Taiwan urged to improve tourists' safety

Tsai has failed to acknowledged the 1992 Consensus, which refers to the one-China policy, and official channels of cross-Straits communication have been suspended.

Tsai's refusal to acknowledge the 1992 Consensus "has damaged all the hard work toward peaceful relations across the Taiwan Straits", Ma Xiaoguang, another spokesman for the State Council Taiwan Affairs Office, has previously said. "Whoever started the trouble should end it."

The situation was further compounded when US President Donald Trump challenged the one-China principle by taking a congratulatory call from Tsai in December shortly after he won the presidential election.

China's Foreign Ministry has called on the new US administration to stick to the one-China principle and limit its relationship with Taiwan to a nonofficial level.

Meanwhile, on Saturday, 21 mainland tourists were injured in a bus accident in Kaohsiung, a city in southern Taiwan. The bus, carrying 25 tourists and a tour guide from the mainland, hit the edge of a tunnel after the driver took a wrong turn.

The injured were taken to hospital. Everyone, apart from the tour guide who remains in hospital, has returned to the mainland, An said, adding that mainland authorities had extended their sympathies to those injured and helped handle the accident through nongovernmental tourism organizations on the two sides of the Taiwan Straits.

He also urged Taiwan to improve safety of its tourist sector and ensure the safety of mainland travelers.