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Taiwan Warns Against Non-Essential Travel to China, HK, Macau - BLOOMBERG
BY , Bloomberg News
(Bloomberg) -- Taiwan has hiked its travel warning for China to the second-highest level, as tensions between the two sides ramp up under the island’s new president.
Taiwan’s Mainland Affairs Council, which oversees the island’s relations with Beijing, said residents of the self-ruled democracy should avoid all non-essential trips to China, Hong Kong, and Macau, in a statement published on its website Thursday.
The alert was raised to red during the pandemic, and downgraded to yellow after Covid controls in the world’s No. 2 economy were lifted. Authorities cited risks posed by China’s anti-espionage legislation, as well as the security law Beijing imposed on Hong Kong in 2020, as reasons for not lowering it further.
The latest decision comes days after China published a legal document fleshing out laws aimed at punishing supporters of independence for Taiwan, who can face the death penalty. Beijing considers Taiwan a breakaway province that President Xi Jinping has vowed to unify with someday, by force if necessary.
China has blasted the island’s new president, Lai Ching-te, as a “Taiwan independence worker,” saying his inaugural address last month — during which he said the two sides are not subordinate to each other — sent a “dangerous signal.”
