• By Teng Hon-yuan 鄧鴻源

The Chinese Ministry of Culture and Tourism on Aug. 11 announced a third round of outbound group tour services that would be resumed to 78 countries and regions, including the US, Japan, South Korea, Australia, India and most European countries, expanding the scope from 60 to 138 countries and areas.

However, Taiwan remains off the list.

In response, some Taiwanese travel agencies are planning rallies to protest Taiwan’s ban on tour groups from China.

Writer Ku Ling (苦苓) rebuked the tour agencies, saying: “Are people throwing away their dignity for the sake of a few pennies?”

Supporters of unification with China said that Japan and South Korea have no problem “throwing away their dignity” to lift the ban on Chinese group tour services.

However, this is far from a fair comparison, as China harbors no ambitions to annex the two countries. China is coercing Taiwan, while other countries have their sovereignty unchallenged.

China has always held a gun to Taiwan’s head when it comes to its “one China” principle. Unfortunately, the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) has eagerly been China’s mouthpiece, promoting unification ideologies. With such dubious intentions, the KMT has always been Taiwan’s biggest internal enemy and only by marginalizing it can the nation have a future.

Chinese tourists are infamous for their bad manners and behavior, such as hollering at the top of their voices or cutting lines. A young Singaporean visited Taiwan two times in three months this year, sharing rave reviews about his experience.

“With the absence of Chinese tourists, Taroko Gorge has become lovelier to visit than ever before,” he said.

Taiwan’s ban on Chinese tour groups is a blessing in disguise.

In contrast, Taiwanese tourists show far better manners when they are visiting China.

With China ratcheting up military pressure on Taiwan in the past few years, Beijing is quickly losing its luster and appeal for Taiwanese. Most people would rather visit countries in Southeast Asia over a country that displays such animosity and bellicosity.

Taiwan should be anything but crestfallen about China’s boycott. Taiwan, for all its exceptional appeal, can always attract decent tourists from other places, such as the US, Europe, Japan, South Korea and Southeast Asia. Taiwanese should also refrain from visiting China, after all, as Confucius (孔子) said in the Analects: “One will not enter a hazardous state, nor dwell in a disorganized one.”

Moreover, low-budget Chinese travel groups usually employ an “all in one” travel and business model. Taiwan-bound tour operators are picked from among travel agencies that have already been designated to operate overseas tours, and have been approved by China’s Association for Tourism Exchange Across the Taiwan Strait.

This means that the business of Taiwan-bound tourism is the most forbidden of forbidden zones in China and neither foreign-invested nor Taiwan-invested agencies can access it. These conditions have formed a franchise in which a small number of travel agencies designated by Chinese authorities exercise an oligopoly over the business of Taiwan-bound tourism, which means that no profit goes into Taiwanese travel agencies’ pockets.

There is no other country in the world like China that would use its own people as bargaining chips. Taiwan does not need Chinese tourists or their money, not to mention that the “all in one” model prevents profit from going to anyone other than Chinese.

The presence of Chinese tourists would only undermine Taiwan’s image, putting off tourists from other countries.

Teng Hon-yuan is a university professor.

Translated by Rita Wang