TAIPEI, Taiwan (AP) — Taiwan’s foreign minister has criticized China’s newly announced suspension on trips by individual Chinese citizens to the island, saying Beijing was preventing its people from “experiencing a country where freedom, openness & tolerance are the order of the day.”
China said Wednesday it was banning trips by individual Chinese travelers to Taiwan, in an apparent move to increase financial and diplomatic pressure to force Taipei to endorse Beijing’s position that Taiwan is Chinese territory. Chinese can now only visit Taiwan as participants of group tours, which have vastly declined after Beijing ordered travel agencies to restrict their numbers.
In a tweet Wednesday night about Beijing’s move, Taiwanese Foreign Minister Joseph Wu wrote “How very sad?”
“What’s to fear?” he wrote in a question directed at the Beijing authorities.
