Beijing’s decision to allow Shanghai residents to travel to Kinmen and Lienchiang (Matsu) counties is nothing more than political manipulation disguised as a gesture of goodwill, the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) said yesterday.
The Chinese Ministry of Culture and Tourism made the announcement after a think tank forum between the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and the Chinese Communist Party concluded on Wednesday.
“From our perspective, China made this seemingly goodwill offer as it was a highly political occasion. We still believe the way to normalize cross-strait tourism is to quickly resume communications between the Taiwan Strait Tourism Association and the Association for Tourism Exchange across the Taiwan Straits,” Mainland Affairs Council Deputy Minister Liang Wen-chieh (梁文傑) said.
Photo: Chen Yu-fu, Taipei Times
The two associations are quasi-official organizations representing tourism authorities in Taiwan and China respectively.
The government resumed the “small three links” connecting China, Kinmen and Matsu for business opportunities that could be generated in the two outlying counties, Liang said, adding that all Chinese are welcome to visit the counties.
“We will not treat this new policy from China as a special favor,” he said.
Before the COVID-19 pandemic, 300,000 Chinese tourists visited Kinmen and Matsu, Liang added.
Last year, the two outlying counties welcomed 190,000 Chinese visitors in total, he said.
The number of Chinese visitors to Kinmen and Matsu has not returned to the pre-pandemic level, as China only allowed residents from its Fujian Province to visit, he said.
“Beijing first set an unreasonable restriction on cross-strait tourism and later decided to allow Shanghai residents to visit. Now they expect us to be grateful for the new policy,” he said.
Whether a significant number of Shanghai residents would be motivated by the policy remains to be seen, Liang said.
“To visit Kinmen, they would have to travel from Shanghai to Xiamen first and then take a ferry from Xiamen to Kinmen. I think we need time to gauge how appealing the tour is to them,” he said.
Liang said that China suspended tourism for individual travelers in 2019 ahead of the 2020 presidential election, and Taiwan suspended visits from group travelers from China in 2020 because of the pandemic.
“Communication before resuming cross-strait tourism following the pandemic was necessary, as both sides can use the opportunity to address issues with cross-strait tourism in the past, such as low-priced shopping tours,” he said.
Cross-strait tourism should not be restricted to visitors from specific provinces, either, he said.
KMT Vice Chairman Hsiao Hsu-tsen (蕭旭岑), who returned to Taiwan on Wednesday after leading a delegation to the forum in China, said that the trip was highly productive and that if the KMT has the opportunity to return to power, it would certainly restart two-way, equal and reciprocal exchanges.
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