The National Immigration Agency has banned two Chinese from returning to Taiwan, after they published social media content it described as disrespectful to national sovereignty.
The agency imposed a two-month ban on a Chinese man surnamed Liang (梁) and a permanent ban on a woman surnamed Yang (楊), an influencer with 23 million followers, in October last year and last week respectively.
Minister of the Interior Liu Shyh-fang (劉世芳) yesterday said on the sidelines of a legislative meeting that Chinese visitors to Taiwan are required to comply with the rules and regulations governing their entry permits.
Photo: screen grabs from X
The government has handled the ban and the appeals of the affected Chinese individuals according to rules and regulations, and expects all visitors to respect the law of the land, she said.
Liang in August last year visited Taiwan from Thailand on a student visa, the agency said in a statement explaining the ban dated last month.
The agency received complaints from members of the public over videos and other content the man posted on Xiaohongshu (小紅書, also known as RedNote in English), a popular Chinese social media app, it said.
Liang repeatedly called the nation “Chinese Taiwan” in his videos recorded during the trip and added a People’s Republic of China flag on a map of Taiwan tracking his journey, the agency said.
Since the man’s actions denigrated Taiwan’s national dignity, the agency denied him a subsequent permit to again enter the nation in October last year, with a two-month ban on future applications, it said.
Yang, who uses the handle Dada (噠噠) on Chinese social media, also visited Taiwan from Thailand and published content on her account.
The influencer could be heard announcing to a Taiwanese store clerk that she was a Chinese national traveling to the Chinese territory of Taiwan, not a foreign visitor.
The video sparked a public outcry, with Taiwanese Internet users alleging that in her other videos, she told foreigners in other nations that Taiwan is a part of China.
The agency yesterday said that Yang traveled to Taiwan on a business permit and that officials have imposed an indefinite ban on visits on account of her disrespect toward Taiwanese sovereignty.
The agency has also banned the entities that had applied for Yang’s entry permit from making further filings on behalf of Chinese nationals, SET News cited an agency spokesperson as saying.
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