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(800) LA TIMESFounded Dec. 4, 1881
Vol. CXXXVIII No. 242
LOS ANGELES TIMES (ISSN 0458-3035)
is published by the Los Angeles Times,
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Premium issues per year. For each
Premium issue, your account balance
will be charged an additional fee up to
$4.49, in the billing period when the
section publishes. This will result in
shortening the length of your billing
period.Printed with soy-based ink on recycled newsprint from wood byproducts.Red-legged frog:In the
July 25 Section A, an article
about the Woolsey fire’s ef-
fects on frogs said that her-
petologist Sarah Wenner is
pursuing her master’s de-
gree at UCLA and began
working with National Park
Service wildlife ecologist
Katy Delaney in 2017. Wen-
ner got her undergraduate
degree from UCLA but is
pursuing her master’s atCal State Northridge, and
she began working with De-
laney in 2016.Marathon training: In
the July 27 Saturday sec-
tion, an article about train-
ing for the Los Angeles Mar-
athon gave an incorrect web
address for the L.A. Road
Runners. The correct ad-
dress is http://www.lamarathon
.com/participant-info/larr.FOR THE RECORD
TAIPEI, Taiwan — The
governments of China and
Taiwan don’t talk. But more
than 80,000 Chinese tourists
visit Taiwan each month for
an alternative take on Chi-
nese culture, making friends
and stoking business, often
in parts of the nearby island
that other tourists usually
miss.
But Beijing’s Ministry of
Culture and Tourism, citing
“current mainland-Taiwan
relations,” announced that
beginning Thursday inde-
pendent tourists will no
longer be granted permits to
visit the island.
The indefinite suspen-
sion is likely to prove a major
economic hit to Taiwan, as
well as a blow to cultural in-
terplay.
“They can get a deep
understanding of Taiwan’s
culture and lifestyle and
broaden horizons — an im-
portant channel for knowing
Taiwan,” the Taiwanese gov-
ernment’s Mainland Affairs
Council said in a statement
Wednesday.
“The council expresses
deep regret toward the
mainland’s suspension of in-
dependent travel on its own
and limits on contact be-
tween our peoples.”
Independent Chinese
tourism to Taiwan has al-
ready been shrinking, as ten-
sions have mounted be-
tween the mainland and Tai-
wan, which has been self-
ruled since the Chinese civil
war of the 1940s. China has
firmly insisted that Taiwan
merge with the mainland de-
spite opinion surveys con-
ducted by the Taiwanese
government that show more
than 80% of islanders prefer
autonomy.
Between 2008 and 2016,
the two sides opened a
strong dialogue that led to
more than 20 agreements,
including one in 2008 that
opened Taiwan to mainland
Chinese tourists.
In 2015 and 2016 more
than 1.3 million mainlanders
visited, according to Tai-
wan’s National Immigration
Agency. But in 2017, as
political initiatives faltered,
independent travel declined
to just over 1 million, and
fell further last year to
978,000.
Group tourism also fell in
2016 by 18% as Chinese offi-
cials urged domestic travel
agencies to begin steering
group tours elsewhere.
Chinese tourists miffed
by the suspension say their
Taiwan travels left them
with strong, mostly upbeat
impressions while satisfying
a curiosity they had felt since
reading about Taiwan as
children.
“I think it’s about strong
cultural and deep historic
connection across” the Tai-
wan Strait, said Wang Tong,
37, a university employee
who visited twice and hopes
the suspension is brief.
“Most Chinese in my genera-
tion grow up with many Tai-
wanese novels, drama, vari-
ety shows and songs.”
When Laura Lu visited in
2016, she went hiking in the
blustery mountains of Yang-
mingshan National Park
north of Taipei and got lost
in a rainstorm. A Taipei taxi
driver put her back on the
right path and referred her
to a local friend who became
her guide. That encounter
cemented the 49-year-old’s
overall impression of Tai-
wan.
“Taipei people are really
good, polite and courteous,”
the private jet rental agent
from Shanghai said. Strang-
ers in China can be gruffer,
she said, even putting a hand
in the faces of inquiring
strangers. In Taiwan, she
says, “you ask other people
where to go and they always
tell you.”
Tourism bureau surveys
in 2015 found 73% of self-
guided tourists were “ex-
tremely satisfied” with Tai-
wan.
Independent Chinese
travelers have been visiting
Taiwan from 47 mainland
cities — as agreed by both
sides — on flights of no more
than two or three hours.
Adding convenience, their
native-language Chinese ap-
pears on signs throughout
Taiwan and almost every-
one on the island speaks it.
