China expands group tour list, but excludes Taiwan - 台北時報

STALEMATE: Beijing allows Chinese travel agencies to host groups arriving from Taiwan, while Taipei only allows individuals, not tour groups, to travel to China

By Shelley Shan / Staff reporter

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.

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