But with only limited cross-strait air travel having resumed to date, ferries are now a popular option for Taiwanese residents travelling to mainland China.
Fewer than 730,000 Taiwanese traveled by boat from Kinmen to Xiamen or Quanzhou, another port city in Fujian province, last year, just 37% of the number in 2019, according to Taipei's Ministry of the Interior.
But Xiamen's wharf was bustling last Saturday as the annual Straits Forum was being held there, an event that offered a glimpse into Taiwanese attitudes towards the mainland.
The forum, which Beijing calls a “platform for private exchanges” and Taipei a “tool of the united front,” is scheduled to feature more than 50 side events, including those related to grassroots governance, youth exchanges, and cultural and economic exchanges. Beijing's Taiwan Affairs Office estimated on Wednesday that more than 7,000 Taiwanese people would attend.
Some of the participants arrived by ferry from Kinmen, including Huang, a Taiwan-based semiconductor materials supplier who attended the side event for the first time this year. They hope to expand their business in mainland China but are concerned about political tensions, trade restrictions and other issues plaguing cross-strait relations, including Beijing's suspension of tariff cuts on 134 Taiwanese products that took effect Saturday.
Huang said the suspension “hurts ordinary people. [Taiwan] government”.
The tariff cuts were originally implemented under the Cross-Strait Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement (ECFA), the only trade agreement between mainland China and Taiwan. The suspension of tariff cuts in June was part of Beijing's response to the “separatist” inauguration of Taiwan's new leader, William Lai Ching-teh.
Beijing considers Taiwan part of China and believes it should be unified, by force if necessary. Most countries, including the United States, do not recognize Taiwan as an independent nation. But Washington opposes any attempt to seize the island by force and has pledged to give it military might.
Huang, who left Xiamen by ferry on Sunday, said his business in mainland China had been “stuck” since 2016, when Lai's predecessor, Tsai Ing-wen, was in power.
President Tsai Ing-wen of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) has refused to acknowledge the 1992 consensus that there is one China but that each side has its own interpretation of what that means, a consensus that Beijing sees as the foundation of cross-strait relations.
Huang was concerned that new political tensions after Lai's election would again affect his business and force him to return to mainland China, where there is a huge market for semiconductor-related products.
Fujian Province lies just west of the Taiwan Strait and is the region of mainland China closest to Taiwan, both geographically and culturally.
Beijing announced guidelines in September to make Fujian a model region for cross-strait “integration.” The plan included lifting long-standing restrictions on Taiwanese living in mainland China, including on housing, employment and social security, and establishing an interconnected living area between Xiamen and Kinmen.
A range of support measures have since been announced, including a provision that allows any Taiwanese national travelling from Kinmen to mainland China to apply online for a document called a “compatriot permit” and collect it upon arrival in Taiwan.
But Taiwanese people who regularly travel between Taiwan and Fujian via Kinmen, as well as long-time residents of Fujian, say the new measures will have only a limited impact.
One man from Taichung, Taiwan, who runs a business in Xiamen, said the benefits he gained from the new integration policy were “very limited” because he had lived in mainland China for a long time before the policy was introduced and had enjoyed improving living conditions for years.
But he said he sometimes travels by boat to Kinmen to buy food and daily necessities because he is “still not used to the food and lifestyle of mainland China.”
Similarly, a Taiwanese man who traveled from Kinmen to Fujian on Sunday said he has lived in Zhangzhou, a city near Xiamen, for more than 30 years. He said the new measures would mainly benefit people from Taiwan who have yet to visit mainland China, and not those like him who are mostly “locals.”
A taxi driver who regularly picks up passengers at Wutong port said he has noticed far fewer Taiwanese people entering Xiamen through the port compared to before the pandemic.
The driver said his customers were now mainly people visiting relatives, rather than the Taiwanese businessmen who used to be “generous tippers” or young Taiwanese coming to mainland China for the first time, as the integration plan had aimed to do.
A travel agency at the port echoed that view, saying Wutong Pier was no longer crowded because traffic between the two sides had not yet fully resumed.Tourists from mainland China need permission from both mainland and Taiwanese authorities to visit the island.
In 2008, after Ma Ying-jeou of the pro-Beijing Kuomintang (KMT) party came to power, an agreement allowed group tours to operate between mainland China and Taiwan. In 2011, Beijing for the first time allowed individual tourists from some mainland cities to visit Taiwan.
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Kinmen's war-scarred bunkers reflect islands' frontline role in Taiwan Strait tensions
Kinmen's war-scarred bunkers reflect islands' frontline role in Taiwan Strait tensions
In 2019, Beijing halted individual travel to Taiwan, and in 2020, amid the pandemic, Taiwan suspended entry for all visitors and Beijing halted all group travel.
In April, Beijing for the first time allowed mainland Chinese tourists to travel to the Matsu Islands, territory administered by the Taipei city 20 kilometers (12.4 miles) from Fujian province's capital, Fuzhou, but only on tour groups from Fujian.
Taipei had planned to allow group tours to mainland China, but the plans were shelved in February after the Chinese government adjusted civil aviation routes near the sensitive median line in the Taiwan Strait.
In Xiamen, where the forum was being held, participants and Taiwanese people living there seemed hesitant to comment on cross-strait politics.
“We are very pleased with the preparations for the forum and are deeply proud of mainland China's development as a national power,” one participant said at the women's forum held on Saturday afternoon.
The retired couple, who live in Taipei, declined to share their thoughts on Taiwan's new leadership with the South China Morning Post, saying only that “everything is fine in mainland China.”
Still, some issued an implicit warning.
At a simultaneous event on Friday, Cheng Ting-wen, secretary-general of the China International Youth League, a youth exchange organization, expressed concern about the People's Liberation Army's presence in the Taiwan Strait.In his opening speech Saturday morning, Kuomintang Vice Chairman Lian Sheng-wen, who led a delegation to the forum, called on both sides to “reduce hostile words and actions” so that “people on both sides of the Taiwan Strait do not have any doubts or apprehensions about cross-strait exchanges.”
“Both sides”
