Taiwan's rules do not bar Shanghai residents from visiting Kinmen, Matsu: MAC

Taipei, Feb. 5 (CNA) Taiwan does not prohibit visits to its outlying islands of Kinmen and Matsu by residents of Shanghai, the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) in Taipei said Wednesday, adding that the restrictions on such travel over the past six years were imposed by China.

"Under our current regulations, there are no provisions restricting Shanghai residents from traveling to Kinmen and Matsu," said MAC, the main Taiwan government agency in charge of cross-Taiwan Strait affairs, following an announcement by Chinese authorities earlier Wednesday that such trips would soon resume after a six-year suspension.

"However, Shanghai residents would need to first travel to Fujian and then take the 'mini three links' ferries to Kinmen and Matsu," MAC said in a statement, referring to ferry services linking China's coastal Fujian Province to the two nearby Taiwan-held island groups.

China's tourism visits to Taiwan, both independent and group travel, have been largely frozen for about six years. China halted independent travel to Taiwan in August 2019, citing the poor state of cross-strait relations. It then suspended group travel to other countries, including Taiwan, in early 2020, at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.

In 2024, China eased some of the travel restrictions to Taiwan, but only for residents of Fujian visiting Kinmen and Matsu, independently or in groups.

On Wednesday, MAC stressed that those restrictions had been imposed by China, and that Taiwan does not prohibit visits to the two island chains by residents of Fujian or any other part of China.

Now that China is planning to also allow residents of Shanghai to visit Kinmen and Matsu, it remains to be seen how many of them will actually make such trips, MAC said.

"The man-made obstacles currently affecting cross-strait tourism are widely known to have been created by Beijing," MAC said.

Under Taiwan's current regulations, however, only Chinese nationals who reside or study in a third country are allowed to apply for permission to visit Taiwan proper and the Penghu islands.

The announcement in China on Wednesday was made by its Ministry of Culture and Tourism, which said preparations were being made to allow the resumption soon of trips by Shanghai residents to Kinmen and Matsu.

The move is intended to further "normalize" cross-strait travel, meet the "strong expectations" of the Taiwanese public and the tourism industry, and boost the "wellbeing" of people on both sides of the Taiwan Strait, the Chinese ministry said.

The announcement was made after Taiwan's main opposition Kuomintang (KMT) attended a think tank forum in Beijing on Tuesday, hosted by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).

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Among the 15 "shared recommendations" reached at the forum was a proposal to expeditiously resume group tours to Taiwan by residents of Fujian and Shanghai, and to gradually expand travel by Chinese residents to Kinmen and Matsu.