TAIPEI, Taiwan -- More than 100 Chinese tourists arrived in Taiwan today on the first regularly scheduled direct flight from the mainland in nearly 60 years.
The China Southern Airlines flight from Guangzhou was the first of nine Chinese charter flights scheduled to land in Taiwan today. Taiwan's China Airlines flew more than 300 Taiwanese on a charter flight to Shanghai earlier in the day.
The historic flight -- the result of diplomatic efforts by new Taiwanese President Ma Ying-jeou -- is aimed at warming relations between the self-ruled island of 23 million people and its powerful neighbor, which claims the island as its territory. An initial 36 weekend flights will connect major cities on mainland China with Taiwan's airports, in the first direct service since the two sides split amid civil war in 1949.
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