Taiwan's government says the risk of travelling to China is climbing fast, with hundreds of its citizens detained or vanishing entirely — bad news for anyone with family or business ties across the strait.

• Over the past two years and a half, 426 Taiwanese people lost contact while in China, and 160 of them still cannot be found at all.
• More than 200 of the rest are being held by Chinese authorities.
• Requests for help from worried families have nearly doubled in three years, from under 600 cases to over a thousand.
• In the last week of August alone, seven people disappeared; five are still missing.
• Taipei is warning citizens not to assume a trip to China is safe just because most tourists come back fine.

Outlook: Expect Taipei to keep raising travel warnings and cross-strait tensions to stay high as detentions continue.