State Council Taiwan Affairs Office: Appreciates the call from knowledgeable individuals in Taiwan to promote normalization of personnel exchanges between the two sides.

On September 24th, the Taiwan Affairs Office of the State Council held a routine press conference. A journalist asked: Representatives from the Taiwan tourism industry recently called on the first Cross-Strait Tourism High-Quality Development Conference to urge the Tsai Ing-wen administration to lift the ban on Taiwan travel agencies bringing tour groups to the mainland as soon as possible, and to open up mainland tourists to visit Taiwan. Earlier this year, the mainland agreed to allow residents of Shanghai and Fujian to travel to Taiwan, but the Tsai administration insists on first negotiating through the Cross-Strait Tourism "mini-meeting" before implementation. The Tsai administration should seize the opportunity. What is your comment on this? Chen Binhua, the spokesperson for the Taiwan Affairs Office, stated that we have always supported exchanges and cooperation between various fields, including the tourism industry, across the Taiwan Strait. Normalizing cross-strait personnel exchanges and regularizing exchanges in various fields are the common wishes of compatriots on both sides of the Taiwan Strait. People in Taiwan from all walks of life actively appeal and participate in cross-strait exchanges, and we applaud this. The DPP administration disregards the strong desire of the Taiwan tourism industry and people to improve their livelihoods, strengthen cross-strait exchanges and cooperation, and develop cross-strait relations. Their deliberate obstruction and restrictions on the normal exchanges between people on both sides of the strait in order to pursue "independence" will only lead to greater dissatisfaction and opposition, and they will increasingly lose public support.