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.
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