A friend is contemplating a visit here in a few months, after attending to some business in Taipei. Over the weekend he asked me about the logistics of this. Despite a recent liberalisation of cross-strait communications, the answer at present still seems to be, "You can't get here from there." I couldn't find any direct Taipei to Beijing flights online.
I tried searching on E-Long - probably the most successful, and certainly the most foreigner-friendly travel website in China - and initially had difficulty in finding Taipei at all. It's not featured in the drop-down menu list of 'domestic' destinations, you see; it's categorised as an international flight.
I have long believed that one of the reasons for maintaining the 'Special Autonomous Region' status for Hong Kong and Macau is that this creates a conveniently fuzzy half-and-half category into which Taiwan can also be fitted. It is fundamentally "a part of China", of course; just not in quite the same way as the rest of China.
I recall that the last time I was at Beijing airport (quite a long time ago!), the signage there observed this same odd neither/nor pretence: flights for Hong Kong and Macau were neither 'domestic' nor 'international', and were slotted between the two in the Departures area (I think E-Long treats them as 'domestic'). I imagined that Taipei would be treated in the same way, if and when direct flights between there and Beijing ever get going.
Whether Taipei can be described as a 'domestic' destination, or whether some new and strange nomenclature needs to be invented for it, it certainly can't be an 'international' destination..... because, er, Taiwan isn't a nation. It's a part of China. You all know that, right? Course you do. Somebody ought to tell the chaps at E-Long, before they get sent off to Heilongjiang for a few months of "re-education through labour".
Footnote: E-Long is such a China-centric service that its flight-finder only seems to allow you to select a Chinese city (other than Taipei) as your point of origin. Surely this is encouraging the 'Brain Drain'??
Footnote: E-Long is such a China-centric service that its flight-finder only seems to allow you to select a Chinese city (other than Taipei) as your point of origin. Surely this is encouraging the 'Brain Drain'??
5 comments:
According to expedia, there is a direct flight - Air China, presumably once a day. For the ridiculous sum of $990 round trip.
All other options take around 11 hours, and seem to heavily involve flying via Seoul.
Oh, that's probably only for big businessmen, then. That is pretty outrageous. I could fly home for that, which is around 10 times as far.
Picture may be skewed at the moment because of the imminence of the Chinese New Year. I think flights via HK are usually a good bet. And a pal here just told me he thinks there's a direct flight to Tianjin, which is only 80 miles from here. I will conduct further research.
It looks more than possible this might get significantly easier as we are trying to arrange it so we go Taipei to HK. I would then fly from HK to BJ.
This all depends on timing, because I have a Hawaii wedding in the mix.
Oh, you jetsetter, you!
Don't start me on the India trip that is not yet set in stone.
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