Further improvement in China/Taiwan relations beneficial for tourism

HONG KONG – A meeting last week between China President Xi Jinping and Wu Poh-hsiung, honorary chairman of the Kuomintang (KMT) Party, which governs Taiwan, will help further strengthening relations between both sides across the Strait, as stated by China national news agency Xinhua.

Improvements between Taiwan and China were at the centre of a high-level forum about Cross Strait relations in Xiamen. The Director of the Taiwan Affairs Office in Mainland China, Zhang Zhijun indicated that the mainland had adopted 31 measures to boost cross-strait relations. Many will have a direct effect on tourism but also on legal rights, education, culture as well as various aspects of economic and social life.

More job opportunities will be offered to Taiwan residents as 10 more categories of professional qualification will be proposed. Taiwanese residing in Mainland China will have their entry permit accepted by a higher number of provincial administrative departments.

According to the Director of the Taiwan Affairs Office, culture will receive a mahor boost as ten new Cross-Strait cultural exchanges centres will be set up on the mainland in Henan, Fujian and Beijing. Another 11 historical sites will also play the role of cross-Strait communication bases, including the Confucius Temple in east China’s Shandong Province, and some revolutionary relic sites in central Hubei Province and southwest Chongqing Municipality.

In order to boost Cross-Strait tourism, residents of 13 more mainland cities will be eligible to visit Taiwan as individual tourists under a new cross-Strait agreement, according to Shao Qiwei, head of the National Tourism Administration. The 13 cities, including Shenyang, Zhengzhou, Wuhan, Suzhou, Ningbo, Qingdao, Shijiazhuang, Changchun, Hefei, Changsha, Nanning, Kunming and Quanzhou, will extend the list of such mainland cities to 26.

Many delegates from Taiwan felt enthusiastic about China decision to futher open tourism towards the Island to more mainlanders. Chang His-tsung, a spokesman for Taiwan tourism authority, called the 13 cities “top choices” in an interview with Xinhua. The cities are located in different regions of the mainland and the choice fully considered the convenience of cross-Strait flights, Chang said.

Wang Hongyuan, head of China Quanzhou International Techno-Economic Cooperation (group) Taiwan branch, was glad to see Quanzhou on the list as more than seven million Taiwan compatriots have their ancestral homes as well as relatives in the city in Fujian Province.

Since 2008, some 124 measures have been adopted to liberalize relations in all kind of activities across the Strait of Taiwan. “Taiwanese at the grassroots level are realizing their interests are closely tied to the cross-Strait relations and thus becoming the social foundation of the cross-Strait peaceful development,” Zhang Zhijun added.-Xinhua