Global Courant 2023-05-19 16:15:00
BEIJING — China will allow travel agencies to resume group tours from Taiwan from Friday, the State Council’s Chinese Taiwan Affairs Office said.
“We extend a warm welcome to Taiwanese compatriots” to “see the beautiful scenery and recent developments,” Mr. Ma Xiaoguang, a spokesman for the State Council, said in a statement Friday.
Taiwan’s Mainland Affairs Council said it welcomes the decision and that the two sides should communicate and make arrangements to ensure the quality of tourism.
Beijing’s announcement doesn’t have much practical significance yet, as Taiwan continues to ban its own people from traveling to China in group tours.
The island will not lift that ban until the tourist associations on the other side of the strait can talk, the Taipei-based Central News Agency (CNA) reported on Friday.
China’s Ministry of Culture and Tourism allowed the resumption of foreign inbound group travel in March, three years after restricting inbound travel due to Covid-19.
But that change did not apply to Taiwan, a self-governing democracy that China claims as part of its territory.
CNA reported – citing Mr. Chang Shi-chung, Director General of the Taiwan Tourism Bureau – that talks between Chinese and Taiwanese tourism organizations could take place later in May.
While Taiwan is pleased that Beijing has lifted the ban, the government had hoped the two sides could jointly announce opening decisions, CNA quoted Mr Chang as saying.
A travel ban on individual Chinese tourists to Taiwan – introduced in 2019 – remains in effect.
The Chinese government halted its tourism plan that year ahead of the re-election of President Tsai Ing-wen, whose independence reign has enraged China in recent years.
Beijing cited the state of relations between the two sides when it decided to suspend the program.
Tsai will not be eligible for re-election when Taiwan holds its next presidential election in early 2024.
The island’s main opposition party, the Kuomintang (KMT), chose its presidential candidate this week and is eyeing leadership after entering local elections in 2022.
