China’s new standardized contract for tours to Taiwan failed to address crucial issues impeding normal tourism exchanges across the Taiwan Strait, the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) said yesterday.
The contract, issued by the Chinese Ministry of Culture and Tourism on Monday, requires Chinese tourists to abide by Taiwanese laws, customs and regulations, and to protect tourism resources and the environment while traveling.
It also prohibits travel agencies from attracting tourists through low-priced tours, or generating improper profits through organized shopping excursions or imposing additional charges on tourists.
Photo: Chen Yu-fu, Taipei Times
The contract, which is scheduled to be implemented on March 31, is perceived by some as goodwill from Beijing to resume cross-strait tourism.
“The new contract shows that Beijing is not unwilling to resume tours to Taiwan, but it has not responded to our requests for negotiations over how it should proceed,” MAC Deputy Minister Liang Wen-chiang (梁文傑) said. “The interaction between Taiwan and China is like playing table tennis, which has no way to continue if China did not return the serve.”
Beijing has regularly updated terms of the contract since 2014, Liang said, adding that the contract was last updated in 2024.
China failed to address the council’s main concern, he said.
“What we care about the most is the stability of cross-strait tourism. As we have seen in the situation in Japan last year, the Chinese government could simply stop the tours to Japan, even though travel agencies in both countries had signed contracts,” Liang said.
“This would affect not only our travel agencies, but also our hoteliers and tour bus operators, who would sustain tremendous financial losses,” he said, adding that cross-strait tourism should be free from political intervention.
Beijing’s hostile actions have made it almost impossible for the government to allow group travel to China, such as the issuance of a 22-point set of “guidelines” penalizing Taiwanese “independence separatists” and adding Taiwanese officials to its list of “Taiwanese independence diehards,” he said.
Regarding the about 5.44 million Taiwanese who traveled between China and Taiwan last year — 1 million more than in 2024 — Liang said that Beijing’s number exceeded Taiwan’s official figure by 1.66 million, as it calculated Taiwanese entering through Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macau, Japan, Singapore, Southeast Asia and the US.
“The council’s priority is maintaining the order of cross-strait exchanges, rather than the number of Chinese visitors. That is the Tourism Administration’s business,” he said.
Liang also commented on criticism from China’s Taiwan Affairs Office about the Taiwan-US trade deal that was finalized last week, which called it an “indentured servitude contract.”
Then-Chinese premier Li Keqiang (李克強) in 2020 said that 600 million Chinese lived on a monthly salary of less than 1,000 yuan (US$143.30), and latest data on their monthly salaries have risen to 1,300 yuan, he said.
“And yet, we have seen that China’s foreign aid and loans to other countries could potentially exceed US$1.5 trillion. Why does China not use this huge amount of funds to improve the lives of its own people?” Liang said. “Taiwan and China have different economic issues, and China should focus on handling theirs.”
In other news, Liang said the government has identified two Hong Kongers as suspects in a case of vandalism involving Hong Kong pro-democracy activist Tang Wei-hung (湯偉雄).
Tang, who owns a Thai boxing gym in Taiwan, was placed on a “wanted list” by the Hong Kong government on Nov. 20 last year for participating in anti-extradition bill protests.
The vandalism occurred three days after the wanted list was issued, during which the gym’s surveillance camera and main entrance were damaged.
Police have identified two main suspects from Hong Kong, who scouted the location before committing the crime and left Taiwan immediately after, Liang said.
“The criminal act was meant to be a scare tactic to intimidate Tang and other Hong Kongers in Taiwan. The government would not tolerate anyone who complies with the Chinese Communist Party to conduct extraterrestrial repressions against Hong Kongers in Taiwan,” he added.
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