Roundup of Chinese in Metro worries officials in Beijing

BEIJING (via PLDT) -- China is worried about the roundup of Chinese tourists in Metro Manila.

President Estrada agreed with President Jiang Zemin that the Philippine government must review its immigration laws and policies to attract a large number of Chinese tourists and businessmen.

Recently, Manila police and immigration agents arrested and jailed a Chinese couple, who were on their honeymoon, even though they showed valid tourist visas stamped on their passports, according to a Chinese Embassy report to the foreign ministry in Beijing.

Press Secretary Ricardo Puno Jr. said yesterday Immigration Commissioner Rufus Rodriguez was included in the President's official delegation so he could discuss the arrest of Chinese tourists in Manila with his Chinese counterpart.

"They (Chinese) travel quite a lot and their own tourist organizations are very active and we are not yet a beneficiary of this," Puno said. "The President did say that it is a key to improving the investment climate between (the Philippines and China) as well as the tourism climate because the People's Republic of China right now, with improvement in its economy, is one of the sources of a lot of tourists in the world right now," he said.

Puno said China perceives that the Philippine government is biased against Chinese tourists and businessmen and that bureaucratic red tape has discouraged them from visiting the Philippines.

Puno said that before leaving for China, the President ordered the release from detention of 46 Chinese fishermen who were earlier caught poaching in Philippine waters.

Jiang on the other hand, announced the release of eight Filipinos who were arrested on a fishing boat in the South China Sea, Puno added.

"The indication was that they wanted to talk more about the immigration problem," Puno said. "So there was an indication that this is going to be reviewed and that there will be an effort to try ease immigration restrictions within the context of the realization of both countries that they will not countenance illegal activities."

Puno said this is one reason why the proposed Memorandum of Agreement on RP-China Cooperation Against Transnational Crimes was not completed on time to be signed during the President's state visit.

"There was an understanding (however) that there would be further discussion in regards with immigration policy, (and) apparently, both countries feel there is a certain amount of pressure on both sides," he said.

"They (Chinese) realized because of the many problems of illegals, they also know that. The Chinese indicated they will not countenance illegal activities, so if the people are engaged in illegal activities, drug smuggling, they understand our policy but they would like us to perhaps review the policy a little bit more and see how this can be flexed a little bit more in order to give encouragement to (Chinese) tourists and businessmen."

Chinese Foreign Affairs Vice Minister Yang Wen-chang cautioned the Philippine government against the "indiscriminate" arrest of suspected Chinese illegals.

Yang said the large scale arrests of allegedly Chinese illegals in Manila might discourage "private tourists" from visiting the Philippines and they would instead go to neighboring countries like Singapore and Thailand.

Last month, Yang told visiting Filipino journalists that Chinese legally residing in the Philippines have been picked up by immigration agents for deportation.

"We think the situation is very hard to understand," he then said.

However, Yang assured the Philippine government that China will cooperate in actual cases of illegal Chinese immigrants who are arrested in the Philippines.

"So we hope for in this question is that the Philippines should make a distinction between legal and illegal immigrants and your country should not handle these people indiscriminately because inappropriate handling of this question might trigger a greater problem and might even affect China-Philippine relations."

Yang recalled that during her official visit to Beijing on March 22-26, Vice President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo said that the Philippines has become the destination of "private tourists" from China.

"So I think inappropriate handling of this question might also affect development of tourism between our two countries," he said. "Actually we are seeing more and more Chinese citizens visiting countries in Southeast Asia and they are welcomed by most Southeast Asian Countries. So there are a lot of Chinese people going to Singapore and Thailand."

Ambassador to Beijing Romualdo Ong confirmed that the embassy in Beijing and the consulates in Guangzhou and Xiamen processed an average of 30,000 tourist visas for Chinese citizens last year.

Ong said Chinese tourists are discouraged to visit the Philippines because of the absence of direct flights between Beijing and Manila.

"It will dramatically increase tourist arrivals from China if PAL will have direct flights to Beijing," he said.

Ong said Philippine Airlines has at present "limited" flights from Manila to Xiamen and that connecting flights to Beijing are serviced by other airlines like China Air and Southern China Airlines.