{"id":777,"date":"2008-07-01T17:10:16","date_gmt":"2008-07-01T17:10:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/news\/2008\/07\/official-taiwan-will-help-chin.php"},"modified":"2008-07-01T17:10:16","modified_gmt":"2008-07-01T17:10:16","slug":"official-taiwan-will-help-chin","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2008\/07\/official-taiwan-will-help-chin","title":{"rendered":"Official: Taiwan Will Help Chinese Tourists Avoid Falun Gong Followers"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Associated Press <\/strong><br \/>\nTaipei, Taiwan &#8211; Chinese tourists arriving in Taiwan this week may meet face to face with followers of the spiritual group Falun Gong but tourism authorities will try to prevent any possible confrontations, an official said Tuesday.<br \/>\nTourism Bureau official Chang Shi-chung made the comments as Taiwan prepared to welcome hundreds of Chinese tourists scheduled to arrive Friday with the launch of regularly scheduled charters flights between the mainland and the island.<br \/>\nChang said Taiwanese tour guides will explain to the Chinese visitors about Taiwan&#8217;s unrestricted freedom of speech, and ask them to stay calm when facing any Falun Gong members.<br \/>\nFalun Gong, a spiritual movement rooted in Buddhism, Taoism and traditional Chinese beliefs, has been persecuted in China and Beijing banned it as an &#8220;evil cult&#8221; in 1999.<br \/>\nBut followers are allowed to practice freely in Taiwan, and they have promoted the movement at sightseeing spots popular with Chinese tourists.<br \/>\nFalun Gong members have ignored requests by the Tainan municipal government in southern Taiwan to stay away from several popular tourist sites.<br \/>\nTaiwan and China signed a historic agreement June 13 to sanction regular weekend charter flights between the sides. Taiwan hopes up to 1 million Chinese could visit the island annually under the deal.<br \/>\nTaiwan and China split amid civil war in 1949. Beijing continues to claim the self-ruled, democratic island as part of its territory, and has threatened war if Taiwan moves to formalize its de facto independence.<br \/>\nTaiwanese President Ma Ying-jeou, who took office in May, has promised to ease tensions with China and boost Taiwan&#8217;s sluggish economy with tourism and other close economic exchanges.<br \/>\n<em>Copyright 2008 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Associated Press Taipei, Taiwan &#8211; Chinese tourists arriving in Taiwan this week may meet face to face with followers of the spiritual group Falun Gong but tourism authorities will try to prevent any possible confrontations, an official said Tuesday. Tourism Bureau official Chang Shi-chung made the comments as Taiwan prepared to welcome hundreds of Chinese&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":37,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fbia_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-777","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Official: Taiwan Will Help Chinese Tourists Avoid Falun Gong Followers<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2008\/07\/official-taiwan-will-help-chin\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Official: Taiwan Will Help Chinese Tourists Avoid Falun Gong Followers\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Associated Press Taipei, Taiwan &#8211; Chinese tourists arriving in Taiwan this week may meet face to face with followers of the spiritual group Falun Gong but tourism authorities will try to prevent any possible confrontations, an official said Tuesday. Tourism Bureau official Chang Shi-chung made the comments as Taiwan prepared to welcome hundreds of Chinese&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2008\/07\/official-taiwan-will-help-chin\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Beliefnet News\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2008-07-01T17:10:16+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"akornfeld\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Official: Taiwan Will Help Chinese Tourists Avoid Falun Gong Followers","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2008\/07\/official-taiwan-will-help-chin","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Official: Taiwan Will Help Chinese Tourists Avoid Falun Gong Followers","og_description":"Associated Press Taipei, Taiwan &#8211; Chinese tourists arriving in Taiwan this week may meet face to face with followers of the spiritual group Falun Gong but tourism authorities will try to prevent any possible confrontations, an official said Tuesday. Tourism Bureau official Chang Shi-chung made the comments as Taiwan prepared to welcome hundreds of Chinese&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2008\/07\/official-taiwan-will-help-chin","og_site_name":"Beliefnet News","article_published_time":"2008-07-01T17:10:16+00:00","author":"akornfeld","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2008\/07\/official-taiwan-will-help-chin","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2008\/07\/official-taiwan-will-help-chin","name":"Official: Taiwan Will Help Chinese Tourists Avoid Falun Gong Followers","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/#website"},"datePublished":"2008-07-01T17:10:16+00:00","dateModified":"2008-07-01T17:10:16+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/#\/schema\/person\/da3acea0a48aaeb7e77474c2f29f849a"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2008\/07\/official-taiwan-will-help-chin#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2008\/07\/official-taiwan-will-help-chin"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2008\/07\/official-taiwan-will-help-chin#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Official: Taiwan Will Help Chinese Tourists Avoid Falun Gong Followers"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/","name":"Beliefnet News","description":"Top Religious News From Around the World","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/#\/schema\/person\/da3acea0a48aaeb7e77474c2f29f849a","name":"akornfeld","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/dd2\/dd26f111fd1fab06b546769e3bf834f3x96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/dd2\/dd26f111fd1fab06b546769e3bf834f3x96.jpg","caption":"akornfeld"},"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/author\/akornfeld"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/777","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/37"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=777"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/777\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=777"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=777"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=777"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}