Taiwan to Allow Visits by Chinese From Mainland

One year after it relaxed a ban on travel to China, Taiwan’s Cabinet on Thursday revised its security law to allow a small trickle of mainlanders to visit the island.

A government news release said mainlanders will be allowed to travel to Taiwan to visit members of their immediate families who are seriously ill or to attend funerals of relatives.

The rules also permit Chinese who have spent at least four years in “free countries” to visit Taiwan for as long as one week. Chinese were previously required to have lived abroad for five years and were allowed to stay in Taiwan for only 72 hours.

Taipei and Beijing are still technically at war almost 40 years after Communist armies forced the Nationalist government to flee to Taiwan with 2 million followers in 1949.