Taiwan Solidarity Union (TSU) members yesterday condemned China for manipulating the tourism market in a bid to coerce Taiwan ahead of a planned protest by travel operators today, saying the tourism industry needs to reform and break away from overdependence on China.
China has restricted tourism to Taiwan as the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) administration refuses to accept the so-called “1992 consensus,” which is part of China’s attempt to annex Taiwan by economic coercion, TSU Youth Department deputy director Hsu Ya-chi (許亞齊) said.
The “1992 consensus,” a term former Mainland Affairs Council chairman Su Chi (蘇起) admitted making up in 2000, refers to a tacit understanding between the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and the Chinese government that both sides of the Taiwan Strait acknowledge there is “one China,” with each side having its own interpretation of what “China” means.
Photo: Wang Yi-sung, Taipei Times
“Taiwan’s tourism industry, as well as other industries, has to diversify its client base and seek international customers to escape overreliance on the Chinese market and hostile political manipulation,” Hsu said.
Former president Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) China-friendly administration focused the nation’s economy on the Chinese market, and the tourism industry has ended up in a vicious cycle of depleting limited tourism resources to court low-spending Chinese tourist groups, former TSU legislator Chou Ni-an (周倪安) said.
The number of inbound tourists has grown by about 1 million every year and it reached 10 million last year, while Chinese tourists increased from 22.95 percent of all foreign travelers in 2008 to 53.23 percent last year, Chou said.
However, the average daily consumption per tourist has dropped alongside the increase in Chinese tourists, going down from US$224.07 in 2013 to US$207.87 last year.
“Far from benefiting from increased Chinese tourist numbers, the nation is entrenched in a tourism pattern that offers low-quality and low-profit package tours to Chinese visitors,” Chou said.
Travel agencies funded with Chinese capital that provide one-stop services should be barred from receiving relief loans from the Executive Yuan, she said.
The Executive Yuan on Thursday last week approved a plan to extend NT$30 billion (US$948.45 million) in loans to the tourism sector amid the drastic decrease in the number of Chinese tourists visiting Taiwan.
Tourism has to be developed in line with national security, environmental capacity and service quality to prevent a flood of low-quality tour groups overwhelming the nation’s capacity, she said.
“The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has threatened to cease all interaction with Taiwan if the DPP administration does not accept the ‘1992 consensus.’ For the first time the TSU supports the CCP. We called on the CCP to keep its word and cease the interaction as soon as possible,” TSU youth director Chang Chao-lin (張兆林) said.
“What the nation needs least is Chinese tourists being used to manipulate Taiwan’s economy and independence,” Chang said, in response to Minister Without Portfolio Chang Ching-sen’s (張景森) remark that Chinese visitors are Taiwan’s “most needed friends.”
Although travel firms are understandably distressed, they have to transform their business models to become more sustainable and profitable to prevent being paralyzed by Chinese manipulation, Chang said.
EXPRESSING GRATITUDE: Without its Taiwanese partners which are ‘working around the clock,’ Nvidia could not meet AI demand, CEO Jensen Huang said Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) and US-based artificial intelligence (AI) chip designer Nvidia Corp have partnered with each other on silicon photonics development, Nvidia founder and CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) said. Speaking with reporters after he met with TSMC chairman C.C. Wei (魏哲家) in Taipei on Friday, Huang said his company was working with the world’s largest contract chipmaker on silicon photonics, but admitted it was unlikely for the cooperation to yield results any time soon, and both sides would need several years to achieve concrete outcomes. To have a stake in the silicon photonics supply chain, TSMC and
‘DETERRENT’: US national security adviser-designate Mike Waltz said that he wants to speed up deliveries of weapons purchased by Taiwan to deter threats from China US president-elect Donald Trump’s nominee for US secretary of defense, Pete Hegseth, affirmed his commitment to peace in the Taiwan Strait during his confirmation hearing in Washington on Tuesday. Hegseth called China “the most comprehensive and serious challenge to US national security” and said that he would aim to limit Beijing’s expansion in the Indo-Pacific region, Voice of America reported. He would also adhere to long-standing policies to prevent miscalculations, Hegseth added. The US Senate Armed Services Committee hearing was the first for a nominee of Trump’s incoming Cabinet, and questions mostly focused on whether he was fit for the
IDENTITY: Compared with other platforms, TikTok’s algorithm pushes a ‘disproportionately high ratio’ of pro-China content, a study has found Young Taiwanese are increasingly consuming Chinese content on TikTok, which is changing their views on identity and making them less resistant toward China, researchers and politicians were cited as saying by foreign media. Asked to suggest the best survival strategy for a small country facing a powerful neighbor, students at National Chia-Yi Girls’ Senior High School said “Taiwan must do everything to avoid provoking China into attacking it,” the Financial Times wrote on Friday. Young Taiwanese between the ages of 20 and 24 in the past were the group who most strongly espoused a Taiwanese identity, but that is no longer
A magnitude 6.4 earthquake and several aftershocks battered southern Taiwan early this morning, causing houses and roads to collapse and leaving dozens injured and 50 people isolated in their village. A total of 26 people were reported injured and sent to hospitals due to the earthquake as of late this morning, according to the latest Ministry of Health and Welfare figures. In Sising Village (西興) of Chiayi County's Dapu Township (大埔), the location of the quake's epicenter, severe damage was seen and roads entering the village were blocked, isolating about 50 villagers. Another eight people who were originally trapped inside buildings in Tainan
RSS