The New Nation - Internet Edition

AP, Beijing

Taiwan and China agreed Friday to end a nearly six-decades-old break in transport links by expanding charter flights and tourism - a move seen as a likely harbinger of more ties between the longtime rivals.

The pact, signed in Beijing during their first formal talks since 1999, comes a day after Taiwan's representatives said they had reached a consensus with their Chinese counterparts on exchanging permanent representative offices.

Such missions would mark a huge step forward in establishing contacts and mutual trust, although Taiwan's chief negotiator, Chiang Ping-kun, emphasized that officials in Taipei still needed to approve the measure.

"There is still a long way to go for normalization of cross-strait economic and trade exchange," Chiang told reporters following the signing of the transport and tourism pacts. "There are still many issues to be discussed including expanding weekend charter flights into regular charter flights."

Taiwan has banned direct scheduled flights ever since the sides split in 1949 amid civil war.

The expansion of charter flights was a key agenda item for the talks that began Thursday. Those flights are now limited to four annual Chinese holidays and are usually packed with Taiwanese residents on the mainland returning home to visit family.

Newly elected Taiwanese President Ma Ying-jeou wants to gradually expand the charter schedule and supplement it with regularly scheduled flights by the summer of 2009. His target is to have 1 million Chinese tourists go to Taiwan every year, well above the current level of 80,000.

The agreement signed at a state guesthouse in western Beijing on Friday will allow for 36 charter flights to cross the 100-mile-wide Taiwan Strait running from Friday to Monday beginning on July 4.

Flights will be shared equally between Chinese and Taiwanese airlines, servicing routes between the Chinese cities of Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Xiamen and Nanjing and Taiwan's capital, Taipei, and seven other cities on the island. Flights would be open to anyone carrying valid documents, a change from the past when they were limited to just Taiwanese and Chinese.

A separate tourism agreement permits up to 3,000 Chinese tourists to visit Taiwan each day for stays of up to 10 days, according to the Straits Exchange Foundation, Taiwan's quasi-official negotiating body of which Chiang is head.