Lawmakers yesterday engaged in a feverish debate during a meeting of the legislature’s Transportation Committee over whether the ban on tour group travel to China should be lifted. The debate followed remarks by Shanghai Vice Mayor Hua Yuan (華源) at the Taipei-Shanghai Twin-City Forum in Taipei on Tuesday.
The Ministry of Transportation and Communications was invited to give a report and discuss the possible reopening of cross-strait tourism.
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) legislators argued in favor of lifting the ban on group tours to China and providing reciprocal access to group tours from China, while Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) legislators accused the KMT and TPP of being scared to stand up to China on this issue.
Photo: Tsai Yun-rong, Taipei Times
If the People’s Republic of China (PRC) were to release definitive plans, Taiwan would begin serious discussions and enquiries into lifting the ban, Minister of Transportation and Communications Chen Shi-kai (陳世凱) said yesterday.
However, it must first ensure the safety of Taiwanese citizens, due to previous incidents of Taiwanese being detained or having phones searched in China, Chen said.
Taiwan allows independent tourists to travel from Taiwan to China. It temporarily relaxed restrictions on group travel from March to May, before banning them again in June. However, those who had already booked group trips before June were permitted to go ahead with their travel plans, with 230,000 having traveled as of October, Chen said.
Meanwhile, China has upheld restrictions on independent and group travel of Chinese citizens to Taiwan, except for those who have applied for official permission. Although residents from Fujian Province have been granted permission to travel in tour groups via ferry to the Taiwanese islands of Kinmen and Matsu, visitors have remained low, with only 32,000 Chinese visitors to Taiwan recorded through October, Chen added.
The national tourism industry has expressed hope that the group travel ban to China would be lifted. However, the number of travelers from Taiwan to China compared with from China to Taiwan clearly shows who ought to make the first move, DPP Legislator Lin Chun-hsien (林俊憲) said.
Democratic countries such as Taiwan are ruled by law, whereas China is not, so China can enforce arbitrary travel bans for political reasons whenever it wants, causing losses to Taiwan’s domestic tourism industry, DPP Legislator Tsai Chi-chang (蔡其昌) said.
The Tourism Administration should warn operators that the Chinese tourism business is filled with risks, and they should limit investment and resources to prevent losses, Tsai said.
China has reserved offshore airspace in the Yellow Sea and East China Sea from March 27 to May 6, issuing alerts usually used to warn of military exercises, although no such exercises have been announced, the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported yesterday. Reserving such a large area for 40 days without explanation is an “unusual step,” as military exercises normally only last a few days, the paper said. These alerts, known as Notice to Air Missions (Notams), “are intended to inform pilots and aviation authorities of temporary airspace hazards or restrictions,” the article said. The airspace reserved in the alert is
NAMING SPAT: The foreign ministry called on Denmark to propose an acceptable solution to the erroneous nationality used for Taiwanese on residence permits Taiwan has revoked some privileges for Danish diplomatic staff over a Danish permit that lists “Taiwan” as “China,” Eric Huang (黃鈞耀), head of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ Department of European Affairs, told a news conference in Taipei yesterday. Reporters asked Huang whether the Danish government had responded to the ministry’s request that it correct the nationality on Danish residence permits of Taiwanese, which has been listed as “China” since 2024. Taiwan’s representative office in Denmark continues to communicate with the Danish government, and the ministry has revoked some privileges previously granted to Danish representatives in Taiwan and would continue to review
More than 6,000 Taiwanese students have participated in exchange programs in China over the past two years, despite the Mainland Affairs Council’s (MAC) “orange light” travel advisory, government records showed. The MAC’s publicly available registry showed that Taiwanese college and university students who went on exchange programs across the Strait numbered 3,592 and 2,966 people respectively. The National Immigration Agency data revealed that 2,296 and 2,551 Chinese students visited Taiwan for study in the same two years. A review of the Web sites of publicly-run universities and colleges showed that Taiwanese higher education institutions continued to recruit students for Chinese educational programs without
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