Gov’t condemns Taiwan’s travel alert on Macau

The Macao Special Administrative Region (MSAR) government has strongly condemned Taiwan’s “defamation and smearing” in relation to the issuance of a travel warning concerning Macau last week.

The MSAR government sees Taiwan’s actions as an attempt to “arbitrarily discredit Macau’s legal system for safeguarding national security” and distort the city’s political and social development.

In a statement, the MSAR government called on the authorities in Taiwan to stop using Macau for political manipulation that harms others, condemning Taiwan’s “sinister intentions and despicable methods.”

The statement emphasized that the improvement of Macau’s legal system for safeguarding national security has played a positive role in promoting the city’s development.

“Macau remains one of the safest and most economically dynamic international tourism and leisure destinations,” the government said.

The MSAR government urged Taiwan to show “sincere care for the well-being of its people” and “cherish the feelings between the two places.”

Taiwan’s Mainland Affairs Council advised its citizens last week to avoid unnecessary travel to mainland China, Hong Kong, and Macau.

The heightened travel warning, raised to the second-highest level, comes in response to Beijing’s new legal guidelines that threaten “diehard separatists” from Taiwan with penalties.

The Mainland Affairs Council cited the increased risks to personal safety for Taiwanese travelers under these rules.

“In response to the new guidelines, […] the government has the responsibility to remind citizens that there are genuine risks involved” in such visits, spokesperson and deputy head of the island’s Mainland Affairs Council Liang Wen-chieh said during a press briefing last week.

The government is not banning visits, but those that do travel should not express political opinions or carry books or post online about topics that the Communist Party may use to detain and potentially prosecute them.

Hundreds of thousands of Taiwanese live in China or travel there for business, tourism or family visits each year. China has also hosted visits by local Taiwanese officials and leaders of the opposition Nationalist Party, which backs eventual unification between the sides.

Further, a mainland spokesperson slammed Taiwan’s Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) authorities’ practice of political manipulation in the name of upgrading cross-Strait travel alert.

The DPP authorities are undermining the Taiwan people’s legal rights and interests and obstructing exchanges across the Taiwan Strait, said Zhu Fenglian, spokesperson for the Taiwan Affairs Office of the State Council.

Zhu made the remarks in response to a media query about the DPP authorities’ recent move to upgrade the travel alert regarding the mainland.

This is a defamation of the mainland and a blatant intimidation against the people of Taiwan, she said.

The DPP authorities have disregarded the facts and intentionally distorted the judicial guidelines recently issued to impose criminal punishments on diehard “Taiwan independence” separatists for conducting or inciting secession, Zhu said. Staff Reporter