Mainland encourages cross-Strait youth exchanges, urges travel restriction lift

BEIJING, Nov. 13 (Xinhua) -- The mainland has reiterated its commitment to promoting youth exchanges across the Taiwan Strait and urged Taiwan's Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) authorities to lift restrictions on cross-Strait travel.

Speaking at a press conference held in Beijing on Wednesday, Zhu Fenglian, a spokesperson for the State Council Taiwan Affairs Office, welcomed more young people from Taiwan to visit the mainland.

Zhu's remarks were in response to media queries about an upcoming visit by faculty and students from seven mainland universities, including Tsinghua University, Peking University and Fudan University. The visit, scheduled for late November, was at the invitation of the Taiwan-based Ma Ying-jeou Culture and Education Foundation.

Zhu noted that this exchange serves as a reciprocal visit following the trip by Ma Ying-jeou, former chairman of the Chinese Kuomintang, in which he led a group of Taiwanese students to visit mainland universities.

In addition to youth exchanges, the recent resumption of Fujian Province residents' travel to Kinmen and Matsu islands was also highlighted at the press conference. As of Oct. 31, mainland immigration authorities had processed 58,735 travel permit applications for travel to Kinmen and Matsu, according to statistics released at the press conference.

Zhu noted that these figures indicate strong enthusiasm among mainland residents to visit the islands, stressing that the mainland would continue to facilitate mainland group tourism to Taiwan as part of its planned efforts to enhance cross-Strait relations.

"We hope the DPP authorities will heed the voices of the public and remove restrictions on cross-Strait exchanges at an early date," the spokesperson said.