Chinese provincial governments sent significantly fewer official groups on visits to Taiwan last year, according to the National Immigration Agency.
Last year, only 23 official groups from China’s provincial governments traveled to Taiwan on government business, a 45 percent drop from 2014, and the number of delegates it sent also decreased, agency data showed.
The groups are official tours of Taiwan organized by provincial governments in China, and they often include important local officials, such as provincial committee secretaries or provincial governors.
Under the administration of President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九), a steady increase in the number of such groups was observed, with 62 such groups visiting in the first two years of Ma’s presidency between May 2008 and September 2012.
During that period, the groups signed letters of intent valued at US$16.2 billion, a sum that then-National Security Bureau director Tsai Der-sheng (蔡得勝) described to legislators as showing that “the bulk of [available] Chinese capital has not yet reached the places we want it to go.”
Chinese provincial governments sent 31 official groups to Taiwan in 2012 and 2013 each, while 42 groups visited Taiwan in 2014, the agency said.
However, not only did the number of visiting groups drop sharply last year, but significant reductions to their sizes were also observed, the agency reported.
Whereas the largest Chinese provincial delegation on record had 660 officials, the groups that visited last year were comprised on average of 10 delegates, with the smallest group, from Liaoning Province, composed of only seven officials.
The agency also reported that no provincial groups visited Taiwan in January and last month.
The results of the Jan. 16 elections might have dampened Chinese governments’ enthusiasm to send delegates to Taiwan, Mainland Affairs Council officials said, adding that the Chinese model for cross-strait interactions could be undergoing change.
Chung Hua University associate professor of public administration Tseng Chien-yuan (曾建元) said that according to China’s “united front” strategy, each provincial government was assigned political objectives in Taiwan to “enter the minds, hearts and households” of Taiwanese.
The inauguration of president-elect Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) on May 20 is expected to make Chinese officials hesitant in the short term, but it is believed such exchanges will resume eventually, because Beijing is unlikely to abandon its efforts in Taiwan and allow its existing ties to lapse, Tseng said.
There is also the possibility that Chinese provincial government delegates would concentrate on building relationships with the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and its local chapters, he added.
However, Central Police University public security professor Tung Li-wen (董立文) said the Tsai administration should re-evaluate allowing official visits by groups from Chinese provincial governments if they undermine Taiwan by bypassing the DPP and the central government.
“After all, control over border entry is in the hands of the government,” he said.
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