The number of Chinese tourists visiting Taiwan reached 2.73 million last year, down 18 percent from the previous year, but down 33 percent since President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) assumed office in May last year, Ministry of the Interior statistics released on Saturday showed.
A total of 3.47 million Chinese visitors arrived in Taiwan last year, 2.73 million of whom (78.8 percent) came for tourism, while others visited for professional exchanges or medical treatment, statistics showed.
There were 600,000 fewer tourists than in 2015, a decrease of 18 percent. However, when May to December last year is compared with the same period in 2015, there were 739,925 fewer tourists, a drop of 33 percent, National Immigration Agency data showed.
Overall Chinese visitor arrivals dropped last year, down 16.2 percent compared with the previous year.
There were 41,000 fewer Chinese professional exchange visitors during the whole of last year, as compared with 2015.
The drop in Chinese visitors came amid cooling relations between Taiwan and China since Tsai took office, mainly due to her refusal to heed Beijing’s call to recognize the so-called “1992 consensus” as the sole foundation for cross-strait exchanges.
The so-called “1992 consensus” — a term former Mainland Affairs Council chairman Su Chi (蘇起) admitted to making up in 2000 — refers to a tacit understanding between the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and the Chinese Communist Party that both sides acknowledge there is “one China,” with each side having its own interpretation of what “China” means.
Taiwan has been seeking to attract more tourists from Southeast Asia through measures such as streamlining visa procedures.
As a result, the total number of foreign visitors last year increased by 2.4 percent to a record high of 10.69 million, despite the drop in Chinese visitors.
However, tourism industry statistics have shown that Chinese tourists, especially those coming in tour groups, tend to spend more money.
Despite the overall decline in Chinese tourists, those who took advantage of the “small three links” to visit Kinmen, Matsu and Penghu increased by 12,000, the ministry said.
About 256,000 Chinese visitors last year came via the “small three links” across the Taiwan Strait, the ministry said, adding that this represented 7.4 percent of total Chinese visitor arrivals in Taiwan.
Meanwhile, 133,000 Chinese nationals visited Taiwan last year for professional exchanges, accounting for 3.8 percent of the total, the ministry said.
The Taipei Zoo on Saturday said it would pursue legal action against a man who was filmed climbing over a railing to tease and feed spotted hyenas in their enclosure earlier that day. In videos uploaded to social media on Saturday, a man can be seen climbing over a protective railing and approaching a ledge above the zoo’s spotted hyena enclosure, before dropping unidentified objects down to two of the animals. The Taipei Zoo in a statement said the man’s actions were “extremely inappropriate and even illegal.” In addition to monitoring the hyenas’ health, the zoo would collect evidence provided by the public
A decision to describe a Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs statement on Singapore’s Taiwan policy as “erroneous” was made because the city-state has its own “one China policy” and has not followed Beijing’s “one China principle,” Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Tien Chung-kwang (田中光) said yesterday. It has been a longstanding practice for the People’s Republic of China (PRC) to speak on other countries’ behalf concerning Taiwan, Tien said. The latest example was a statement issued by the PRC after a meeting between Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong (黃循財) and Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) on the sidelines of the APEC summit
A road safety advocacy group yesterday called for reforms to the driver licensing and retraining system after a pedestrian was killed and 15 other people were injured in a two-bus collision in Taipei. “Taiwan’s driver’s licenses are among the easiest to obtain in the world, and there is no mandatory retraining system for drivers,” Taiwan Vision Zero Alliance, a group pushing to reduce pedestrian fatalities, said in a news release. Under the regulations, people who have held a standard car driver’s license for two years and have completed a driver training course are eligible to take a test
‘SIGN OF DANGER’: Beijing has never directly named Taiwanese leaders before, so China is saying that its actions are aimed at the DPP, a foundation official said National Security Bureau (NSB) Director-General Tsai Ming-yen (蔡明彥) yesterday accused Beijing of spreading propaganda, saying that Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) had singled out President William Lai (賴清德) in his meeting with US President Joe Biden when talking about those whose “true nature” seek Taiwanese independence. The Biden-Xi meeting took place on the sidelines of the APEC summit in Peru on Saturday. “If the US cares about maintaining peace across the Taiwan Strait, it is crucial that it sees clearly the true nature of Lai and the ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) in seeking Taiwanese independence, handles the Taiwan question with extra
RSS