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BEIJING, Jan. 17 -- Mainland commercial planes will land and take off on Taiwan for the first time in 56 years this
month under a landmark agreement on direct cross-Straits charter flights for the
upcoming Spring Festival.
While business circles and mainland-based Taiwan
business people expressed their delight with the deal, Taiwan studies experts
hailed its potential significance for improving cross-Straits ties.
After a two-hour meeting in Macao on Saturday, civil
aviation negotiators from both sides reached a consensus on launching the
two-way, non-stop charter flights. Planes will take off beginning January 29,
with flights continuing through February 20.
The agreement allows six mainland and six Taiwanese
airlines to operate a total of 48 round-trip charter flights to carry
mainland-based Taiwanese business leaders home and back during the Chinese Lunar
New Year holiday.
The charter flights will be the first direct air
links across the Taiwan Straits since Taipei banned transport, trade and postal
links between the mainland back in 1949.
Taiwanese negotiator Lo Ta-hsin, chairman of the
Taipei Airlines Association, told reporters the charter planes will not fly
directly across the 160-kilometre Taiwan Straits, but will pass through Hong
Kong air space. They will not have to touch down there, however.
Pu Zhaozhou, head of the mainland delegation and
executive director of the China Civil Aviation Association, said the flights
will connect the cities of Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou with Taipei and
Kaohsiung in Taiwan.
The charter flights, however, are allowed to carry
only Taiwanese business people working on the mainland and their relatives this
Spring Festival, which falls this year on February 9.
About 1 million Taiwanese business people
®MDNM?good!>and their family members are estimated to work and live on the
mainland and hundreds of thousands of them typically return to the island for
the holiday.
This year's model for "non-stop, round-trip,
multi-destination flights by carriers on both sides" contrasted with an indirect
charter flight programme in 2003.
Then, only six Taiwanese airlines were allowed to
operate 16 charter flights, with an inconvenient stopover in Hong Kong or Macao.
Wu Nengyuan, director of the Institute of Modern
Taiwan Studies at the Fujian Academy of Social Sciences, spoke highly of the
cross-Straits agreement's "positive impact" on bilateral relations.
"The direct charter flight deal has fully
demonstrated the inevitable trend of close personal exchanges and economic links
across the Straits," he said.
"It may, to some degree, help check Taiwan leader
Chen Shui-bian's attempt to cut off cross-Straits bonds in a bid to alienate the
island from the mainland."
The researcher noted that the mainland's pragmatic
and flexible attitude during the talks had contributed to reaching the
agreement.
"It suggests that there always will be potential
opportunity for improving cross-Straits ties, as long as both sides are willing
to show sincerity," Wu said.
But he cautioned that the current stalemate in
cross-Straits relations will not be broken unless Chen abandons his Taiwan
independence push.
Chen Kuo-yuan, secretary-general of Beijing
Association for Taiwanese Enterprises, said that although the charter flight
agreement should have come earlier, it is of great significance for both sides
of the Straits.
Chen added that he will be happy to take the historic
flight by a mainland airplane to Taiwan for the first time in more than five
decades.
"Given little time for preparation before the first
flights on January 29, our association will co-ordinate other Taiwanese
enterprise groups in neighbouring Tianjin and Hebei to arrange the travel plans
for Taiwanese business people," he said.
(Source: China Daily) | 
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