President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) on Friday once again called for Japan to review what he considered an insufficient number of Japanese tourists visiting Taiwan in recent years, the third time he has aired such concerns in the past 15 days.
Ma told former Japanese deputy prime minister Katsuya Okada, a member of the Japanese House of Representatives, on Aug. 15 that “there is still room for your honorable country to improve” the number of its tourists visiting Taiwan, because it is far less than the number of Taiwanese visiting Japan.
When receiving new Japanese Representative to Taiwan Mikio Numata on Aug. 22, Ma urged Japan to “reflect upon” why there were only 780,000 Japanese visitors to Taiwan in the first half of the year, against 1.46 million Taiwanese tourists to Japan during the same period, adding that Taiwan has surpassed South Korea to become the largest source of tourists to Japan.
On Friday, at a meeting with members of Japan’s Kansai Association of Corporate Executives, Ma said that Japan could expect as many as 2.5 million tourists from Taiwan in a year, almost the same size as the combined number of visits by both sides when he took office six years ago.
“The only improvement needed to be made is that there are too few tourists coming from your honorable country to Taiwan. I hope that your honorable country could make more efforts [to improve the situation],” Ma said.
Repeatedly appealing to Japan in an accusatory tone seemed to suggest that Ma was serious about holding Japan responsible for the imbalance in tourist flows between the two countries.
According to the Tourism Bureau’s inbound tourism statistics last year, China continued to top the list of source countries, with 2.87 million trips made to Taiwan, or 35.8 percent of the 8.02 million visitors Taiwan received, followed by Japan (1.42 million, or 17.7 percent), Hong Kong and Macau (1.183 million, or 14.8 percent), and then the US (414,000, or 5.2 percent).
By area of residence, visitors from Asian countries accounted for 89.1 percent of Taiwan’s inbound tourists, or 7.14 million trips. Excluding China, Hong Kong and Macau, Japan is already the most important inbound market for Taiwan. Malaysia is the second-biggest Asian source country, with total visits of about 394,000 last year, or 4.9 percent.
Since July 2008 — two months after Ma took office — when Taiwan began allowing direct entry to Chinese tourists without having to pass through a third country as required by the previous Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) administration, and with the increasingly relaxed visa requirements, the lifting of the ban on independent tourists, and the ever-increasing daily quota, Chinese tourists have become indispensable for the nation’s tourism industry.
Compared with the number of Chinese tourists visiting Taiwan, which nearly tripled from 2009 to last year, during the same period the number of visitors from Japan to Taiwan grew by 42 percent, those from South Korea by 109 percent, from Southeast Asian countries by 136 percent, from countries in the Americas by 13.7 percent, from countries in Europe by 12.2 percent, from countries of Oceania by 17 percent and from African countries by 13.7 percent.
It is commendable that Ma has begun to look beyond China in the hunt for increased tourism, but he still has a lot to learn. Accusing Japan does not help Taiwan become a more appealing destination for international travelers. Enhancing the nation’s image and upgrading the quality of its tourism services depends on its own efforts. In a democratic country, a government should not dictate to its people which country they should visit.
The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) continues to bully Taiwan by conducting military drills extremely close to Taiwan in late May 2024 and announcing a legal opinion in June on how they would treat “Taiwan Independence diehards” according to the PRC’s Criminal Code. This article will describe how China’s Anaconda Strategy of psychological and legal asphyxiation is employed. The CCP’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) and Chinese Coast Guard (CCG) conducted a “punishment military exercise” against Taiwan called “Joint Sword 2024A” from 23-24 May 2024, just three days after President William Lai (賴清德) of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) was sworn in and
Former US president Donald Trump’s comments that Taiwan hollowed out the US semiconductor industry are incorrect. That misunderstanding could impact the future of one of the world’s most important relationships and end up aiding China at a time it is working hard to push its own tech sector to catch up. “Taiwan took our chip business from us,” the returnee US presidential contender told Bloomberg Businessweek in an interview published this week. The remarks came after the Republican nominee was asked whether he would defend Taiwan against China. It is not the first time he has said this about the nation’s
In a recent interview with the Malaysian Chinese-language newspaper Sin Chew Daily, former president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) called President William Lai (賴清德) “naive.” As always with Ma, one must first deconstruct what he is saying to fully understand the parallel universe he insists on defending. Who is being “naive,” Lai or Ma? The quickest way is to confront Ma with a series of pointed questions that force him to take clear stands on the complex issues involved and prevent him from his usual ramblings. Regarding China and Taiwan, the media should first begin with questions like these: “Did the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT)
The Yomiuri Shimbun, the newspaper with the largest daily circulation in Japan, on Thursday last week published an article saying that an unidentified high-ranking Japanese official openly spoke of an analysis that the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) needs less than a week, not a month, to invade Taiwan with its amphibious forces. Reportedly, Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida has already been advised of the analysis, which was based on the PLA’s military exercises last summer. A Yomiuri analysis of unclassified satellite photographs confirmed that the PLA has already begun necessary base repairs and maintenance, and is conducting amphibious operation exercises