Taiwanese visits to mainland China topped 3 million in 2025, still below pre-Covid levels

More Taiwanese are visiting mainland China but the numbers have yet to cross pre-Covid levels, data from the island’s tourism body shows.Taiwanese media attributed the slow recovery to continued cross-strait tensions and partial travel restrictions.According to Taiwan’s Tourism Administration, around 3.24 million Taiwanese visited the mainland last year, nearly 17 per cent more than in 2024.But this was still 20 per cent lower than the figure for 2019, the year before the coronavirus pandemic.Taiwan’s Central News Agency on Saturday attributed the decline to worsening cross-strait relations, the ban on group tours to the mainland since 2020 and Taiwanese travellers’ preference for alternative destinations such as Japan and South Korea.Tourism across the Taiwan-strait" class="entity-link entity-location" data-entity-id="5508" data-entity-type="location">Taiwan Strait has been significantly disrupted in recent years by shifting political tensions and government policies.Taiwanese leader William Lai Ching-te, who took office in 2024, has labelled Beijing as a foreign hostile force, the strongest rhetoric from Taipei to date. Last March, Lai introduced 17 security measures to counter what he called infiltration, espionage and coercion efforts by mainland China.