The “small three links” between two outlying island counties and China are to be temporarily revived for homebound travelers for the Lunar New Year holiday next month, the Executive Yuan said yesterday, after the direct ferry and flight services linking Kinmen and Lienchiang counties with China have been suspended for nearly three years.
The Executive Yuan in yesterday’s weekly Cabinet meeting approved the Mainland Affairs Council’s (MAC) proposal to reinstate the services, which were in February 2020 suspended amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
The services would be offered from Jan. 7 to Feb. 6, it said, adding that only registered residents of the two counties, including Chinese spouses, could apply for seats on the flights with the respective county government.
Photo courtesy of the General Assembly of Chinese Culture via CNA
The county governments would compile lists of people interested in taking the flights and file applications on their behalf, it said.
Taiwanese who are registered elsewhere in the nation cannot return from China using the services, the Cabinet said.
There would be one daily round-trip flight between Kinmen and Xiamen, and two weekly round-trips between Lienchang County and China, linking it to Langqi and Huangqi, the council said, adding that it would seek to gradually resume normal operations of the “small three links.”
The number of flights was set based on the number of Kinmen and Matsu residents studying or working in China, as well as Chinese spouses living in the two counties, MAC Minister Chiu Tai-san (邱太三) told a news conference after the Cabinet meeting.
Council data showed that there are about 2,400 Chinese spouses in Kinmen and about 500 in Matsu. Approximately 2,000 residents of the two counties study or work in China, the data showed.
“Taiwan and China will carefully monitor the COVID-19 situation after travel on the ‘small three links’ temporarily resumes for the Lunar New Year holiday. Both sides are to make adjustments based on changes in the pandemic, public health risks and respective disease prevention capacities,” he said.
Minister of Transportation and Communications Wang Kwo-tsai (王國材) said that flights between Kinmen and Xiamen can seat up to 309 passengers, while flights to Matsu can seat 290 people.
Deputy Minister of Health and Welfare Victor Wang (王必勝), who heads the Central Epidemic Command Center, said COVID-19 is one of the factors that would determine whether the services would continue after the Lunar New Year holiday.
“There is a huge gap between the COVID-19 data announced by Beijing and those that we have so far collected. It is difficult to gauge the real situation in China based on the opaque data it presents to the public,” Wang said.
Wang said that the government would assess the infection rate of passengers from China through random polymerase chain reaction tests.
Japan has deployed long-range missiles in a southwestern region near China, the Japanese defense minister said yesterday, at a time when ties with Beijing are at their lowest in recent years. The missiles were installed in Kumamoto in the southern region of Kyushu, as Japan is attempting to shore up its military capacity as China steps up naval activity in the East China Sea. “Standoff defense capabilities enable us to counter the threat of enemy forces attempting to invade our country ... while ensuring the safety of our personnel,” Japanese Minister of Defense Shinjiro Koizumi said. “This is an extremely important initiative for
The nation’s fastest supercomputer, Nano 4 (晶創26), is scheduled to be launched in the third quarter, and would be used to train large language models in finance and national defense sectors, the National Center for High-Performance Computing (NCHC) said. The supercomputer, which would operate at about 86.05 petaflops, is being tested at a new cloud computing center in the Southern Taiwan Science Park in Tainan. The exterior of the server cabinet features chip circuitry patterns overlaid with a map of Taiwan, highlighting the nation’s central position in the semiconductor industry. The center also houses Taiwania 2, Taiwania 3, Forerunner 1 and
MORE POPULAR: Taiwan Pass sales increased by 59 percent during the first quarter compared with the same period last year, the Tourism Administration said The Tourism Administration yesterday said that it has streamlined the Taiwan Pass, with two versions available for purchase beginning today. The tourism agency has made the pass available to international tourists since 2024, allowing them to access the high-speed rail, Taiwan Railway Corp services, four MRT systems and four Taiwan Tourist Shuttles. Previously, five types of Taiwan Pass were available, but some tourists have said that the offerings were too complicated. The agency said only two types of Taiwan Pass would be available, starting from a three-day pass with the high-speed rail and a three-day pass with Taiwan Railway Corp. The former costs NT$2,800
FIRST TRIAL: Ko’s lawyers sought reduced bail and other concessions, as did other defendants, but the bail judge denied their requests, citing the severity of the sentences Former Taipei mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) was yesterday sentenced to 17 years in prison and had his civil rights suspended for six years over corruption, embezzlement and other charges. Taipei prosecutors in December last year asked the Taipei District Court for a combined 28-year, six-month sentence for the four cases against Ko, who founded the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP). The cases were linked to the Core Pacific City (京華城購物中心) redevelopment project and the mismanagement of political donations. Other defendants convicted on separate charges included Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Taipei City Councilor Angela Ying (應曉薇), who was handed a 15-year, six-month sentence; Core Pacific
RSS