A Tale of Two Shores: External Co-Ethnic Membership, Concurrent Jurisdiction, and Onward Migration Among Cross-Taiwan Strait Migrants from 2008 to 2024

Migration scholarship has predominantly focused on host country policies and the dichotomy between assimilation and transnationalism, frequently neglecting the impact of sending countries' policies and the cross-border practices of migrants ensnared in restrictive nation-state frameworks. This study interrogates three categories of cross-Taiwan Strait migrants from 2008 to 2024—Taiwanese businesspeople and students in China, and Chinese students in Taiwan—as a comparative case to elucidate the intricate concurrent jurisdiction dilemma. Drawing on 30 in-depth interviews, ethnography, and policy text analysis, this article offers two theoretical contributions. First, it transcends the siloed approaches of host and sending countries by integrating the concurrent jurisdiction perspective. This approach underscores how, amidst political division and convoluted geopolitical dynamics, the PRC and Taiwanese governments deploy policies, legal architectures, and differentiated administrative measures to identify, stratify, and empower or disempower cross-Strait migrants as contentious external co-ethnic members. These measures are meticulously crafted to achieve their respective objectives of political posturing or deterrence, national identity consolidation or fragmentation, and socio-economic inclusion or exclusion. Second, this article engages with Ong’s (1999) concept of “flexible citizenship”. Rather than positioning nation-state regulation and transnationalism as antithetical forces, this study demonstrates how the concurrent jurisdiction of host and home countries catalyzes migrants' cross-border practices, onward migration trajectories, and the evolution of global citizenship. In response to concurrent jurisdiction dilemma, cross-Strait migrants adopt a “jigsaw migration” strategy (Jones, 2023), pragmatically employing fragmented identities and periodic movement across the Taiwan Strait to maintain mobility, cross-border emotional ties, and amass resources while circumventing incomplete citizenship statuses.