Premier Jiang Yi-huah (江宜樺) yesterday said he hoped that landing visa privileges for Chinese tourists to the outlying islands of Kinmen, Penghu and Matsu could be put into force soon.
Jiang, who was visiting Kinmen, was responding to an appeal from the Kinmen County Government for the government to coordinate with Beijing authorities to allow more Chinese to visit Kinmen.
“There are no legal hurdles to providing landing visas to Chinese tourists to Kinmen, Penghu and Matsu,” Jiang said.
Photo: CNA
However, he added that there could be some problems and he had asked the National Immigration Agency and the Tourism Bureau to look into the matter.
During an inspection tour around the county, Jiang the central and the local governments would work together on Kinmen’s development.
The premier said Kinmen has many distinctive features that cannot be found in Taiwan, such as historic battlegrounds and military facilities. Describing Kinmen as a valuable and clean part of Taiwan, he said people on Taiwan proper are indebted to the island county.
The government will do its best to help the local government develop the county to make it “the nation’s and even the world’s top destination for tourism,” Jiang said.
Kinmen County Commissioner Li Wo-shi (李沃士) said the military tourism resources in the county are unique, and he expressed hope that the Executive Yuan could help with increasing the number of flights serving Kinmen. The island attracted 1.1 million visitors last year.
Jiang later presided over a handover ceremony for the two frontline islets of Dadan (大膽) and Erdan (二膽) from the military to the Kinmen County Government.
Located just more than 4km from the Chinese city of Xiamen, Dadan and Erdan were once known as “the frontline of the frontlines.”
After the handover of Dadan and Erdan, the military is expected to reduce its presence and turn over security of the islets to the Coast Guard Administration and the police.
Dadan and Erdan have areas of 0.79km2 and 0.28km2 respectively.
Taiwan has received more than US$70 million in royalties as of the end of last year from developing the F-16V jet as countries worldwide purchase or upgrade to this popular model, government and military officials said on Saturday. Taiwan funded the development of the F-16V jet and ended up the sole investor as other countries withdrew from the program. Now the F-16V is increasingly popular and countries must pay Taiwan a percentage in royalties when they purchase new F-16V aircraft or upgrade older F-16 models. The next five years are expected to be the peak for these royalties, with Taiwan potentially earning
STAY IN YOUR LANE: As the US and Israel attack Iran, the ministry has warned China not to overstep by including Taiwanese citizens in its evacuation orders The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) yesterday rebuked a statement by China’s embassy in Israel that it would evacuate Taiwanese holders of Chinese travel documents from Israel amid the latter’s escalating conflict with Iran. Tensions have risen across the Middle East in the wake of US and Israeli airstrikes on Iran beginning Saturday. China subsequently issued an evacuation notice for its citizens. In a news release, the Chinese embassy in Israel said holders of “Taiwan compatriot permits (台胞證)” issued to Taiwanese nationals by Chinese authorities for travel to China — could register for evacuation to Egypt. In Taipei, the ministry yesterday said Taiwan
Taiwan is awaiting official notification from the US regarding the status of the Agreement on Reciprocal Trade (ART) after the US Supreme Court ruled US President Donald Trump's global tariffs unconstitutional. Speaking to reporters before a legislative hearing today, Premier Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰) said that Taiwan's negotiation team remains focused on ensuring that the bilateral trade deal remains intact despite the legal challenge to Trump's tariff policy. "The US has pledged to notify its trade partners once the subsequent administrative and legal processes are finalized, and that certainly includes Taiwan," Cho said when asked about opposition parties’ doubts that the ART was
If China chose to invade Taiwan tomorrow, it would only have to sever three undersea fiber-optic cable clusters to cause a data blackout, Jason Hsu (許毓仁), a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute and former Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) legislator, told a US security panel yesterday. In a Taiwan contingency, cable disruption would be one of the earliest preinvasion actions and the signal that escalation had begun, he said, adding that Taiwan’s current cable repair capabilities are insufficient. The US-China Economic and Security Review Commission (USCC) yesterday held a hearing on US-China Competition Under the Sea, with Hsu speaking on
RSS