ABSTRACT
In November 1987, responding to the call of elderly mainlanders (waishengren) for the chance to visit home in China (Hsiao 1990: 175–176), the government of Taiwan, on compassionate grounds, finally lifted the decades-long ban on travelling to the People’s Republic of China (PRC). Subsequently, and also as a humanitarian gesture, in 1990 the government relaxed the regulations and permitted mainlanders’ spouses and families who had been left behind in China to be relocated and settled in Taiwan (Ma 1993: 202). However, because residency was the only route for the PRC Chinese to acquire citizenship in Taiwan the number of permitted settlements was controlled by an annual cap (Ma 1993: 208; MAC 2006: 12). In the years to come, as shown below, granting family reunions but, at the same time, restricting the number of permitted settlements became the twin pillars of the policy governing the migration of PRC Chinese to Taiwan.
