China, Taiwan Sign Historic Deals on Air Travel

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CHINA, TAIWAN SIGN HISTORIC DEALS ON TRAVEL
BEIJING (AFP) — China and Taiwan signed historic agreements on
Friday that from next month will see thousands more people travel every
day between the two traditional rivals.

On the second day of landmark talks in Beijing aimed at easing decades
of tensions, negotiators agreed to establish regular direct flights
between China and Taiwan from July, finally ending time-consuming forced
stopovers in Hong Kong.

They will also triple the number of mainland visitors allowed to travel
to Taiwan each day to 3,000 in what promises to be a major boost for the
island's tourism industry.

In a sign of the importance Beijing is placing on the developments,
China's state-run national television broadcast the signing of the
agreements between the heads of the semi-official delegations involved
in the talks.

They are part of a rapprochement between China and Taiwan triggered by
the election of the Kuomintang party's Ma Ying-jeou as the island's
president in March.

Ma rose to power on a platform of building closer trade and political
ties with China, in contrast to his predecessor Chen Shui-bian, who
deeply angered Beijing with his efforts to steer Taiwan towards
independence.

Trade and travel links between China and Taiwan have been severely
restricted since the two sides split at the end of a civil war in 1949.

China's communist rulers have insisted ever since that Taiwan must be
reunified with the mainland, by force if necessary, and their
relationship has been one of the world's most dangerous potential
military flashpoints.

China stepped up its threats of using force against Taiwan while Chen
was in power, and continued building up its stockpile of missiles and
other military hardware targetted at the island.

However Ma's election victory, followed by his inauguration last month,
has seen the temperature fall dramatically between the two sides.

Chinese President Hu Jintao met Kuomintang chief Wu Poh-hsiung in
Beijing last month, during which agreement to restart the formal
dialogue was reached.

That meeting was the first between the heads of the ruling parties of
the two sides since Kuomintang forces retreated to the island in 1949
and the communists took power in Beijing.

In the agreement signed on Friday, the direct flights will begin on
July 4 and involve 36 services between China and Taiwan each week. They
will operate from Monday to Friday.

Carriers from each side will operate 18 flights, according to details
of the agreement published on China's official Xinhua news agency.

From July 18, each side will be able to send 3,000 tourists to the
other each day. Mainland Chinese tourists will have to travel in groups
of between 10 and 40 and go through registered tour agencies, Xinhua
reported.

Under current rules only 1,000 are allowed to travel to the island and
they must stop over in Hong Kong or another third location. The only
exception for that has been on national holidays, when direct charter
flights operate.

On the first day of the talks, the two semi-official bodies also agreed
to set up bureaus on each others' territories for the first time.

China and Taiwan do not have diplomatic relations so the offices of the
two bodies -- China's Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Strait
and Taiwan's Straits Exchange Foundation -- look likely to serve as
conduits for ongoing dialogue.

The talks between the two organisations in Beijing this week were the
first direct dialogue between the two sides in a decade.

China had suspended the process in 1999 amid acrimony over sovereignty.


--
Rik Brown
Message Origin: TRAVEL.com