Reports of Taiwanese going missing, being detained or interrogated, or having had their person liberties restricted in China have surged this year, Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) Minister Chiu Chui-cheng (邱垂正) said today in a radio interview.
A total of 133 cases have been reported to the Straits Exchange Foundation and the MAC, up from 55 last year, Chiu said.
The cases can be divided into three categories: missing, detention and interrogation, and restriction of personal liberty by the Chinese Communist Party, especially with the use of Chinese criminal law, he said.
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The number of cases has been increasing by 20 every month, he said.
A travel alert for China, Hong Kong and Macau was upgraded to “orange” in June last year, he said, urging Taiwanese to carefully evaluate trips and register their itineraries on a new online platform launched in April.
Asked when group tourism and individual travel from China would resume on Taiwan proper, Chiu said it has been the council’s aim to resume cross-strait tourism exchange.
He called for authorities across the Taiwan Strait to communicate on tourism safety issues, adding that cross-strait tourism has been stalled for five years.
He urged China to restart communications on travel safety, quality, stability and fairness through the Taiwan Strait Tourism Association of Taiwan and the Association for Tourism Exchange Across the Taiwan Straits.
The associations were established by Taipei and Beijing respectively to facilitate coordination and negotiations between the two sides on tourism.
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