China to Lift Its Ban on Tourist Travel to Taiwan

BEIJING —  In its latest bid to woo the Taiwanese people, China said Friday it would lift a decades-old travel ban, paving the way for thousands of mainland tourists to visit the island.

Taiwan dropped its ban on travel to China in 1987, resulting, by last year, in more than 3.7 million Taiwanese visiting the mainland annually. China has been slower to lift curbs, restricting travel approval in 2004 to 30,000 mainland businesspeople or students.

Taiwan’s Premier Frank Hsieh said Friday he welcomed the move, although Taipei would still have to establish immigration guidelines, including the amount of time tourists would be allowed to stay.

“Basically, the government’s attitude is that we welcome tourists from China,” Hsieh said. “But whether they come for [a maximum of] seven days or 10 days, that can still be discussed. We haven’t decided yet.”

It remains to be seen whether formal approval will be given by Taiwan’s government. At its lower levels, the idea was greeted with less enthusiasm.

You Ying-lung, vice chairman of the Mainland Affairs Council, said Beijing’s proposal was short on specifics and appeared aimed largely at scoring public relations points.

“They’re just empty words,” he said.

The idea of letting in Chinese tourists has been raised repeatedly, most recently during a visit to the mainland by Taiwan’s nationalist party leader.

But it has foundered over various disagreements. Some Taiwanese have expressed concerns that the influx would provide cover for spies or illegal immigrants seeking work in Taiwan’s more advanced economy.

Under current regulations, Chinese visitors must submit their employment certificate, proof of student status or a $6,000 deposit to Taiwanese authorities. A group of 17 Chinese tourists disappeared at the airport last July after landing in Taipei. Another 14 went missing from their hotel in Taoyuan the following month.

Analysts said Beijing hopes with Friday’s offer to outflank Taiwanese President Chen Shui-bian, whom it mistrusts, and appeal directly to the island’s people.

Part of its calculation is that large numbers of increasingly affluent mainland tourists will spur the Taiwanese economy, thereby helping to blunt pro-independence sentiment among Taiwan’s voters. State-controlled media reported that as many as 1,000 mainland visitors a day could be allowed to cross the strait in package tours starting at $845 for a seven-day trip.

China’s strategy has worked elsewhere. It opened the tourist floodgates to Hong Kong and Macao in recent years, successfully binding the two former European colonies closer to Beijing. The move set off a retail recovery and weakened the pro-democracy movement in Hong Kong while stimulating a gambling-led economic boom in Macao.

China views Taiwan as a part of its territory despite their very different political and social systems, which evolved since the two cut ties in 1949 after a protracted civil war.

Although Beijing has long threatened to use force if Taiwan declares independence, in recent weeks it has displayed a more nuanced, carrot-and-stick strategy centered around the recent visit to Beijing of two Taiwanese opposition leaders.

During those trips, in addition to the idea of easing travel, Beijing offered two pandas, easier rules governing Taiwanese students attending Chinese universities, and fewer market restrictions on Taiwanese farm imports.

Chinese said Friday they would welcome the chance to visit Taiwan.

“I’ve heard the news and am planning a trip,” said Wang Hong, a 40-year-old businesswoman working in Beijing. “I have many Taiwanese friends and have long wanted to visit the island, but it’s been too difficult to get approval.”

Others, like Zhang Xining, 26, a Beijing media agent, said he would head over as soon as he saved enough money, assuming the plan went through.

“We’ve learned since elementary school that Taiwan is our ‘treasure island,’ and been taught about the Lake of Sun and Moon,” he said. “It would be interesting to see what Taiwan is like as a part of China, but a much more developed part. It’s been off limits, so I’m very curious.”

Residents on the other side of the strait were less sure, however. Although several said they welcomed the potential economic boost, many quickly added that they were also concerned about Chinese overstaying their visas.

“I just don’t trust them,” said Camille Wu, a 35-year-old graphic designer in Taipei. “There have been too many cases of them illegally overstaying their welcome all over the world.”

Despite the often tense political relations between Taiwan and China, trade and travel links continue to strengthen. Taiwanese companies have invested more than $100 billion in the mainland, and the number of Taiwanese visitors to China rose 35% last year.

Johnson Tseng, chairman of the Travel Agent Assn. of Taiwan, a longtime advocate of more mainland visitors, acknowledged that illegal immigration was a concern. But he said Taiwan should not turn down the offer just because of that.

Tseng urged the two sides to sit down and carefully negotiate the details of a mutually beneficial proposal, a sentiment echoed Friday by China’s state-controlled New China News Agency.

“We hope the two governments will pay more attention to the cross-strait economy, not politics,” Tseng said.

Special correspondent Tsai Ting-I reported from Taipei and staff writer Magnier from Beijing. Yin Lijin in The Times’ Beijing Bureau contributed to this report.