Historic China-Taiwan Flights Take Off

[Bianca]

                                                         Historic China-Taiwan flights take off





By Ralph Jennings
and Sophie Taylor
July 4, 2008
 
TAIPEI/SHANGHAI (Reuters) - Historic regular flights between Taiwan and China began on Friday, in a show of conciliation between the long-time rivals that could bring large numbers of mainland 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.

It was followed a short time later by a flight from the southern city of Xiamen that arrived at Taipei's Songshan city airport. Flights from China will be leaving from a number of cities, including Shanghai.

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.

The flights are largely the work of new Taiwan President Ma Ying-jeou, who took office in May on pledges to revitalize the island's economy with closer trade and transit ties to China. He has estimated that 50 million Chinese want to visit Taiwan.

Since Ma took office, his government has introduced a raft of other reforms as well, many designed to make it easier for Taiwanese to invest in China's financial and other markets.

The recent cross-Strait detente contrasts sharply with the tension of only 11 years ago when missiles were splashing into the Taiwan Strait.

The flights represent the first of a step-by-step approach to improve ties but trickier issues remain, such as a peace treaty and the hundreds of missiles Taiwan says China has aimed at the island.

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 capitalize 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.

[Bianca]

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 organize 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.

(Additional reporting by Chris Buckley and Ben Blanchard in Beijing; Editing by David Fogarty)

[Bianca]

                                            Historic China flight lands in Taiwan






by Amber Wang
jULY 4, 2004
 
TAIPEI (AFP) - The inaugural flight of the first regular direct service between mainland China and
Taiwan in almost six decades landed here on Friday, underscoring a dramatic recent thawing of ties.
 
A group of 100 Chinese tourists were among 258 passengers, piloted by company chairman Liu Shaoyong, on the China Southern Airlines flight which touched down at 8:05 am (0005 GMT) from Guangzhou.

The charter service, a key component of a campaign promise made by new Taiwanese President Ma Ying-jeou to quickly improve relations with Beijing, is the first since the two sides split in 1949 at the end of a civil war.

"This is a sacred moment. The two sides of the strait are like members in one family. Flying over the strait to Taiwan is like coming home. It feels good," Liu told reporters after landing.

Taiwanese authorities rolled out the red carpet for the mainland tour group, who were accompanied on the flight by Chinese and Taiwanese business people, students and other travellers.

A traditional lion dance and a "water sprinkling ceremony," where fire trucks hosed the plane in a traditional greeting, will be followed by a lavish gala banquet.

"I have been expecting to visit Taiwan, the Treasure Island, and my dream will finally come true today," tourist Shi Anwei told China's official Xinhua news agency.

"I was too excited to sleep last night."

More than 700 Chinese nationals will travel on Friday to the self-ruled island from Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and two other cities.

Meanwhile, a Taiwan-based China Airlines jet carrying 297 Taiwanese tourists left Taoyuan airport for Shanghai at 7:30 am. Eight other flights from various airports in Taiwan will fly to Beijing, Guanzhou and Xiamen Friday.

"I am thrilled to take the first mainland-bound flight in this new charter service," said Zhou Wan-rong, chairman of Chinghua University's student association.

Taiwan banned direct trade and transport links following its split from the communist mainland, but Ma's election in March opened the door to warmer ties after a frosty period under his pro-independence predecessor Chen Shui-bian.

The two sides held their first direct talks in a decade last month, which led to the flights agreement, putting an end to the time-consuming stopovers travellers were forced to make in Hong Kong or elsewhere.

There will be a total of 36 round-trip flights across the Taiwan Strait weekly, operating from Friday to Monday. They will fly between six Taiwanese airports and five mainland ones.

On Friday alone, there will be 18 round trips.

The move will increase the number of tourists arriving from China to 3,000 a day, giving a much-needed boost to Taiwan's sluggish economy.

China still sees Taiwan as part of its territory awaiting reunification, by force if necessary. But ties between Beijing and Taipei have improved markedly in recent months.

Taiwan banks can now exchange Chinese currency, limits on Taiwanese investment on the mainland have been eased, and some Chinese media outlets which had been banned on the island now have clearance to work.