The process for Chinese traveling to Taiwan via the “three mini links” to the nation’s two outlying counties is to be streamlined starting next year, the National Immigration Agency (NIA) said yesterday.
Starting on Jan. 1, Chinese who hold a permit to travel to Taiwan from Fujian Province are to no longer be required to present a “G note” detailing the date and purpose of their travels upon arrival in Kinmen or Lienchiang counties, the agency said.
In addition, the review period for applications by Chinese citizens to visit via the three mini links for artistic, cultural or business purposes is to be reduced from five to three days, it said.
The three mini links refer to the commercial, transportation and postal exchanges between Kinmen, Matsu and China’s coastal cities.
Taiwan is also to expand the range of activities allowed for Chinese travelers who visit via the three mini links, the agency said.
The new measures are not just for greater travel convenience, but also aim to encourage more exchanges between people on both sides of the Taiwan Strait and to stimulate local tourism, agency official Lin Tse-chien (林澤謙) said.
Chinese visitor arrivals have decreased since President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) took office in May last year, mainly due to strained cross-strait relations.
Arrivals from China last year dropped by an annual 16 percent to 3.5 million, Tourism Bureau data showed.
This year, the number of Chinese visitors fell to 2.4 million in the period from January to October from 3.1 million during the same period last year, representing a decline of 27.45 percent, the data showed.
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