The People's Republic of China (PRC) is now confronted with a phenomenon which ceased after the founding of the PRC in 1949: illegal emigration. These uncontrolled population movements nevertheless seem to announce the birth of a real Chinese emigration policy. This chapter discusses the causes of this upsurge in emigration, the views of individual emigrants and government, along with the evidence suggesting that the Chinese government is in the process of developing new policies to deal with an issue which they see as largely a problem for the host nations, rather than for China. At the beginning of the 1990s, illegal emigration was the cause of several incidents involving rival states. These events forced China's government to consider its position on Chinese emigration. In 1993 that number had jumped to 5,227 an increase of 51 % compared with the 1992 figure. Immigration authorities reckon that as of the end of 1994, there were around 36,300 Chinese nationals living illegally in Japan.