China, Taiwan sign historic pacts on charter flights, tourism

Beijing, Jun 13 (PTI) - China and Taiwan Friday signed
landmark agreements paving the way for weekend chartered
flights between the two sides and visit of more tourists from
the mainland to the island, a step that reflects the warming
of ties between the two arch rivals.

Under the deal signed after path breaking talks, the
flight service would start from July four and include 36
return flights for every weekend, from each Friday to the
following Monday, unlike now with chartered flights operated
only on Chinese national holidays.

The step restores transport links snapped 59 years ago
when China and Taiwan split at the end of a civil war in 1949
and comes a day after both sides agreed to set up
representative offices in each other's territory on the
opening day of the historic talks which began Thursday in a
major sign of easing of decades of tensions and hostilities.

The flights would be divided evenly between the mainland
and Taiwan airlines, state-run Xinhua news agency said.

Negotiations on chartered freight flights would be held
within three months after the weekend services start, while
both sides would discuss the direct flight route "as soon as
possible", it said.

The tourism agreement that would come into effect from
June 20, allows a maximum of 3,000 mainland tourists to travel
to Taiwan every day, thus in effect tripling the existing
number.

The two sides have set a quota for the number of tourists
according to Taiwan’s accommodation capacity and might be
adjusted next year. The first tourist group would arrive in
Taiwan July 18, it said.

Chen Yunlin, Chairman of the mainland-based Association
for Relations Across the Taiwan Strait (ARATS), and Chiang
Pin-kun, chairman of the Taiwan-based Straits Exchange
Foundation (SEF), signed the agreements.

ARATS AND SEF, quasi-governmental bodies which conduct
negotiations in the absence of formal diplomatic links between
China and Taiwan, began their first formal dialogue in nearly
a decade Thursday focusing on flights and tourism but steered
clear of prickly and sensitive issues bedevilling relations
between them for decades.

The significant agreements Friday come close on the heels
of a visit by the Taiwan ruling party chief to China recently
during which he met President Hu Jintao, showing the eagerness
of both sides to put behind decades of tensions.

In the first highest level official contact since China
and Taiwan were split, Kuomintang Chairman Wu Poh-hsiung met
with Hu in the last week of May after KMT's victory in the
presidential elections this year paved the way for a dramatic
thaw in ties.

Unlike his predecessor Chen Shui-bian who maintained a
hawkish pro-independence stance, infuriating China, Taiwanese
President Ma Ying-jeou was elected early this year on a
manifesto of improving ties with Beijing.

Ever since the split of China and Taiwan, tensions
between the two sides had made the Taiwan Straits one of the
world's potential flash-points.

China has maintained that Taiwan is part of its territory
and even threatened to use force if the self-ruled island ever
proclaimed independence.

Talks between the two sides were suspended in 1999 after
Taiwan leader at the time Li Teng-hui proposed his "special
state-to-state" model for cross-Strait relations, which had
enraged Beijing.