The “small three links,” which include direct ferry and flight services between Kinmen, Matsu and China, are to be temporarily revived for residents of the outlying islands during the Lunar New Year holiday next month, the Executive Yuan announced on Thursday.
The services were suspended on Feb. 10, 2020, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, when the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) said the risk of infection could harm national interests.
The first phase of revived services is set for Jan. 7 to Feb. 6, and would only allow residents of Kinmen and Lienchiang counties, including Chinese spouses, to apply for seats on limited direct flights between Kinmen and Xiamen, and between Matsu and China’s Fujian Province.
The announcement sparked a backlash from some Taiwanese businesspeople in China, who would not be eligible to return via the “small three links.” They said the prices of direct flights have spiked because there are only direct flights to Taiwan from four major cities in China.
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and the Taiwan People’s Party also weighed in, accusing the government of not considering Taiwanese in China who want to return to see family during the Lunar New Year holiday, ignoring the MAC’s explanation that the partial revival was in consideration of the limited medical resources in the outlying counties.
The Central Epidemic Command Center said that there is only one hospital each in Kinmen and Lienchiang counties, with 10 intensive care unit beds in Kinmen, while there is only one on Matsu. Allowing thousands of people to arrive from China, where cases are surging, could strain the healthcare system on the islands, it said.
Former Kinmen County commissioner Yang Cheng-wu (楊鎮浯) and Kinmen County Commissioner Chen Fu-hai (陳福海), who takes office today, have expressed support for reopening the “small three links” in phases, making adjustments based on the circumstances.
The decision to carefully reinstate the services is due to the uncertainties in China, which discarded its strict “zero COVID-19” policy this month, and where the hasty, mismanaged transition to “living with the virus” has led to a wave of infections by the Omicron variant of SARS-CoV-2.
People in China have little guidance from Beijing and are left to improvise after three years of rigid lockdowns, compulsory testing and quarantines, so people are panic-buying fever medication, lining up for hours outside clinics and self-isolating due to infection or fear, while packed hospitals and overloaded morgues have been widely reported.
The Chinese government is known for grossly underreporting its COVID-19 cases and deaths, so many experts are concerned that the situation in China could be worse than expected and might even escalate in the coming weeks.
Bloomberg on Friday cited a leaked Chinese government document circulating on social media, allegedly the minutes of an internal meeting of the Chinese National Health Commission on Tuesday, which said that an estimated 248 million people were infected with COVID-19 in the first 20 days of this month, while there were about 37 million new cases estimated that day — a stark contrast to the official tally of 3,049 infections.
Some experts have warned that there is no time for COVID-19 complacency, and the possibility of new and more transmissible variants emerging from the millions of infections in China cannot be ignored.
The gradual reopening of the “small three links” services is a pragmatic approach. While the government should assist Taiwanese in China in returning for the holidays, residents on the outlying islands should not be at the forefront of increased health risks.
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