diff --git a/src/kits/support/Jamfile b/src/kits/support/Jamfile
index 04551b9dac..029eccb8fe 100644
--- a/src/kits/support/Jamfile
+++ b/src/kits/support/Jamfile
@@ -8,6 +8,7 @@ SharedLibrary textencoding :
 	character_sets.cpp
 	utf8_conversions.cpp
 	;
+DEPENDS libtextencoding.so : libiconv.so ;
 LinkSharedOSLibs libtextencoding.so :
 	be
 	iconv
diff --git a/src/kits/support/character_sets.cpp b/src/kits/support/character_sets.cpp
index a8ef008425..34e3a194bc 100644
--- a/src/kits/support/character_sets.cpp
+++ b/src/kits/support/character_sets.cpp
@@ -104,6 +104,14 @@ const char * iso15aliases[] =
  { "ISO_8859-14","Latin-9",NULL };
 const BCharacterSet iso15(24,111,"ISO 8859-15","ISO-8859-15","ISO-8859-15",iso15aliases);
 
+// chinese character set testing
+
+const char * big5aliases[] =
+ { "csBig5",NULL };
+const BCharacterSet big5(25,2026,"Big5","Big5","Big5",big5aliases);
+
+const BCharacterSet gb18030(26,114,"GB18030","GB18030",NULL,NULL);
+
 /**
  * The following initializes the global character set array.
  * It is organized by id for efficient retrieval using predefined constants in UTF8.h and Font.h.
@@ -122,6 +130,7 @@ const BCharacterSet * character_sets_by_id[] = {
 	&windows1252, &unicode2, &KOI8R, &windows1251,
 	&IBM866, &IBM437, &eucKR, &iso13, &iso14, &iso15,
 	// R5 convert_to/from_utf8 encodings end here
+	&big5,&gb18030,
 };
 const uint32 character_sets_by_id_count = sizeof(character_sets_by_id)/sizeof(const BCharacterSet*);
 
diff --git a/src/kits/support/utf8_conversions.cpp b/src/kits/support/utf8_conversions.cpp
index de982994a5..e322828695 100644
--- a/src/kits/support/utf8_conversions.cpp
+++ b/src/kits/support/utf8_conversions.cpp
@@ -15,6 +15,10 @@ convert_encoding(const char * from, const char * to,
                  char * dst, int32 * dstLen,
                  int32 * state)
 {
+	if (*srcLen == 0) {
+		// nothing to do!
+		return B_OK;
+	}
 	iconv_t conversion = iconv_open(to,from);
 	if (conversion == (iconv_t)-1) {
 		return B_ERROR;
@@ -28,14 +32,30 @@ convert_encoding(const char * from, const char * to,
 	input_buffer_t inputBuffer = const_cast<input_buffer_t>(&src);
 	size_t inputLeft = *srcLen;
 	size_t outputLeft = *dstLen;
-	size_t bytesLeft = iconv(conversion,inputBuffer,&inputLeft,&dst,&outputLeft);
+	size_t nonReversibleConversions = iconv(conversion,inputBuffer,&inputLeft,&dst,&outputLeft);
 	*srcLen -= inputLeft;
 	*dstLen -= outputLeft;
-	if ((bytesLeft != 0) && (errno != E2BIG) && (errno != EINVAL)) {
+	iconv_close(conversion);
+	if (nonReversibleConversions == -1) {
+		switch (errno) {
+		case EILSEQ: // invalid multibyte sequence in the source
+			return B_ERROR;
+		case EINVAL: // incomplete multibyte sequence in the input
+			return B_OK;
+		case E2BIG: // not enough room in the output buffer for the next converted character
+			return B_OK;
+		default:
+			// unknown error
+			int err = errno;
+		}
+	}
+	if (*srcLen != 0) {
+		// able to convert at least one character
+		return B_OK;
+	} else {
+		// not able to convert at least one character
 		return B_ERROR;
 	}
-	iconv_close(conversion);
-	return B_OK;
 }
 
 status_t