The Chinese Ministry of Culture and Tourism yesterday announced its third batch of countries that Chinese tour groups can visit — with Taiwan conspicuously left out of the list.
Mainland Affairs Council Deputy Minister Jan Jyh-horng (詹志宏) said that the government has conveyed through various communication channels Taiwan’s sincerity and goodwill in promoting tourism, but so far there has been no positive response on China’s part.
China’s latest list covers 78 countries, including Japan, South Korea, the UK and the US.
Photo: Chung Li-hua, Taipei Times
As China reopened to the world, it announced its first list of target destinations for tour groups on Feb. 6 and its second list on March 10, which covered 60 countries.
China’s Taiwan Affairs Office on May 19 announced that Chinese travel agencies can host tour groups arriving from Taiwan, saying that the matter does not require cross-strait negotiations.
Taiwan, on the other hand, allows individuals to travel to China, but bans travel agencies from organizing group tours to China.
Minister of Transportation and Communications Wang Kwo-tsai (王國材) last month reiterated that both Taiwan and China must mutually show goodwill before normal cross-strait tourism could resume.
“We do not ban individuals from traveling to China, but China prohibits its own people from traveling to Taiwan individually or through package tours. They hope tour groups from Taiwan can come visit, and likewise we hope Chinese tour groups can come,” Wang told reporters.
Taiwan’s exclusion from the list is the result of deteriorating cross-strait relations and a lack of mutual trust, a Taiwanese tour operator told the Taipei Times on condition of anonymity.
While Beijing might have factored the upcoming presidential election into its consideration when it excluded Taiwan from the list, the operator said that both sides need to quickly resume negotiations through the Taiwan Strait Tourism Association and the Association for Tourism Exchange across the Taiwan Strait, which represent Taiwan and China respectively.
Both sides have already missed two great opportunities to break the ice and communicate with one another, the operator said.
For the Cross-Strait Summer Travel Fair in Taipei last month, which was held in conjunction with the Taipei International Summer Travel Expo, China was planning to send a delegation comprising officials and tourism operators from nine Chinese provinces.
Of the 212 members who were planning to attend, the Mainland Affairs Council only gave entry permits to 137 Chinese tour operators, staff members and entertainers participating in the travel fair, and denied entry to all Chinese officials, the operator said.
While travel agencies from China and Taiwan last week met in Hefei City in China’s Anhui Province for a conference, no representative from the Taiwanese government participated, the operator said.
Taiwan aims to open 18 representative offices and seven Taiwan Tourism Information Centers worldwide by next year to attract international visitors, the Tourism Administration said on Saturday. The agency has so far opened three representative offices abroad this year and would open two more before the end of the year, it said. It has also already opened information centers in Jakarta, Mumbai and Paris, and is to open one in Vancouver next month and in Manila in December, it said. Next year, it would also open offices in Amsterdam, Dubai and Sydney, it added. While the Cabinet did not mention international tourists in its
EYES AT SEA: Many marine enthusiasts have expressed interest in volunteering for coastal patrols, which would help identify stowaways and illegal fishing, the CGA said Six thousand coastal patrol volunteers are to be recruited for 159 inspection offices to enhance the nation’s response to “gray zone” conflicts, Coast Guard Administration (CGA) sources said yesterday. Volunteer teams would be established to increase the resilience of coastal defense systems in the wake of two unlawful entries attempted by Chinese over the past three months, Ocean Affairs Council Minister Kuan Bi-ling (管碧玲) said. A former Chinese navy captain drove a motorboat into the Tamsui River (淡水河) in Taipei on the eve of the Dragon Boat Festival in June, while another Chinese man sailed in a rubber boat into the Houkeng
NEXT LEVEL: The defense ministry confirmed that a video released last month featured personnel piloting new FPV drone systems being developed by the Armaments Bureau Taipei and Washington are pushing for their drone companies to work together to establish a China-free supply chain, the Financial Times reported on Friday. A delegation of high-level executives and US government officials were yesterday to arrive in Taipei to discuss with their Taiwanese counterparts collaboration on drone technology procurement and development, the report said. The executives represent 26 US manufacturers of drone and counter-drone systems, while the officials are from the US Department of Commerce and the US Department of Defense’s Defense Innovation Unit, along with Dev Shenoy, principal director for microelectronics in the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense
‘ANONYMOUS 64’: A national security official said that it is an attempt by China to increase domestic anti-Taiwanese sentiment and inflame cross-strait tensions The Ministry of National Defense’s (MND) Information, Communications and Electronic Force Command (ICEFCOM) yesterday denied accusations by China that it had undermined regional security by carrying out cyberattacks against targets in China, adding instead that Beijing was responsible for raising tensions and undermining regional peace. The Chinese Ministry of State Security on WeChat accused a hacker group called “Anonymous 64” of targeting China, Hong Kong and Macau starting earlier this year through frequent cyberattacks. The group carried out cyberattacks to seize control of Web sites, outdoor electronic billboards and video-on-demand platforms in China, Hong Kong and Macau, it said, adding the hackers’