A Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) lawmaker yesterday criticized the behavior of Chinese tourists and local media yesterday, calling the visitors’ behavior while shopping “arrogant,” but slamming the coverage of the tour groups as excessive.
KMT Legislator Huang Chao-shun (黃昭順) told a Transportation Committee meeting that she had been enraged by the detailed coverage of a visit by Amway China employees on an incentive trip to Taiwan. Too much coverage was being given to them, she said.
“I was particularly upset when I saw that, during this period, a Chinese fishery patrol boat was dispatched to the South China Sea and claimed one of the biggest islands in the area as Chinese territory,” she said.
PHOTO: WALLY SANTANA, AP
“Chinese tourists seemed to think they had arrived at a wild frontier where you can do whatever you want,” Huang said, adding that she had seen footage of a Chinese woman climbing on a rock in Taroko Gorge to take a photograph despite warning signs prohibiting such behavior.
She reminded Minister of Transportation and Communications Mao Chi-kuo (毛治國) that the government, in its rush to promote Chinese tourism, should not forget about tourists from other countries. As an example, she said that on one High-Speed Rail trip she took, the business class cabin was full of Japanese tourists.
Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Kuo Wen-cheng (郭玟成) was critical of what he said was the outrageous behavior of Chinese tourists. Kuo said that he wanted to curse when he saw TV footage of the Amway group.
“The way they spent was meant to show off … And taking off their shoes while visiting a national scenic area? Come on!” Kuo said, although he did not say specifically where the barefoot incident had occurred.
Noting that the Amway cruise had only stopped at Keelung, Taichung and Hualien ports, he suggested that the group visit Kaohsiung and let the Taiwanese there “teach them some manners.”
Other legislators, however, disagreed with their colleagues’ descriptions of Chinese tourists as “arrogant” or “classless.”
KMT Legislator Lee Hung-chun (李鴻鈞) said seeing the Amway employees reminded him of Taiwanese tourists 20 years ago, who did exactly the same thing when they traveled overseas.
KMT legislators Tsao Erh-chang (曹爾忠) and Chu Fong-chi (朱鳳芝), along with DPP Legislator Tien Chiu-chin (田秋堇), also spoke in the visitors’ defense.
“Would we call someone who spends that much money ‘an arrogant tourist’ if they were from Europe or North America?” Chu said.
Tien said that she had attended an event in Hsinyi District celebrating the 50th anniversary of Tibet’s National Uprising Day and saw a bunch of people across the street watching the event. She said she thought the onlookers were Chinese tourists, since not too many locals had paid attention to the anniversary.
“The visit of Chinese tourists is not necessarily a bad thing,” she said. “If China is aiming to become a great nation, then it has to learn to listen to and respect those with different opinions.”
Responding to the complaints, Mao said that he hoped that the media would treat Chinese tourists like any other foreign tourists.
“The majority of our overseas tourists are from Japan, South Korea and Southeast Asian countries. Tourists from China are only a small part,” he said.
“Some issues have occurred as they [the Amway tour] came in such a large group within a short period of time,” Mao said. “We will try to communicate about these problems with the local travel agencies and tour guides.”
Taiwanese could risk being extradited to China when traveling in countries with close ties to Beijing, Taiwan Association of University Professors deputy chairman Chen Li-fu (陳俐甫) said on Friday. Chen’s comments came after China on Friday last week announced new judicial guidelines targeting Taiwanese independence advocates. Myanmar, Cambodia, Laos and Djibouti are among the countries where Taiwanese could risk being extradited to China, he said. The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) on Thursday elevated the travel alert for China, Hong Kong and Macau to “orange” after Beijing announced its guidelines to “severely punish Taiwanese independence diehards for splitting the country and inciting secession.” Extradition treaties
Taiwan and Thailand have signed an agreement to promote and protect bilateral investment and trade, the Executive Yuan’s Office of Trade Negotiations (OTN) said on Friday. The agreement on “Promotion and Protection of Investments” was signed by Representative to Thailand Chang Chun-fu (張俊福) and Thailand Trade and Economic Office in Taipei executive director Narong Boonsatheanwong on Thursday, the OTN said in a news release. Thailand has become the fifth trading partner to sign an investment agreement with Taiwan since 2016, following earlier agreements with the Philippines, India, Vietnam and Canada, the OTN said. The deal marks a significant milestone in the development of
The entire Alishan Forest Railway line is to reopen for the first time in 15 years on Saturday, with tickets to go on sale at 2pm today. The historic railway from Chiayi to Alishan (阿里山) is finally set to reopen after the completion of the final No. 42 tunnel, Alishan Forest Railway and Cultural Heritage Office Deputy Director-General Chou Heng-kai (周恆凱) said. It is to run on a new timetable, with four trains daily, he said. The 9am train is to depart from Chiayi Railway Station bound for Shizilu Station (十字路), while the 10am train departing from Chiayi is to go all the
CROSS-BORDER CRIME: The suspects cannot be charged with cybercrime in Indonesia as their targets were in Malaysia, an Indonesian immigration director said Indonesian immigration authorities have detained 103 Taiwanese after a raid at a villa on Bali, officials said yesterday. They were accused of misusing their visas and residence permits, and are suspected of possible cybercrimes, Safar Muhammad Godam, director of immigration supervision and enforcement at the Indonesian Ministry of Law and Human Rights told reporters at a news conference. “The 103 foreign nationals stayed at the villa and conducted suspicious activities, which we suspect are activities related to cybercrime activities,” he said, presenting laptops and routers at the news conference. Godam said Indonesian authorities cannot charge them with conducting cybercrime. “During the inspection, we