TAIPEI, Taiwan – China announced on Friday a plan to resume group tours to Taiwan after it criticized the island over what it called its inaction in normalizing cross-strait interactions.
Tourism between China, which claims self-ruled Taiwan as its territory, and the democratic island has often been a barometer of relations across the Taiwan Strait, is widely regarded as one of the world’s most dangerous flash points.
“In order to further promote the normalization of cross-strait personnel exchanges and the regularization of exchanges in various fields … the mainland will resume group tours to Taiwan for residents of Fujian and Shanghai in the near future,” said China’s Ministry of Culture and Tourism in a statement on Friday.
The ministry added “preparations were underway,” without giving further details, including the timeline.
Taiwan has a ban on its citizens joining group tours to the mainland but independent tourists from both sides are free to come and go.
The announcement came after China’s Taiwan Affairs Office on Wednesday criticized Taiwan’s ruling party, the Democratic Progressive Party, or DPP, for not lifting its ban on island groups going to the mainland and for maintaining an “intermediate-level” travel alert for the mainland.
“The DPP authorities have ignored the struggles of Taiwan’s local tourism industry and disregarded the voices of businesses and the public, continuously delaying and obstructing the normalization of cross-strait tourism,” said Chen Bin-hua, spokesperson for the Taiwan Affairs Office, at a press conference.
Chen said the first list of Chinese tour groups to Taiwan was “still sitting on the desk of the relevant departments of the DPP authorities,” implying that Taiwan was to blame for delaying the long-awaited resumption of cross-strait tourism.
Taiwan’s Mainland Affairs Council, or MAC, said that it welcomed Chinese tourists and was awaiting more details of the plan from China.
However, the council denied the suggestion it had intentionally stalled the process of resuming visits by Chinese tour groups to Taiwan.
Liang, Wen-chieh, the MAC’s deputy minister, told a press conference on Thursday that no formal applications for group tours by mainland Chinese tourists to Taiwan have been received, so there was no such list sitting on any desk, as China had said.
“There was only a concept proposed earlier by tourism operators to organize a familiarization tour, inviting counterparts from the mainland to visit Taiwan,” Liang said.
“Such familiarization tours, which consist of professional groups from travel agencies, should be considered professional exchanges rather than tourist groups.”
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China’s announcement follows the Shanghai-Taipei City Forum in December, when Shanghai Mayor Hua Yuan hinted at the resumption of Shanghai tour groups to Taiwan.
At that time, Chen Fang-Yu, an assistant professor in the Department of Political Science at Taiwan’s Soochow University, saw China’s move to resume group tours as a tactic to advance Beijing’s pro-unification agenda.
“It feels like they are treating the reopening as some kind of favor to Taiwan,” Chen said, referring to the resumption of group tours.
Edited by Taejun Kang.