Premier Liu Chao-shiuan (劉兆玄) said yesterday the government was considering allowing Chinese visitors to travel without a tour or other group in Penghu, Kinmen and Matsu on a trial basis.
If the pilot trial is successful, the plan would be applied to Taiwan proper, he said.
Current cross-strait agreements require that Chinese tourists travel in a group of at least five for their entire trip.
There have been calls for the government to relax regulations on Chinese tourists as the number of arrivals has dropped to less than 1,000 people per day from a peak of more than 3,000 per day a few months ago.
“We did notice the phenomenon [falling arrivals] and we do have some ideas [on how to increase numbers], but we still need to negotiate [with the Chinese],” Liu told reporters who asked him about the issue during a tour of Matsu.
TALKS NEEDED
Tourism Bureau Director-General Janice Lai (賴瑟珍) said her office will discuss the issue with China through the Taiwan Strait Tourism Association, a private group representing the tourism industry, and its Chinese counterpart.
“To relax the regulations might involve revisions of cross-strait deals [that opened Taiwan to Chinese tourists],” Lai said.
The government was also considering loosening some conditions on landing visas granted to Chinese tourists.
Starting on Sept. 30 last year, the government has issued landing visas to Chinese tourists visiting Kinmen and Matsu who do not hold positions in the People’s Liberation Army, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) or the Chinese government.
The Executive Yuan announced last month that the landing visa service would soon be extended to Penghu, but the proposal had not been approved.
Local politicians in Matsu suggested the government loosen restrictions.
“I hope people from the [CCP], the Chinese government and its army can receive landing visas as it usually takes two weeks for them to obtain approval from the National Immigration Agency to visit Matsu,” Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Tsao Erh-chang (曹爾忠) said.
Lienchiang County Commissioner Chen Hsueh-sheng (陳雪生) called on Liu to allow a limited number of Chinese to travel visa-free to Matsu for a maximum of three days.
NO VISA-FREE
Liu said that Tsao’s suggestion was “worthy of discussion” and was under deliberation by the government, but he rejected the visa-free idea.
“We have never considered allowing Chinese tourists visa-free access,” Liu said.
The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) yesterday reported the first case of a new COVID-19 subvariant — BA.3.2 — in a 10-year-old Singaporean girl who had a fever upon arrival in Taiwan and tested positive for the disease. The girl left Taiwan on March 20 and the case did not have a direct impact on the local community, it said. The WHO added the BA.3.2 strain to its list of Variants Under Monitoring in December last year, but this was the first imported case of the COVID-19 variant in Taiwan, CDC Deputy Director-General Lin Ming-cheng (林明誠) said. The girl arrived in Taiwan on
South Korea is planning to revise its controversial electronic arrival card, a step Taiwanese officials said prompted them to hold off on planned retaliatory measures, a South Korean media report said yesterday. A Yonhap News Agency report said that the South Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs is planning to remove the “previous departure place” and “next destination” fields from its e-arrival card system. The plan, reached after interagency consultations, is under review and aims to simplify entry procedures and align the electronic form with the paper version, a South Korean ministry official said. The fields — which appeared only on the electronic form
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) is suspending retaliation measures against South Korea that were set to take effect tomorrow, after Seoul said it is updating its e-arrival system, MOFA said today. The measures were to be a new round of retaliation after Taiwan on March 1 changed South Korea's designation on government-issued alien resident certificates held by South Korean nationals to "South Korea” from the "Republic of Korea," the country’s official name. The move came after months of protests to Seoul over its listing of Taiwan as "China (Taiwan)" in dropdown menus on its new online immigration entry system. MOFA last week
A bipartisan group of US senators has introduced a bill to enhance cooperation with Taiwan on drone development and to reduce reliance on supply chains linked to China. The proposed Blue Skies for Taiwan Act of 2026 was introduced by Republican US senators Ted Cruz and John Curtis, and Democratic US senators Jeff Merkley and Andy Kim. The legislation seeks to ease constraints on Taiwan-US cooperation in uncrewed aerial systems (UAS), including dependence on China-sourced components, limited access to capital and regulatory barriers under US export controls, a news release issued by Cruz on Wednesday said. The bill would establish a "Blue UAS
RSS