China is allowing tour groups to travel to Taiwan's Kinmen Islands for the first time since 2020, pending approval from Taiwanese authorities. It comes after years of tit-for-tat travel bans between the two sides.
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00:00Guns like these can be found throughout Taiwan's Jinmen County, a reminder of past conflict
00:08with China and now also popular tourist attractions.
00:12But for years, this island county has been missing one notable group of visitors, people
00:16from China.
00:18The COVID pandemic and tensions between Taipei and Beijing have kept cross-strait tourism
00:22shut down here since 2020, but that's about to change.
00:26Jinmen is set to welcome back tourists from China's Fujian province on September 18, pending
00:30approval by Taiwanese authorities.
00:33That's after Beijing dropped travel restrictions following pleas from local Jinmen officials.
00:48Jinmen is only three kilometers away from China's shores, but for such a short journey,
00:52the distance has seemed insurmountable in recent years.
00:56It was only in March that Taiwan allowed group tours to China again, seeing around 100-thousand
01:01outbound travelers before reinstating the ban just three months later due to Beijing's
01:05refusal to reciprocate.
01:18China resumed group tours to Taiwan's Mazu Islands in June, but only saw seven travelers.
01:24Jinmen is eager to get more Chinese tourists, who made up 40 percent of the county's tourism
01:28before the pandemic.
01:29But the sudden reopening has others questioning why tourism is being decided on China's terms.
01:46Some government officials noted that China's lifting of the travel ban also coincided with
01:51the lifting of a years-long pomelo import ban.
02:09Meaning that despite a limited resumption of exchanges between Taiwan and China, it
02:13might take much more than a few tourists to fix the years of hostility and mistrust between
02:18the two sides.
02:19Alex Chen and Tiffany Wong for Taiwan Plus.