The Chinese mainland has reiterated its commitment to promoting youth exchanges across the Taiwan Strait and has called on Taiwan’s Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) authorities to lift restrictions on cross-strait travel.
At a press conference held in Beijing on Wednesday, Zhu Fenglian, spokesperson for the State Council Taiwan Affairs Office, welcomed more young people from Taiwan to visit the mainland.
Zhu was responding to media inquiries about an upcoming visit by faculty and students from seven Chinese mainland universities, including Tsinghua University, Peking University, and Fudan University. The visit, scheduled for late November, comes at the invitation of the Taiwan-based Ma Ying-jeou Culture and Education Foundation.
“This exchange serves as a reciprocal visit following former Kuomintang chairman Ma Ying-jeou’s trip to the mainland, during which he led a group of Taiwanese students to visit mainland universities,” Zhu noted.
In addition to youth exchanges, the recent resumption of travel from Fujian Province residents to the islands of Kinmen and Matsu was highlighted at the press conference. As of October 31, mainland immigration authorities had processed 58,735 travel permit applications for visits to Kinmen and Matsu, according to statistics released at the event.
Zhu emphasized that these figures demonstrate the strong enthusiasm among mainland residents to visit the islands. She stressed that the mainland would continue to facilitate group tourism to Taiwan as part of efforts to enhance cross-strait relations.
“We hope the DPP authorities will heed the voices of the public and remove restrictions on cross-strait exchanges at an early date,” Zhu said.
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Mainland urges DPP to lift cross-Straits travel restrictions
cgtn.com
