Description & Facts: Fuzhou is the capital of Fujian Province in China. Fuzhou is an old port city, Marco Polo visited it. In the 19th century, it exported more tea than any other Chinese port. Today, Fuzhou is the provincial capital and administrative center, and also a major center for light industry. Nike has a factory there, and a Taiwanese firm that makes shoes for Adidas, Reebok and others has four. All are large factories, with several thousand employees each. Fuzhou is right across the straits from Taipei, and there is fairly heavy Taiwan investment. The actual port is in the suburb of Mawei, which has also been a center for shipbuilding for several hundred years. In 1884, the French destroyed a dockyard at Mawei, sinking a good part of the Chinese navy and killing hundreds. There is a museum to commemorate this. For a more general view of Fujian's seafaring history, visit the Maritime Museum in Quanzhou. Most of the illegal Chinese immigrants smuggled to Western countries come from the Fuzhou region, with Changle, Fuqing and various more rural areas as the main sources. The trade is largely controlled by the region's "snakehead" gangs.