To attract more Chinese tourists to Taiwan, the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) announced yesterday that Chinese visitors would be allowed to visit Taiwan via Kinmen and Matsu.
The measure was one of three policies announced by MAC Chairwoman Lai Shin-yuan (賴幸媛) yesterday. All three are expected to be approved by the Executive Yuan tomorrow.
President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) said last month that Chinese tourists arriving in Kinmen and Matsu could be granted landing or multiple-entry visas.
Beijing has yet to respond to this latest move.
While Chinese tourists visiting Kinmen and Matsu on landing visas were hitherto barred from transferring to Taiwan proper, Lai said the new initiative would allow Chinese nationals who meet certain criteria and have obtained permission from Beijing to do so.
Lai said the council was also planning to streamline the administrative procedure to allow easier access for Chinese, trade and transportation to Kinmen and Matsu.
Behind this move are plans to develop the islets into a closely knit circle with Chinese coastal cities, she said.
On trade, Lai said that as Chinese agricultural produce and seafood are smuggled to Kinmen and Matsu, the council would seek to legalize underground trade of such products through simplified customs procedures and tax exemptions.
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
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Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching