In a bid to raise the number of Chinese visiting Taiwan, the Ministry of the Interior on Friday proposed reducing the amount they must prove they have in savings by half.
The proposal would amend the Regulations Governing the Approval of People of the Mainland Area Visiting Taiwan for Purposes of Tourism (大陸地區人民來台從事觀光活動許可辦法) to lower the amount Chinese need to have in their bank accounts from NT$200,000 to NT$100,000.
The ministry also proposed allowing a valid visa to be used in lieu of financial proof for applicants who plan to travel with a tour group or independently.
However, it has also suggested that the requirement that tour groups provide copies of their itineraries with their travel permit applications be expanded to apply to individual travelers as well.
“There have been cases of Chinese coming to Taiwan as tourists, but who were actually here to earn money by performing or begging on the street,” National Immigration Agency Public Relations Section chief Hsu Chien-lin (徐健麟) said yesterday.
Most of the people who have been detained for engaging in such activities came as independent tourists, Hsu said.
Requiring independent Chinese travelers to provide a copy of their itinerary could help prevent such problems, he said.
Hsu rejected concerns that such a requirement would discourage independent Chinese tourists from visiting Taiwan.
“If they are truly coming to Taiwan for tourism, they will have hotel reservations and a rough idea of their possible itineraries,” Hsu said.
The proposed amendments are likely to go into effect 60 days after the ministry’s announcement on Friday.
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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