Taiwan's Mainland Affairs Council, which handles cross-strait policy, addressed the announcement by Shanghai's Vice Mayor Hua Yuan that he hopes Shanghai group tours can visit Taiwan. They also addressed the visit to China by Taiwan's former President Ma Ying-jeou.
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00:00Now, with the prospect of Shanghai tour groups coming to Taiwan and former President Ma Ying-jeou
00:04heading to China, the government here has a flurry of questions to answer.
00:08Chris Gorn went to the Mainland Affairs Council, that's the office that governs Taiwan's cross-strait
00:12relations, to find out more. Chris, what did the MAC have to say?
00:20Well, yes, you're right, Eric. The MAC had a lot more cross-strait news to deal with than it would
00:25in a normal week. Of course, the big story is yesterday's announcement from the Shanghai vice
00:31mayor that he hopes that tour groups from Shanghai will be able to come and visit Taiwan.
00:37Now, just as a reminder, China has actually cut off all group tours to Taiwan since 2019,
00:44and Taiwan has actually done the same. Taiwanese tour groups also cannot visit
00:48China at the moment. So here's what they had to say about that issue.
00:55Now, essentially what the MAC is saying there is that until China's Ministry of Culture and
01:23Tourism approves any new policy change, it remains a hypothetical, and the MAC is not too clear on
01:29what this policy might actually look like. They're not the only ones. I took a look at some Chinese
01:35social media comments today to see what they were saying. There was a lot of comments showing
01:42excitement at the possibility that they may be able to come and visit Taiwan, maybe see some
01:48Chinese family members who are living here. At the same time, there was a bit of confusion,
01:52a lot of questions asking who would this policy apply to? Would it only be to people originally
01:59from Shanghai? Would it include people from other provinces or other cities who are living in
02:04Shanghai? At the same time, the business community in Taiwan, the tourism business community anyway,
02:11did seem to be showing some excitement about this. Several Taiwanese tour companies actually saw
02:16their stock price jump nearly 10% on the news that these tour groups might be coming back to
02:22Taiwan. So we're all just waiting to see what this policy will look like, if it ever actually
02:27goes into effect. And what about the trip by former President Ma? Did the MAC address that?
02:38Yes, they did address this issue directly, and here's what they had to say.
02:47Now, this kind of response from the MAC is not unusual for Ma's trips to China, which he makes
03:13nearly every year. So it seems that they're not expecting
03:17any new controversies this time around either. Eric?