A Chinese agriculture produce and gift industry delegation arrived in Taiwan on Monday to visit the eight counties and cities ruled by the Kuomintang (KMT) party, skipping all the other territories ruled by the ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP).
The delegation, authorized by the Chinese government, came after the chiefs of the eight “blue” Taiwanese counties and cities visited China in September. According to media reports, the delegation plans to spend eight days and seven nights to complete the tour, viewing agricultural products and specialties of these selected areas and paving the way for a planned promotional tour organized by the KMT-ruled counties and cities to promote their agriculture as well as tourism in China, slated to take place at the end of December.
The delegation will reportedly “only transit through and not make any purchases" in the “green” territories.
Members of the delegation include representatives from the All China Federation of Supply and Marketing Cooperatives, China Tea Marketing Association, Alibaba's B2C marketplace Tmall, and other trade associations and official agencies.
In response, Kaohsiung Mayor Chen Chu of the DPP said Taiwan welcomes all Chinese tourists to visit the country and hoped tourism can be separated from politics. Political intervention to divide Taiwan into “blue and green” territories can only hurt Taiwanese people’s feeling and intensify the rupture between people with different political ideologies.
