Shanghai Vice Mayor Hua Yuan, at the 2024 Shanghai-Taipei City Forum, extended a warm invitation to Taiwan residents to visit Shanghai and promised to promote group tours to Taiwan for Shanghai residents, with Taipei a must stop.
Tuesday's forum saw memorandums of cooperation in smart medicine and red panda conservation signed between the two cities.
In his opening address, Hua said the forum had gone through 14 years, during which the two cities have been learning from each other and carrying out win-win cooperation.
He said this year's theme, "Smart Governance for a Sustainable Future," reflected an anticipation of integrated development across the Taiwan Strait and the future development of both cities.
He expressed the hope that the cities take the forum as an opportunity to deepen cooperation in fields such as transport, water utilities, medical care and ecology, and promote mutually beneficial development.
He hoped people from both sides of the Strait would build more consensus on the basis of in-depth discussions and contribute more wisdom and strength to the prosperity and development of the two sides.
"The forum has bridged the two cities, bringing us closer and more intimate," he said. "We sincerely invite Taipei citizens and Taiwan compatriots to visit Shanghai more often, and we also hope that Shanghai citizens can visit Taiwan and Taipei more often. To this end, Shanghai will actively promote group tours for Shanghai residents to Taiwan, and the tour routes will definitely include Taipei City."
Zhu Fenglian, spokesperson for the Taiwan Affairs Office, reiterated the mainland's commitment to normalizing cross-Strait travel yesterday.
"We support normalizing cross-Strait travel and tourism," Zhu said, emphasizing that Shanghai's stance reflects the shared desire for peace and development. She urged the Democratic Progressive Party authorities to lift restrictions on cross-Strait exchanges to benefit people on both sides.
Taipei Mayor Chiang Wan-an said that, despite difficulties, Taipei and Shanghai had been hosting the forum year after year.
"The more tense and difficult the moment, the more need for communication. It is better to understand each other than to misunderstand," Chiang said.
Taipei Deputy Mayor Lin Yi-hua said the forum once again injected new "running water" for the peaceful development of both sides, and promoted the continuous and positive development of cross-Strait relations through continuous exchanges and communication.
"People on the two sides of the Strait share the history and culture of the Chinese nation," said Lin. "Replacing confrontation with dialogue and leveraging commonalities will facilitate cross-Strait exchanges and peace. We hope that peaceful, stable, mutually-trusting and beneficial exchanges can expand from our two cities to all areas across the Taiwan Strait."
The forum included three parallel sessions, where representatives from Shanghai and Taipei shared experiences and exchanged ideas on people-friendly transport, river management and human welfare.
