou, but believes that the political atmosphere has since “changed too much” for her to feel safe.

“We are hearing more about Taiwanese disappearing in China for no clear reasons, which is very worrying. For now, I’d rather go on holiday to Japan or South Korea,” said the mother of two.

The number of Taiwanese people reported missing, detained for questioning, or having their personal freedom restricted in China has reached 385 since 2024, said Taiwan’s Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) on July 9, as it reiterated its appeal for travellers to assess the potential safety risks when travelling across the strait. 

The council began highlighting these data points regularly in 2024 after it said that China has stopped proactively notifying Taipei about such cases, unlike in the past. Instead, the council learns of the incidents only after being informed by the relatives of those affected.

Alarmingly, the number of such reported cases has surged over time, with cases quadrupling from 55 in 2024 to 221 in 2025. In the first half of 2026, 109 cases were recorded.

Cases involved outspoken political activists as well as ordinary Taiwanese from diverse backgrounds including those from the civil service, religious groups and academia.

This comes as Beijing has in recent years dialled up the pressure on Taiwan through legal means, analysts said.

“While Beijing frames these detentions as routine law enforcement, the pattern points to a deliberate strategy: using vague or politicised national security charges to intimidate Taiwanese citizens, deter travel and engagement with the mainland, and signal that legal risk now attaches to Taiwanese identity itself,” the Australian Strategic Policy Institute wrote in a February report.

It is unclear if any of those being held had broken any laws while in China, but observers say China’s broadly defined statutes regarding national security and espionage could be used to criminalise everyday actions. As a result, taking photographs, using GPS devices, or even speaking with locals could be framed as endangering state security, said the ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) in a July 12 Facebook post.

Beijing considers Taiwan to be an inalienable part of its sovereign territory to be “reunified” one day, but Taiwan’s government rejects these claims, saying only the island’s people can decide ​their future.

Since the end of June, 10 Taiwanese have gone missing in China, MAC’s deputy minister and spokesman Liang Wen-chieh said at a regular press conference on July 9.

Among them, one had travelled to China to visit family, one had gone seeking employment, while four had been travelling together in a group, though it was unclear why they were in the country. It is also unclear for what reason the remaining four individuals travelled across the strait. 

“Don’t go (to China) unless there is a reason to,” Liang warned. 

At the same press conference, Liang described a case where a Taiwanese district court judge was approached by three police officers at his hotel in northern China in April. 

The officers were already aware of the judge’s identity and questioned him to verify the information. The interrogation also included the judge’s line of work, differences between Taiwan and China’s judicial systems, his views on China and issues related to cross-strait exchanges, Liang said. 

The council had in the past revealed that Taiwanese travelling across the strait for either leisure or business purposes have been questioned while clearing Chinese customs.

Associate Professor Chen Shih-min, a political science analyst at National Taiwan University, said that such incidents are intended to exert psychological pressure on Taiwan and foster a sense of fear among the public.

This could, in turn, create a chilling effect and deter Taiwanese from expressing any views that could be perceived as supporting independence for Taiwan or being critical of the Chinese government. 

“Taiwanese people with any intention of travelling to China will start to wonder about everything that they have ever said before, even one-off comments in online forums and on social media years ago,” he told The Straits Times. 

Despite the risks, there remains significant interest among Taiwanese in visiting China. Some 3.24 million Taiwanese visited China in 2025, nearly 17 per cent more than the year before, according to Taiwanese tourism statistics. However, that is still 20 per cent lower than the peak of 4.05 million visits recorded in 2019, before the Covid-19 pandemic.

Taipei has repeatedly complained about Beijing’s growing arsenal of legal warfare tactics, including what it says are vaguely worded laws that effectively criminalise Taiwanese identity.

Most recently, China’s “ethnic unity” law, which took effect on July 1, sparked alarm in Taipei that it could give Beijing another legal basis to go after Taiwanese it views as separatists. According to the law, people and groups outside of China’s borders can be held legally accountable ​for undermining “ethnic unity and progress or inciting ethnic separatism”.

Taiwan’s National Security Bureau director-general Tsai Ming-yen warned that Taiwanese travellers visiting or transiting through China could now face expanded surveillance under the new law.

It gives the Chinese authorities broad discretion because of its hazy definition of acts that “undermine ethnic unity”, he told lawmakers at a parliamentary meeting on July 7. China has developed a nationwide digital surveillance network that enables the authorities to track people’s movements through biometric data, hotel registrations, cellphone location information and transportation records, Tsai added.

China’s Taiwan Affairs Office (TAO) has dismissed Taipei’s criticisms. At a regular press conference on July 2, TAO spokeswoman Zhu Fenglian said that “there is absolutely no issue of vague criminalisation... The DPP authorities’ claims are complete fabrications and smears, deliberately confusing the public”.

The new law compounds existing travel concerns for Taiwanese going to China after Beijing issued judicial guidelines in June 2024, which threatens to impose the death penalty in extreme cases for what it called “die-hard” Taiwan independence separatists. 

Again, Taipei has condemned the vagueness of its wording – including a catch-all clause punishing “other acts that seek to separate Taiwan from China” – which means that the rules can be broadly interpreted.

Yeh Yao-yuan, a Taiwan studies expert at the University of St Thomas in Houston, Texas, said that all Taiwanese should think twice before travelling across the strait, regardless of their backgrounds or political leanings. 

“Who knows if China will target you, because there are countless reasons why someone could be targeted by China,” he said.

In June, MAC Minister Chiu Chui-cheng said in an interview with Taiwan’s CNews that 20 Taiwanese have been detained in China since January 2025 for religious activities, including those in their 60s and 70s. Eighteen of them are followers of the religious group I-Kuan Tao, which is legal in Taiwan but deemed to be a cult in China, he said. While three of them have returned to Taiwan, 15 remain in China. 

Beijing is “afraid of the organising power of these secret organisations”, the minister added, and urged followers not to engage in missionary activities while in China.

The MAC maintains an orange travel alert for China as well as Hong Kong and Macau, both Special Administrative Regions of China. It is the second-highest level in its four-tier warning system. This advises Taiwanese to avoid all non-essential travel to these regions due to significant safety risks, strict surveillance, and risk of arbitrary detention.