TAIPEI: President Lai Ching-te has urged Beijing to engage in talks with Taipei to alleviate restrictions on tourism between Taiwan and China, identifying China as the principal impediment to cross-strait exchanges. During a question-and-answer session following his New Year's Day address, Lai emphasized the need for negotiations to resolve the limitations imposed by Beijing on Chinese tourists visiting Taiwan.According to Focus Taiwan, Lai highlighted that while 2.05 million Taiwanese traveled to China for tourism or business from January to November 2024, only 285,000 Chinese tourists visited Taiwan in the same period. The majority of Taiwanese visitors were individual travelers due to Taiwan's current policy prohibiting group travel to China.Lai also criticized Beijing for barring Chinese students from studying in Taiwan and restricting tourist visits. He proposed that the Taiwan Strait Tourism Association and the Association for Tourism Exchange across the Taiwan Straits, established by Taipei and Bei jing respectively, commence negotiations to ease these tourism restrictions.The president's comments followed a pledge by a Shanghai official at the Shanghai-Taipei City Forum, stating that Chinese authorities in Shanghai intend to permit residents to travel to Taiwan. Presently, only residents from Fujian province can visit Taiwan, restricted to the islands of Kinmen and Matsu under China's regulations.As relations across the Taiwan Strait remain tense, with Beijing refusing to engage in dialogue with Taipei's Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) government, tourism between the two sides has suffered. Both parties attribute the tourism decline to the other's restrictive policies.In his New Year's address, Lai also advised against Taiwanese nationals applying for Chinese identification cards, as it could result in the loss of Taiwanese citizenship under Taiwan's laws. A Taiwanese YouTuber's video recently claimed that approximately 100,000 Taiwanese had obtained Chinese ID cards. In response, Taiwan's Mai nland Affairs Council, responsible for cross-strait affairs, announced plans to investigate and raise public awareness of the potential consequences.