In the face of the threat of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), the Mainland Affairs Council can only attempt to decrease cross-strait traffic, since it is impossible to completely bar all travelers from China, the council's chairwoman Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) said yesterday.
Tsai made the remark in a bid to deny media reports that she had proposed an overall ban on travelers from China in yesterday morning's weekly Cabinet meeting.
"It is impossible to completely bar all visitors from China. We cannot keep them from visiting family, coming here to attend funerals or for necessary professional exchanges. What the MAC can do is to suggest [to the related parties] that these exchanges be postponed," Tsai said.
She told the Cabinet meeting that the MAC will finalize its conclusion soon over whether to impose stricter regulations or measures for cross-strait exchanges or to curb the exchanges step-by-step, according to a statement released by the council.
"The council is closely monitoring the worsening development of SARS in China and Hong Kong," said Chen Chan-hung (
"A final decision on necessary measures will be made when the council considers that the situation has deteriorated too far, and we will consult the immigration authorities to implement them," Chen said.
"The council will consider implementing the necessary measures bearing in mind humane concerns regarding ordinary visits to relatives, while we already recommend that cross-strait professional visits be postponed or canceled because of the SARS outbreak," he said.
Earlier yesterday, the council issued a report showing that the number cross-strait professional visits had fallen since the outbreak began.
The council also noted that the latest survey by the World Health Organization shows China as the country most seriously affected by the disease.
The report showed that 880 Chinese in cultural, educational and other professional fields had either canceled or postponed their visits to Taiwan.
Eighty Chinese in five other travel groups, however, are still scheduled to visit the country, the report said.
The report also said that 41 members of the nine Chinese groups who are already in Taiwan were all healthy.
The council has persuaded a group of 441 Taiwanese to cancel their religious trip to China, Chao Chieh-fu (
Another six groups, comprising 839 people, who were planning to visit China via chartered planes for similar exchanges, had been advised by the council to carefully consider the risks of such travel before submitting their application, Chao said.
The council has also authorized an extension to the residency permits of Chinese spouses in Taiwan until the end of May.
In order to contain the disease, the council announced the suspension of the transport links between Matsu and China from April 1.
Ferries continue to operate between Kinmen and China and there were no plans to suspend the services, the council said.
In related news, two DPP lawmakers yesterday urged the government to track illegal Chinese workers amid the outbreak of SARS.
Legislators Trong Chai (蔡同榮) and Lin Chin-hsing (林進興) said in a joint statement that the woman who was suspected to be the source of possible mass transmission of SARS at Taipei Municipal Hoping Hospital apparently had come into contact with an illegal Chinese housemaid.
Should that be the case, the lawmakers said, the government should track the Chinese housemaid who reportedly had entered Taiwan illegally.
The lawmakers claimed in the news statement that some 3,000 to 5,000 illegal Chinese immigrants are believed to be living in Taiwan. "While some of them work in the sex industry, others may work for local families. If these illegal workers become ill, they mostly dare not go to see doctors. The risks are high of infecting others if they are infected with the SARS virus, " the statement said.
ACCESS DENIAL: Beijing would likely take formation in the Philippine Sea, outside Taipei’s missile range, while its forces on the east would be a deterrent to foreign aid China is increasingly likely to employ a strategy of anti-access/area denial (A2/AD) around Taiwan, which would use three carrier groups, a report from the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) said. When China’s third aircraft carrier, the Fujian, is completed next year, China would have three carriers, which would likely be used to surround Taiwan and implement an A2/AD strategy, it said, adding that efforts to strengthen China’s two other carriers — the Liaoning and the Shandong — appear to corroborate this. In the quarterly report, the council cited declassified documents from the Ministry of National Defense that categorized China’s carriers as
Two German warships are awaiting orders from Berlin to determine whether they would be the first German naval vessels in decades to pass through the Taiwan Strait next month, at the risk of stoking tensions with Beijing, a German commander said. While the US and other nations, including Canada, have sent warships through the narrow strait in recent weeks, it would be the German navy’s first passage through the Strait since 2002. China claims sovereignty over Taiwan, and says it has jurisdiction over the nearly 180km waterway that divides the two sides. Taiwan strongly objects to these claims, saying only its people
Former US ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley yesterday called for more international backing for Taiwan and a coordinated pushback against China’s claims over the nation. “The United States should elevate Taiwan on the world stage. You should no longer be silenced in global affairs,” Haley told an audience at the Ketagalan Forum, a Taipei conference focused on security issues in the Asia-Pacific region. She called for Taiwan to become a full member of the UN, even though it is being blocked by China from representation in international bodies. While the US does not formally recognize Taiwan, it is the nation's strongest
China sent 50 military planes and vessels to the vicinity of Taiwan in the 24 hours starting at 6am on Friday, while President William Lai (賴清德) was visiting Kinmen for the first time since taking office in May to mark the 66th anniversary of the 823 Artillery Bombardment. Flight paths released yesterday by the Ministry of National Defense showed that 38 military aircraft were detected in Taiwan’s air defense identification zone (ADIZ), the highest number recorded in recent weeks. The figure included 32 that crossed the median line of the Taiwan Strait or its extension. Of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) aircraft