Taiwan Made a U-Turn & Now Disallowed S’pore & M’sia Tourists Without Visas Instead

Remember how Taiwan said they were going to resume visa-free travel for a list of countries on Monday (5 Sep)?

Yeah, that’s not happening anymore.

The Original Announcement

On 5 September, Taiwan’s Bureau of Consular Affairs published a table, showing that visitors from Singapore, Malaysia, and some other countries, were allowed to travel to Taiwan without visas and stay there for up to 30 days.

There was another larger grouping of countries, which included Japan and South Korea, whose nationals were eligible for visa-free travels to Taiwan and stay there for up to 90 days.

Visa-Free Entry “Temporarily Suspended”

However, the Taipei government changed their tune on Tuesday (6 Sep).

Upon refreshing the webpage, it will show an announcement that the visa-free entry for visitors from the abovementioned countries have been “temporarily suspended”.

Among other countries, Brunei, Chile, Thailand, the Philippines, Israel and Russia were included.

 The Taipei Representative Office in Singapore clarified the situation in a press release, saying that the adjustment of border control measures issued yesterday has been “misunderstood”.

It writes that some media outlets and members of the public have misunderstood that Singaporeans can enter Taiwan visa-free starting from 12 September.

Not sure why the Taipei government is making this an “us” problem when the news outlets were just regurgitating what they saw on the website, but okay.

Sure, we misconstrued the list.

“After coordinating and communicating with the Consular Affairs Bureau, the (information) has been corrected… to clarify the misunderstanding,” said the office.

Travelling to Taiwan

Besides requiring a visa to travel to Taiwan now, Taiwan still has a polymerase chain reaction (PCR) test and three-day quarantine upon arrival.

The number of arrivals is still capped at 50,000 travellers per week.

There might be more underlying reasons as to why Taiwan suddenly withdrew their decision, but only time will tell.

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Featured Image: Jack Hong / Shutterstock.com