The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) yesterday said Taiwan has never restricted Chinese residents’ identifications for visiting Taiwan’s Kinmen and Matsu islands through the "small three links" (小三通), and that the restrictions were unilaterally set by China.
As China now lifted its restriction, Taiwan will process Chinese travelers’ applications according to existing regulations, the council said.
China’s Shanghai City Government yesterday lifted travel restrictions to allow city residents to visit Kinmen and Matsu individually or as part of group tours, through qualified travel agencies in Shanghai and Fujian, in accordance with related regulations.
Photo: CNA
The Shanghai Culture and Tourism Administration’s announcement came two months after the Chinese Communist Party’s and the Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) representatives held a joint forum in Beijing in February.
Immediately after the forum, China’s Ministry of Culture and Tourism on Feb. 4 had said that it planned to reopen travel to the offshore islands, but did not specify a date.
Taiwan’s Mainland Affairs Council responded at the time that normalized cross-strait tourism must be free of political preconditions, adding that it would wait for concrete measures from the Chinese side before assessing its response.
Meanwhile, Kinmen County Deputy Commissioner Li Wen-liang’s (李文良) yesterday said Kinmen County welcomes Chinese visitors.
The county’s attractions include a shared cultural heritage originating in China’s southern Minnan region, maintenance of old clan identity and a tradition of military service, in addition to the natural scenery, he said.
Kinmen would prepare to receive Chinese tourists in collaboration with the private sector as it waits for the central government officials to authorize Shanghai’s proposal, he added.
In light of cross-strait relations, China suspended issuing individual travel permits for Chinese residents to visit Taiwan from August 1, 2019.
In early 2020, following the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, Taiwan implemented restrictions on entry for Chinese residents from January 25, and as the pandemic became normalized, Taiwan allowed Chinese residents living or studying in third countries to apply for tourist visas to Taiwan from Sep. 1, 2023.
Taiwan’s government has not restricted Taiwanese residents from traveling to China individually, but a ban on organized tour groups remains in place.
Regarding the resumption of full cross-strait tourism, the MAC has repeatedly urged Chinese authorities to open communications on issues related to tourism safety, quality control, stability, fairness with Taiwan through the Taiwan Strait Tourism Association (TSTA) and the Association For Tourism Exchange Across The Taiwan Straits (ATETS).
The TSTA and ATETS were established by Taipei and Beijing respectively to facilitate coordination and negotiations between the two sides on tourism.
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