Brian Hioeby Brian Hioe
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Photo Credit: 毛貓大少爺/WikiCommons/CC BY-SA 2.0
CHINA’S TAIWAN AFFAIRS OFFICE (TAO) has announced that it is allowing for Chinese travel to resume– except that only tourists from Fujian would be allowed to travel to Taiwan and they would only be allowed to visit Matsu. On the other hand, the TAO has made the resumption of group tours between Taiwan and China contingent on whether ferry travel between Taipei, Taichung, and China’s Pingtan County, as well as other ferry services, is allowed to take place. The TAO has also called for the resumption of direct flights between Taiwan and 29 Chinese cities.
The resumption of tours has been a matter of continued back and forth regarding moves by China, with the Tsai administration previously declining to lift the current ban on Chinese group tourism, citing actions by the Chinese government such as unilaterally changing flight route M503 to bring civilian aircraft close to the median line of the Taiwan Straits.
Last August, the Chinese government announced a list of 78 countries in which tour groups will now be allowed to travel to. This includes a number of frequent travel destinations for Chinese tourists that China is otherwise geopolitically at odds with, such as the US, South Korea, Japan, and the UK.
Yet this did not include one prominent destination for Chinese tourists, Taiwan. Taiwan saw significant tourist travel from China in past years, particularly under the Ma administration. At its peak in 2015, Taiwan saw visits by 4.2 million Chinese tourists.
Photo credit: Pbdragonwang/WikiCommons/CC BY-SA 3.0
Ahead of the January election, it was not expected by Taiwanese authorities that Chinese group tours would resume before the vote, with China taking a watch-and-wait approach to see the result of the elections. In September, Taiwan’s Mainland Affairs Council announced that Chinese tourism to Taiwan could resume, though it would limit the number of tourists to 2,000 per day. This would apply to Chinese residing, studying, or working in the Chinese mainland, Hong Kong, or Macau.
With the victory in the 2024 presidential elections of Lai Ching-te of the DPP, it could be expected that Chinese authorities would not allow Chinese group tours to resume. This would be a means of economically punishing Taiwan for electing a DPP government yet again, in line with how China decreased the number of tourists to Taiwan after the election victory of Tsai Ing-wen in 2016.
At present, the Taiwanese government has sought to emphasize that it is open to the resumption of Chinese group tours, but that this has to occur without conditions, on the basis of reciprocality.
It is probable that the Chinese government is trying to frame itself as open to exchanges, while seeking to frame the DPP as obstinate and refusing to compromise. Similarly, the Chinese government would also be aiming to frame this move as a dividend of the recent visit to China by KMT legislative caucus convenor Fu Kun-chi and a delegation of KMT lawmakers. As this back-and-forth between the Taiwanese and Chinese governments takes place in the wake of earthquakes that hit Taiwan, affecting Hualien, Taitung, and other areas heavily dependent on the tourist industry, members of the pan-Blue camp have tried to frame measures to allow for Chinese group tours to resume as assisting in recovery efforts. Indeed, whether China itself or the pan-Blue camp, the Chinese government’s framing has continued to push blame onto the DPP.
Still, one wonders whether such efforts by China to pressure Taiwan will be successful. Historically, the Chinese government sought to engender the perception that Taiwan’s economy was heavily reliant on Chinese tourism and that, if the Taiwanese public supported DPP governments, it would in this way “shut off” the Taiwanese economy.
The Chinese government’s attempts to create such perceptions have largely been disproved, in that sectors of the economy that catered to Chinese tourists were relatively isolated. After the COVID-19 pandemic led to the cessation of global tourism, Taiwan’s economy continued on nonetheless, and in the wake of the pandemic, Chinese tourists have now been offset by tourists from other countries, particularly East and Southeast Asia.
Yet the Chinese government’s framing has continued to push blame onto the DPP over declining tourist numbers, or to try and frame the DPP as being unwilling to allow for a resumption of tourism. One can see that at present, as well.