Taiwan, China Open Formal Talks

Negotiators from Taiwan and China opened their first formal talks in almost a decade on Thursday, aiming to forge an agreement on expanded charter flights as a step toward restoring transport links severed 59 years ago.

Taiwan's delegation also planned to discuss what additional help the island could provide for China's earthquake relief efforts. The talks are scheduled to run through Friday at a state guesthouse in western Beijing.

The 19-member Taiwanese team is being led by Chiang Pin-kung, chairman of the quasi-governmental Straits Exchange Foundation, and includes two vice Cabinet ministers - the highest-ranking Taiwanese officials ever to participate in bilateral talks.

Speaking to reporters late Wednesday in Beijing, Chiang said the talks augured more frequent contacts between the sides, that split following the communist takeover of mainland China in 1949.

"In the future, we hope the two sides can hold talks on mutual trust and create a win-win situation," he said.

The sides set up the dialogue mechanism in the early 1990s, agreeing to set political differences aside in favor of boosting economic ties and private exchanges. China stepped away from talks in anger over steps by Taiwan to shore up its independent identity. Beijing insists the island is Chinese territory to be reunified with by force if necessary.

While most Taiwanese oppose political union, many favor closer economic cooperation with the mainland, which has already absorbed more than US$100 billion in Taiwanese investment over the past 15 years.

Chiang's visit is seen as the first step toward fulfilling a pledge by newly elected Taiwanese President Ma Ying-jeou to reinvigorate Taiwan's economy, in part by hitching the island's wagon to China's economic juggernaut. Chiang's delegation is seen as the first step in fulfilling that pledge.

The 75-year-old economic planner said earlier this week he expected to sign an accord opening the way for 36 charter flights to cross the 100-mile-wide Taiwan Strait every weekend. Taiwan has banned direct scheduled flights since the 1949 division.

The expanded flights will be enough to shuttle several hundred thousand Chinese tourists to Taiwan every year - below Ma's target of 1 million, but far above the current level of about 80,000.

Charter flights are now limited to four annual Chinese holidays, when they are packed with Taiwanese residents on the mainland returning home to visit family. Ma wants to gradually expand the charter schedule and supplement it with regularly scheduled flights by the summer of 2009.