TAIPEI, Dec. 31 (Xinhua) -- Globally it was natural for people to feel gloomy about the year 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Across the Taiwan Strait, such sentiment was intensified by the political manipulation by Taiwan's Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) to obstruct cross-Strait exchanges.

Observers said this sentiment was demonstrated by this year's result of the "word of the year" selection -- an annual poll conducted across the Strait since 2008.

The Chinese character "men," which describes a depressed sentiment or a state of confinement, won the most votes out of 15.2 million from both mainland and Taiwan respondents.

It has perfectly described how people felt when they could not travel and communicate normally, said Lai Yueh-tchienn, adjunct associate professor with Taipei-based Chengchi University.

However, for people across the Strait, it was not only the epidemic that hindered the exchanges between us, Lai said.

Despite the relatively relieved epidemic situations across the Strait, the DPP has banned the entry of most people from the mainland since early February.

Trips from the mainland to Taiwan numbered 109,000 in the first 10 months of this year, down by 95.7 percent year on year, compared to a decline of 86.3 percent of all inbound trips to the island.

According to the tourism department, the tourism industry in Taiwan lost about 370 billion new Taiwan dollars (about 13 billion U.S. dollars) this year.

The DPP authority has maintained a hostile attitude and heightened tensions across the Strait, Lai said.

"Some politicians and media in Taiwan have sticked to their ideological bias, defaming the epidemic situation on the mainland and efforts made by the mainland to fight COVID-19," Lai said.

In an open letter published by Taipei-based United Daily News, Wen Shun-der, a high school principal, wrote that COVID-19 has already made people suffer. The questionable policies of Taiwan's authority made it worse.

"The political virus is even more dangerous," he wrote.

But the Taiwan authority's confrontational policies did not hold back people's will to do business across the Strait.

From January to November, investment in the mainland by Taiwan enterprises increased by 50.4 percent year on year to 5.6 billion U.S. dollars. In the same period, mainland enterprises' investment in Taiwan rose by 31.5 percent year on year to 120 million U.S. dollars.

In 2020, the tense cross-Strait relations further shook the Taiwan people's sense of security that has already been weakened by the COVID-19 pandemic, said Li Zhenguang, a Taiwan affairs professor with Beijing Union University.

"If the DPP authority maintained its current stance and let cross-Strait relations get worse, people might select 'suffering' or 'fear' as the annual word for the next year," Li said. "That is what we do not want to see." Enditem

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