“I don’t think the people
from either side have any
problems getting on,” said
Weng Yunchun, 44, a Bei-
jing-based organic farmer
who visited Taiwan in 2017.“It was like traveling to other
cities in mainland China.”
Some tourists blog about
their favorite restaurants,
enticing more business. A
Chinese blogger made one
Taipei noodle bowl restau-
rant so popular that by 2017,
diners stood outside clutch-
ing their bowls and plastic
spoons for lack of seating.
Travelers also revel in re-
ligious, architectural and
cultural similarities, the re-sult of migration from China
to Taiwan that began hun-
dreds of years ago, with its
most recent wave in the
1940s.
Travelers also take home
new information from Tai-
wan’s newspapers, news
websites and television
channels, all free of censor-
ship unlike on the mainland.
Politics began disrupting
relations in 2016 after Tsai
Ing-wen became presidentof Taiwan. Like much of the
public, Tsai rejects Beijing’s
goal of unification as well as
its premise that both sides
belong to a single China. Her
predecessor from 2008 to
2016 had accepted the condi-
tion.
The mainland govern-
ment answered Tsai by fly-
ing military aircraft near
Taiwan and enticing Tai-
wan’s diplomatic allies to
sever relations and recog-nize Beijing instead.
Beijing also thinned the
number of group tours to the
island.
Aprolonged suspension
of independent travel will
cost Taiwan a portion of the
2.2% growth expected
this year in its $589-billion
gross domestic product, as
the service sector founders,
said Liang Kuo-yuan, presi-
dent of Taipei-based think
tank Polaris Research Insti-
tute.
“Mainland China was
motivated by wanting to
show that ‘in addition to mil-
itary threats we can actually
use the economy as resist-
ance,’ ” Liang said.
State-run China Central
Television said on its Weibo
social media website
Wednesday that the pause
in independent travel per-
mits came because “risks
are increasing” for travelers
as Taiwan’s January 2020
elections approach. Tsai is
due to run against a China-
friendly populist mayor.
“It’s said that tourism
numbers will drop by
[700,000 to] 800,000,” the
Weibo account stated. “Tai-
wanese tourism industry,
are you guys still OK?”
Chinese tourists “should
be allowed to join more &
more travelers from around
the world in experiencing a
country where freedom,
openness & tolerance are
the order of the day,” For-
eign Minister Joseph Wu re-
torted in a tweet. “What’s to
fear?”Jennings is a special
correspondent. Times staff
writer Alice Su in Beijing
contributed to this report.China suspends tourist travel to Taiwan
THE NUMBER of mainlanders visiting Taiwan has been declining steadily in recent years, to 978,000 in 2018.David ChangEPA/ShutterstockCiting cross-strait
tensions, Beijing halts
independent visits
indefinitely, a setback
for island’s economy.
By Ralph Jennings
call the union the “awesome
foursome.”
On his whistle-stop tour,
he encountered sharp resist-
ance to the idea of a no-deal
Brexit — that is, leaving the
European Union on sched-
ule, less than three months
from now, without an accord
governing future relations
with the bloc.
The irrepressible new
leader has said that he
hopes to strike a deal before
the Oct. 31 deadline — but
that he’s also ready to walk
away with no accord. Euro-
pean officials, meanwhile,
are warning that they won’t
renegotiate the agreement
reached with Johnson’s
predecessor, Theresa May.
The British pound, often
a barometer for Brexit senti-
ment, touched two-year lows
this week as no-deal talk was
bandied about by Johnson’s
Cabinet ministers, who were
largely handpicked for hold-
ing “do or die” Brexit views,
in line with his.
Adding to Brexit jitters,
Johnson’s government an-
nounced it was spending an
additional $2.54 billion on
emergency preparations for
“crashing out” of the EU,
such as stockpiling medi-
cines.
The shows of disunity
that Johnson encountered
this week in his kingdom-
wide tour were a far cry from
the United Kingdom actu-
ally dissolving under the
strain of Brexit. But there
are plenty of sardonic nods
to the spirit of divisiveness
he has inspired. A former
British prime minister, Gor-
don Brown, recently ob-
served that Johnson could
make history as “the first
prime minister of England”
—that is, not the full United
Kingdom.
Since he assumed office,
Johnson hasn’t yet made a
visit to Brussels, where the
EU is headquartered, saying
he awaits signals of willing-
ness to renegotiate. But
home ground proved hardly
more welcoming.
