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DE RUEHGZ #0450 1000829
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O 100829Z APR 07
FM AMCONSUL GUANGZHOU
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC IMMEDIATE 5967
INFO RUEHOO/CHINA POSTS COLLECTIVE
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RUEHRC/DEPT OF AGRICULTURE WASHINGTON DC
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RHHMUNA/HQ USPACOM HONOLULU HI

UNCLAS GUANGZHOU 000450 
 
SIPDIS 
 
STATE FOR EAP/CM AND DRL 
USDA FOR FAS/ITP AND FAS/FAA 
USDOC FOR 4420/ITA/MAC/MCQUEEN 
USPACOM FOR FPA 
 
SENSITIVE 
SIPDIS 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: PHUM KTIP PGOV SOCI ECON CH
SUBJECT: Changes in Fujian Human Smuggling Patterns 
 
REF: 05 Guangzhou 32942 
 
 (U) This document is sensitive but unclassified.  Please protect 
accordingly. 
 
¶1. (SBU) SUMMARY: Fujian Border Control Police told the Consul 
General that that the number of cases of human smuggling to the 
United States via sea has fallen. Human smuggling out of Fujian 
Province has increasingly involved traveling directly to the United 
States with legitimate visas or travel through third countries to 
Mexico, where Fujianese then cross the border.  END SUMMARY 
 
¶2. (U) The Consul General and Consulate staff met with Chen Hao, 
Deputy Chief of Staff of Fujian Border Control Department on March 
27th to discuss recent trends in human smuggling in Fujian Province. 
 This meeting was a follow-up to a discussion held in December 
¶2005. 
 
¶3. (U) Chen told the Consul General that his Division did not 
distinguish between human trafficking and human smuggling crimes in 
its investigations, a statement that was similar to one made by the 
Director General during the 2005 meeting (reftel); then, as now, 
human smuggling was viewed as an "illegal border crossing." 
 
¶4. (U) Chen introduced examples of recent human smuggling trends in 
Fujian.  He proudly noted that there had not been a case of human 
smuggling to the United States by sea since 2005.  While his 
Division discovered 13 cases involving 253 people in 2000, it has 
not encountered additional cases since.  Chen attributed this 
decline to rapid economic development, the local government's public 
awareness and enforcement campaign, and a change in people's 
attitudes in response to the Golden Venture tragedy at Rockaway 
Beach, NY in 1999.  In its place, Chen remarked, a new method of 
smuggling has arisen. 
 
¶5. (U) Increasingly, the preferred method is to acquire legitimate 
visas for direct entry to the U.S. or to transit through third 
countries to reach Mexico and eventually cross the U.S.-Mexican 
border.  In the latter case, the most common transit countries are 
Russia, Ukraine, the Czech Republic, and South Africa.  Chen said 
that although more expensive than smuggling by sea, this appeal of 
this method was the relative lack of danger.  The price for this 
smuggling method was between seventy and eighty thousand dollars per 
person, though the "snakehead" or smuggler only netted ten thousand 
dollars as much of the money was needed to pay bribes and other 
smuggling costs.  Chen claimed that the smuggler only received the 
money if the smuggled person actually reached the United States. 
 
¶6. (U) Chen said that many people in Fuzhou's Changle District, 
which is a well known source of illegal immigration into the States, 
are now opening businesses such as steel or textile factories.  Some 
even have returned from the States to their hometown to take 
advantage of China's rapidly developing economy.  As a result, he 
said, emigration from Changle has dropped. 
 
¶7. (U) Chen took note of other recent developments, such as a shift 
from Japan to South Korea as a destination point for smuggling and a 
decline in the number of Fujianese men smuggled to work on Taiwanese 
fishing boats.  By contrast, Taiwan still remains a common 
destination for mainland women forced to work in the island's sex 
industry.  These women have been deceived by smugglers and come from 
all over China, though very few are from Fujian.  According to Chen, 
there were once over 20,000 mainland women forced into prostitutes 
and subsequently detained in Taiwan.  All of them had been 
repatriated to the mainland by the end of February this year. 
Fujian's border control police are responsible for receiving these 
women by boat.  The police treat them as victims of human smuggling 
and help them return home.  Chen confessed they did not - or were 
unable to - provide psychological counseling to them due to the 
shortage of qualified staff.  Only women who repeatedly smuggle 
themselves into Taiwan will face administrative or criminal penalty. 
 The threshold is three illegal border crossings a year. 
 
GOLDBERG