About 200 foreigners have been deported from Beijing this year, according to the city's General Station of Exit and Entry Frontier Inspection on Thursday.

Most of the foreigners were repatriated because they entered the country illegally, held illegal visas or had illegal jobs.

Some of the foreigners were detained in other provinces and sent to the capital to be deported from China, the authority said.

Li Zhongwei, an official from the station's repatriation department, told Beijing Evening News that most of the repatriated foreigners were from developing countries. They came to China for work or were traveling through China to illegally enter other countries, Li added.

Some foreigners were intercepted at airports after Chinese police discovered they were holding fake visas or passports. In some cases, foreigners were using another person's identity card or information, Li said.

The authority said it is required to see the illegal foreigners off. Authorities do not leave the airport until the airplane's cabin doors are shut, he added.

Yang Liu, a publicity officer at the Beijing Exit-Entry Administration, said they regularly check on foreigners to see if their certificates are legal and have not expired.

According to current Chinese exit-entry rules, foreigners are not allowed to come into China within five years if they have been repatriated for unqualified or illegal certificates.

"For foreigners who disobey our administrative regulations, our police have the right to ask them to go back home," she said. "But for those who commit crimes or do illegal acts in our country, we'll send them back under a court's verdict."

The question of when a foreign wrongdoer or criminal can return to China depends on specific court judgments, she added.

Dai Peng, director of the criminal investigation department at the People's Public Security University of China, said some foreign criminals will be repatriated after serving their sentences in China.

"Not all foreigners with illegal certificates can be found at customs," he said.

But he added that Chinese police will search out foreigners who are illegally staying, entering or working in China.

On April 4, a man named Alsubaie, 22, from Saudi Arabia, sexually assaulted a Chinese woman in public in Changsha, capital of Hunan province. The man was detained after witnesses seized him and notified the police.

He later confessed to the assault and was sentenced to five years in prison for attempted rape and will be deported after serving his sentence.

On Dec 2, a foreigner knocked over a woman with his motorbike. Initially it was reported that the woman had intentionally thrown herself in front of the foreigner's motorbike to extort money from him.

Beijing police said after an investigation that the man had violated traffic rules. Both he and his father were working in the country illegally.

The man was detained for five days and fined 5,000 yuan for illegally working in China. His father received 14 days of administrative detention and a fine of 10,000 yuan. Both the man and his father were deported from China.

Yang said on Thursday that the man's residence certificate in Beijing had also expired.