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China-Taiwan flights begin in sign of warmer ties
Historic regular flights between Taiwan and China began on Friday, in a show of conciliation between the long-time rivals that could draw millions of Chinese visitors to the island.
- Reuters
- Published: 07:56 July 4, 2008
- Image Credit: AP
- The first of the flights landed at Taipei's Taoyuan airport after leaving Guangzhou in southern China early in the morning.
Taipei: Historic regular flights between Taiwan and China began on Friday, in a show of conciliation between the long-time rivals that could draw millions of Chinese visitors to the island.
The first of the flights, a China Southern Airlines plane, landed at Taipei's Taoyuan airport after leaving Guangzhou in southern China early in the morning.
No such regular flights, aside from a few charters on select holidays, have flown since 1949, when defeated Nationalist forces fled to Taiwan after the Chinese civil war.
China claims sovereignty over self-ruled Taiwan and has vowed to bring the island under its rule, by force if necessary. But with Taiwan's new President Ma Ying-jeou and Beijing seeking to ease tensions and expand economic flows, the first batch of tourists has become a symbol for broader hopes.
"The advantages of mainland tourist visits to Taiwan are not only stimulus for related industries, job opportunities for citizens and other tangible interests. It's also for mutual peace, a deepening of exchanges, elevating our international image and other non-tangible points," Taiwan Premier Liu Chao-shiuan said on Thursday.
Negotiators from China and Taiwan agreed last month to the "weekend" flights. They also decided to let as many as 3,000 Chinese tourists a day visit the island, which has viewed them as a security risk but now wants their money.
Although the routes are dubbed weekend charters, they run Friday through Monday.
The 36 round trips per week will eliminate time-consuming Hong Kong or Macau stopovers for Taiwanese, about one million of whom live on the mainland. But they will continue to fly a roundabout route through Hong Kong air space for security reasons.
China claims sovereignty over self-ruled Taiwan and has vowed to bring the island under its rule.
For the moment, though, both sides are keen to capitalise on the goodwill generated by the flights.
At Taipei's Songshan airport, passengers on the first flight were greeted by a throng of local media, along with a welcoming ceremony complete with dragon dancers.
"It's so convenient to get here. Since I was very young I always wanted to go to Alishan," said Wang Qi, a 40-year-old Chinese tourist on the Xiamen flight, referring to Taiwan's most famous mountain. "So today I feel very happy and warm."
Wang was one of 109 tourists, all wearing pink T-shirts, who came on the first flight to Taipei for a 10-day stay.
Protests
The pageantry was lower key at Pudong airport in Shanghai, home to China's largest Taiwanese community, where only an airline counter banner reading "Welcome to Shanghai Airlines' cross-Strait weekend charter flights" marked the departure of a morning flight filled with mostly Taiwanese returning home.
The flights were not without some controversy, as a group of about a dozen Tibet independence activists shouting "Welcome to free Taiwan" protested outside the airport over Beijing's recent crackdown in Tibetan regions of China.
Representatives of the Fulun Gong spiritual movement, banned by China as a cult, were also expected to organise demonstrations outside famous tourist spots for mainland tourists.
Enthusiasm about an expected boom in cross-Strait tourism helped to push up the tourism index by nearly 3 percent in early Friday trade in Taiwan, even as the broader market fell.
Negotiators from China and Taiwan agreed last month to the Friday to Monday "weekend" flights. They also decided to let as many as 3,000 Chinese tourists a day visit the island, which has viewed them as a security risk but now wants their money.
The 36 round trips per week will eliminate time-consuming Hong Kong or Macau stopovers for Taiwanese, about 1 million of whom live on the mainland. But they will still fly a roundabout route through Hong Kong air space for security reasons.
The flights are expected to hurt Hong Kong's airlines, most notably Cathay Pacific, and to help Taiwan's China Airlines and China's China Eastern, though the shift in travel patterns should be gradual.
In Beijing, tourism and government officials gave speeches before the departure of an Air China flight with 294 passengers bound for Taiwan.
"Today is a new start in the history of exchanges between the two sides," said Wang Yi, director of China's Taiwan Affairs Office, which oversees Taiwan relations. "At present, cross-Strait relations are facing a rare opportunity for development," he said
Twelve airlines, eight Taiwan airports and numerous travel agents have scrambled over the past month to prepare for Friday's flights, which ply between Taiwan and the Chinese cities of Beijing, Guangzhou, Nanjing, Shanghai and Xiamen.
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