This paper reports on an empirical study exploring English speakers’ L2 processing of Chinese base-generated-topic (BGT) sentences. Forty-four very proficient English-speaking L2 learners of Chinese and 23 native Chinese speakers were involved in the study. Results of a self-paced reading task disclose that both native Chinese speakers’ and L2 Chinese learners’ processing of Chinese BGT sentences is syntactically induced in a top-down manner. English speakers are sensitive to and are able to make use of syntactic cues as well as semantic information in their processing of Chinese BGT sentences. The inquiry supplies disconfirming evidence against the Shallow Structure Hypothesis (Clahsen and Felser, 2006a, Clahsen and Felser, 2006b), which forecasts that unlike native speakers, L2 learners do not depend on structure-based processing strategies when solving ambiguities in L2 sentence processing.