An official from the All-China Journalists Association (ACJA)Friday urged Taiwan authorities to remove its irrational restrictions on visiting mainland journalists.
On November 10, Taiwan authorities published a regulation on residential correspondents from the mainland, which contains a number of restrictions causing inconvenience to mainland reporters. The restrictions are concerned with applications, registration, certificate-acquirement and reporting, according to the official, who had an exclusive interview with Xinhua.
The official said that the mainland began allowing Taiwan media to send reporters to the mainland four years ago and so far, correspondents from seven Taiwan-based media organs are staying in the mainland, on an incessant and rotating basis. However, to this day, no mainland news organ has been able to send correspondents to Taiwan on the same basis, he added.
Official statistics show that over the past few years, Taiwan journalists' arrivals in the mainland have totaled more than 5,000, while mainland reporters have made only about 200 visits to Taiwan, the official said.
(Xinhua 11/17/2000)
