BEIJING – China will allow travel agencies to resume organising group tours from Taiwan starting Friday, China’s Taiwan Affairs Office of the State Council said.
“We warmly welcome Taiwan compatriots” to “see the beautiful scenery and recent developments,” Mr Ma Xiaoguang, a spokeman for the State Council, said in a statement on Friday.
Taiwan’s Mainland Affairs Council said it welcomes the decision, and that the two sides must communicate and make arrangements to ensure tourism quality.
Beijing’s announcement does not carry a lot of practical significance just yet, as Taiwan still bars its own population from travelling to China in group tours.
The island is not lifting that ban until tourism associations across the strait can talk, the Taipei-based Central News Agency (CNA) reported on Friday.
China’s Ministry of Culture and Tourism allowed the resumption of foreign inbound group tours in March, three years after it clamped down on inbound travel because of Covid-19.
But that change did not apply to Taiwan, a self-ruling democracy that China claims as part of its territory.
CNA reported – citing Mr Chang Shi-chung, director-general of Taiwan’s tourism bureau – that talks between Chinese and Taiwanese tourism associations could happen later in May.
While Taiwan is happy that Beijing lifted its ban, the government had hoped the two sides could jointly announce decisions to open up, CNA cited Mr Chang as saying.
A ban on individual China tourists travelling to Taiwan – implemented in 2019 – remains in effect.
The Chinese government halted its tourism scheme that year ahead of the re-election of President Tsai Ing-wen, whose independence-leaning government has angered China in recent years.
Beijing cited the state of relations between the two sides when it decided to suspend the programme.
Ms Tsai isn’t eligible for re-election when Taiwan holds its next vote for president early in 2024.
The island’s main opposition party, the Kuomintang (KMT), chose its presidential candidate this week and is eying the leadership after making inroads in local elections in 2022.
That has given Beijing reason to try and woo the KMT ahead of the election, since the party is more China-friendly and thus its preferred negotiating partner.
Allowing tour groups from Taiwan represents an effort by Beijing to increase communications and recalibrate a hardline approach that has involved piling military, diplomatic and economic pressure on the island in recent years.
Earlier in May, the Communist Party’s No. 4 official, Mr Wang Huning, called for improved ties, saying that “cross-Strait exchanges should be restored and expanded step by step”.
“Friendship with people from all social strata in Taiwan should be cultivated,” he said during China’s annual Taiwan work conference. REUTERS, BLOOMBERG
