The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) yesterday accused China’s Taiwan Affairs Office (TAO) of shifting the blame for Beijing’s tourism ban on Taiwan, continuing a war of words that started in the past week.
The council’s remark came hours after its Chinese counterpart on Friday accused the government of creating barriers to the resumption of reciprocal group tours across the Taiwan Strait.
The TAO accused the MAC of releasing untruthful information and dragging its feet on the tourism sector’s call to establishing ferries linking Pingtung County to China’s Pingtan Island.
Photo: Chung Li-hua, Taipei Times
The MAC failed to respond to overtures to restore direct flights and raised the travel advisory for China to “orange” to hinder tourism, the TAO said.
It also urged the government to lift a purported ban on travel to China.
The MAC said it never banned Taiwanese from visiting China and that 2.52 million people have done just that from January to September, 7.2 times more than the 285,000 Chinese who visited Taiwan over the same period.
The facts clearly show that China is the party responsible for withholding tourism, it said.
The TAO’s insincere offer to open China to Taiwanese tourists came with condition after condition, including demands that Taiwan lift restrictions on officials and people from China, it said.
The Chinese agency failed to reciprocate when Taiwan fulfilled its conditions, instead responding with ambivalent comments to the effect that it would “proactively study measures to increase tourism from Chinese residents to Taiwan,” the council said.
“Any rational person would doubt the sincerity of China’s willingness to allow Chinese tourists to visit Taiwan and our concern is that even if China had done so, it would renege should Taiwan refuse to acquiesce to [some other] Chinese policy,” the MAC said.
The government’s long-standing policy is for a healthy and orderly exchange between the two sides, and to welcome Chinese guests on condition of equitable arrangements for both sides, it said.
Its precondition of safeguarding the safety of Taiwanese traveling in China would also remain unchanged, it added.
It was referring to the decision to change the travel advisory on China, Hong Kong and Macau from “yellow” to “orange” in light of the penalties Beijing announced in June for “Taiwanese independence diehards.”
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