BEIJING (AFP) — Chinese President Hu Jintao said here Friday the long journey to better ties with Taiwan was off to a good start, after the rivals signed historic agreements to set up direct flights and boost tourism.
Seeking to put aside decades of hostility that made the China-Taiwan relationship one of the world's most dangerous potential military flashpoints, the two sides sat down for two days of landmark talks that ended here Friday.
Those talks, the first between the two sides in 10 years, saw agreements to establish regular direct flights between China and Taiwan from next month, finally ending time-consuming forced stopovers in Hong Kong.
They also agreed to triple the number of mainland visitors allowed to travel to Taiwan each day to 3,000 in what promises to be a major boost for the island's tourism industry.
"The resumption of talks signals a good start of the improvement and development of cross-strait relations," Hu said afterwards as he met Taiwan's chief envoy Chiang Pin-kun, China's official Xinhua news agency reported.
The agreements are part of a rapprochement triggered by the election of the Kuomintang party's Ma Ying-jeou as Taiwan's president in March.
Ma rose to power on a platform of building closer trade and political ties with China, in contrast to his predecessor Chen Shui-bian, who deeply angered Beijing with his efforts to steer the island towards independence.
Trade and travel links between China and Taiwan have been severely restricted since the two sides split at the end of a civil war in 1949.
China's communist rulers have insisted ever since that Taiwan must be reunified with the mainland, by force if necessary.
China stepped up its threats of using force against Taiwan while Chen was in power, and continued building up its stockpile of missiles and other military hardware targeted at the island.
However Ma's election victory, followed by his inauguration last month, has seen the temperature fall dramatically between the two sides.
Hu met Kuomintang chief Wu Poh-hsiung in Beijing last month, during which an agreement to restart the formal dialogue was reached.
That meeting was the first between the heads of the ruling parties of the two sides since Kuomintang forces retreated to the island in 1949 and the communists took power in Beijing.
Wu issued a statement in Taipei saying it was pleased with Friday's agreements.
"We are pleased that chairman Chiang... fulfilled two important campaign platforms of President Ma," Wu said.
Japan on Friday also issued a statement welcoming the latest developments as a step towards a peaceful settlement of the long cross-strait rivalry.
In the agreement signed on Friday, the direct flights will begin on July 4 and involve 36 services between China and Taiwan each week. They will operate from Friday to Monday.
Carriers from each side will operate 18 flights, according to details of the agreement published by Xinhua.
From July 18, each side will be able to send 3,000 tourists to the other each day, Xinhua reported.
Under current rules only 1,000 mainlanders are allowed to travel to the island and they must stop over in Hong Kong or another third location.
The only exception for that has been on national holidays, when direct charter flights operate.
On the first day of the talks, the two semi-official bodies also agreed to set up bureaus on each others' territories for the first time.
China and Taiwan do not have diplomatic relations so the offices of the two bodies -- China's Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Strait and Taiwan's Straits Exchange Foundation -- look likely to serve as conduits for ongoing dialogue.
The talks between the two organisations in Beijing this week were the first direct dialogue between the two sides in a decade.
China had suspended the process in 1999 amid acrimony over sovereignty.
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