In Edinburgh, Scotland’s
capital, protesters booed as
he arrived for talks with
Scotland’s first minister,
Nicola Sturgeon, at her offi-
cial residence. Sturgeon toldhim in no uncertain terms
that a no-deal Brexit would
galvanize support for anoth-
er Scottish independence
referendum, which she
backs and he opposes.
She told the BBC after-
ward it was clear to her that
Johnson’s government had
embarked on a “dangerous”
path.
Separatist sentiment in
Scotland dates back cen-
turies, and a 2014 refer-
endum on breaking with the
rest of Britain drew support
of nearly 45% of the elector-
ate — not enough to split off,
but more than enough to rat-
tle nerves in Westminster,
seat of the British govern-
ment. In the June 2016 Brexit
referendum, Scots, unlike
the U.K. as a whole, sided
heavily with remaining in
the European Union.
Wales, on the other hand,
narrowly backed leaving the
EU in the referendum. But it
is heavily dependent on agri-
culture, and farmers are
among those who are the
most worried about the ram-
ifications of a no-deal Brexit.
The prime minister, ne-
ver one to shy from a photo
op, visited a poultry farm in
south Wales to demonstrate
his support for farmers,
gamely posing with a bird in
his arms. But agricultural
groups, including the main
one representing Welshlamb farmers, warned there
could be unruly road-block-
ing protests and a forced
mass slaughter of livestock
herds if he pushes ahead
with a no-deal Brexit and
they are hit with tariffs.
The Welsh first minister,
Mark Drakeford, told John-
son that crashing out of the
EU would be “catastrophic”
for Wales.
“The prime minister
needs to think about the fu-
ture of the United Kingdom
in a genuinely serious way,”
Drakeford told Britain’s
Guardian newspaper. “Just
a few more choruses of ‘Rule
Britannia’ and an extra sup-
ply of Union Jacks is not go-
ing to cut it.”
And then Johnson was on
to Northern Ireland, where
the Brexit stakes may be
higher than almost any-
where.
After decades of bloody
sectarian conflict, a corner-
stone of the 1998 Good Fri-
day peace accord is an open
border between Northern
Ireland, which is part of the
United Kingdom, and the
Republic of Ireland, which is
not. The 300-mile frontier is
all but invisible. Trade flows
freely, and people casually
border-hop for jobs and
shopping.
That status quo is threat-
ened by Brexit. Johnson has
demanded that the EU
scrap the so-called back-
stop, an agreement that
would preserve the “soft”
border but could force all of
the U.K. to remain in the
EU’s customs union. That
would mean adhering to
some EU rules, which hard-
line Brexiters say they can-
not abide.
In Northern Ireland, the
leader of the Irish national-
ist party Sinn Fein, Mary
Lou McDonald, said that in
the event of a no-deal depar-
ture from the EU, she would
push for a vote on uniting
Ireland — that is, for North-
ern Ireland to leave the U.K.Writing on Twitter, she
called Johnson a threat to a
hard-forged peace.
“Bluster & bravado can’t
mask the utterly destructive
Brexit route he is taking,”
she wrote. “He is on course
to upend our peace & pros-
perity with his eyes wide
open.”
Northern Ireland politics
play a particular role in
Johnson’s ability to keep his
new job. The working major-
ity of his Conservative Party
in the British Parliament is
made possible only by its al-
liance with the Democratic
Unionist Party, or DUP,
which, as its name suggests,
supports remaining part of
the U.K.
But other parties in
Northern Ireland, particu-
larly Sinn Fein, are disdain-
ful of the DUP for doing the
new British prime minister’s
bidding on Brexit.
Johnson suggested he
might be able to help repair a
power-sharing agreement
suspended two years ago
amid infighting among
Northern Ireland’s political
parties. But among the
quarreling parties, there
was considerable consensus
on one thing: Johnson was
ill-equipped to bring them
together.
After the meeting in
Belfast, the deputy head of
the Social Democratic and
Labor Party, Nichola Mal-
lon, said Johnson displayed
a “limited understanding of
the complexities and fragili-
ties of this place.”
Dublin wasn’t on John-
son’s itinerary, although
British leaders usually move
quickly to establish a rap-
port with the Republic of
Ireland.
Johnson waited almost a
week to telephone his Irish
counterpart, Leo Varadkar,
who crisply informed him
that the EU, including Ire-
land, was “united in its view”
that the Brexit accord could
not be renegotiated.Leader’s not-so United Kingdom
BRITISH Prime Minister Boris Johnson arrives at Stormont House in Belfast,
Northern Ireland. He suggested he might be able to help end party discord.Kelvin BoylesPool Photo[B ritain, from A1]