China and Taiwan Discuss Direct Flights

After a break of almost a decade, China and Taiwan agreed Thursday to resume discussions on issues such as visits by mainland Chinese to the island and the introduction of regular direct charter flights between them, according to the official Xinhua news agency.

The announcement was seen as a token of a cautious warming following the election of a new Taiwanese president, Ma Ying-jeou, in March. Wu Poh-hsiung, the chairman of Ma’s Nationalist Party, is in China and met Wednesday with President Hu Jintao. The talks received extensive coverage in the state-run media in China.

Chiang Pin-kun, the head of the Taiwanese body, was quoted by Xinhua as saying the invitation represented “a new starting point for the two sides’ interactions since 1999.”

Currently, travelers between Taiwan and China usually must change planes in Hong Kong or Macau and Taiwan limits the number of mainland Chinese visitors. The talks in June could lead to Taiwan agreeing to allow up to 3,000 mainland Chinese to visit the island each day.

Since the end of the Chinese civil war in 1949, Beijing has sought to assert sovereignty over Taiwan, over the objections of Taiwan’s Nationalists, who once ruled all of China. The issue of sovereignty is deeply divisive and Taiwan’s rulers are seen by some analysts as primarily interested in securing economic benefit from closer ties to the booming mainland.