Beijing hails cross-strait policies as Taiwanese visitor numbers, residence bids surge

Some 994,000 travel permits and 3 million Taiwanese visitors so far this year point to cross-strait policy success, observers say

Reading Time:3 minutes

Why you can trust SCMP

Participants in a cross-strait journalism camp pose for a photo at the Mutianyu section of the Great Wall in Beijing in August. Photo: Xinhua

Xinlu Liangin Beijing

Published: 8:27pm, 21 Oct 2024Updated: 8:59pm, 21 Oct 2024

Corrected [8:57pm, 21 Oct, 2024]

[8:57pm, 21 Oct, 2024]
This version corrects the number of Taiwanese visitors to mainland China so far this year.

Close to 3 million Taiwanese have travelled to mainland China for tourism, study and work this year, according to official data from Beijing.

Analysts said the surge was driven by a combination of favourable policies and economic opportunities aimed at fostering deeper ties across the Taiwan Strait.

Nearly 994,000 Taiwan compatriot permits – or Mainland Travel Permit for Taiwan Residents – had been issued so far this year, the National Immigration Administration announced last week.

The figure marked a 14.5 per cent increase year on year and was also higher than during the same period in 2019, a pre-pandemic year, administration spokeswoman Zhang Ning said on Friday.

More Taiwanese had applied for permits to live on the mainland this year than the total in the past decade, Zhang added, without elaborating on the data or its definition.

Zhang attributed the rise to a series of favourable measures aimed at making it easier for Taiwanese to travel to and settle in mainland China.