by Brian Hioe
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Photo Credit: xiquinhosilva/WikiCommons/CC BY 2.0
CHINA WILL SOON allow group tours to Taiwan to resume for residents of Fujian and Shanghai. It is to be seen if the Chinese government further relaxes tourist policy. The Lai administration has stated publicly that it welcomes Chinese tourism on a reciprocal basis.
The Chinese government has sought to frame the Lai administration as preventing the resumption of Chinese tourism. Likewise, the Chinese government has sought to frame the KMT as responsible for negotiations that result in the lifting of tourism.
Previously, only group tours to Taiwan’s outlying islands of Kinmen and Matsu were allowed. The lifting of such restrictions occurred after a visit to Kinmen by representatives of the Chinese travel industry from Xiamen in September of last year. This occurred after the lifting of restrictions on visits to Matsu from Fujian in August. Both acts were claimed to be the result of negotiations conducted during trips to China by KMT legislative caucus leader Fu Kun-chi.
The lifting of restrictions on group tourism from Shanghai occurred after city-based exchanges between Taipei and Shanghai conducted under the auspices of Taipei mayor Chiang Wan-an. This, too, was an attempt to credit the KMT with allowing for the resumption of Chinese tourism.
At its peak in 2015, Taiwan saw visits by 4.2 million Chinese tourists under the Ma administration. During this period, the Chinese government leaned heavily into tourism as a means of economically influencing Taiwan, to engender the perception that all sectors of the Taiwanese economy were reliant on Chinese tourism and that it could “turn off” Taiwan’s economy if it decided to do so. For its part, the KMT also leaned into this, to create the perception that it was the only political party in Taiwan able to negotiate with the CCP, and to facilitate economic links that would draw Taiwan closer to China.
China’s partial lifting of its restrictions on tourism was intended to pin blame on the Lai administration by depicting it as the one unwilling to allow for Chinese tourists. This would be in the hopes of leveraging sectors of Taiwanese society reliant on Chinese tourism, such as tour group operators, to place political pressure on the Lai administration.
Indeed, in August last year, China’s Taiwan Affairs Office (TAO) 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, was allowed to take place. The TAO has also called for the resumption of direct flights between Taiwan and 29 Chinese cities. The TAO would be seeking to pressure Taiwan into opening up more avenues for economic interactions between Taiwan and China using tourism, so as to restore how economic links between Taiwan and China could serve as a means of politically influencing Taiwan before the COVID-19 pandemic.
The resumption of tours was previously a matter of continued back and forth, with the preceding Tsai administration previously declining to lift the 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.
KMT legislative caucus leader Fu Kun-chi. Photo credit: Fu Kun-chi/Facebook
Last August, the Chinese government announced a list of 78 countries in which tour groups will now be allowed to travel to. This included 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. However, Taiwan was deliberately excluded from this list.
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. Still, Lai sought to emphasize that he was open to the prospect of Chinese tourism as an olive branch to China, raising this in his inauguration speech.
Crediting the KMT with negotiating for the resumption of Chinese tourism would be a means of politically backing the KMT, as its proxy in Taiwan. This would also be an attempt to suggest that, in a time of sluggish economic growth, Taiwan could see prosperity through stronger ties with China. But that China has rolled out lifting of tourism policy in outlying islands before Taiwan proper may further illustrate the importance that China places on outlying islands of Taiwan at present, seeing as China has also stepped up grey-zone activity in the wake of incidents such as a collision in April that led to the deaths of two Chinese fishermen.
Even if the Lai administration likely does not hope for economic overreliance on Chinese tourism as occurred during the Ma administration, stating that he wishes to see Chinese tourism to Taiwan resume on the basis of parity would be a compromise measure by Lai aimed at signaling goodwill. Nevertheless, it is unlikely China would take this up at this juncture.