A historic charter flight, the fourth of the day to depart mainland China,
flies to Taiwan from the Beijing airport. 

 BEIJING, CHINA (JULY 4, 2008) REUTERS - 
 A historic charter flight, the fourth of the day to take off from
the mainland China for Taiwan, departed the capital city of Beijing on Friday
(July 4) morning.
    An Air China flight took off from the Beijing airport at 8:30 a.m.
local time (0030 GMT ), and is scheduled to land at Taiwan's Taoyuan
International Airport around 01:00 p.m. (0300 GMT).
    No regular direct flights, aside from a few charters on selected
holidays, have flown since 1949, when defeated Nationalist forces fled to
Taiwan after the Chinese civil war.
    China claims sovereignty over self-ruled Taiwan and has vowed to bring
the island under its rule, by force if necessary.
    Top negotiators from China and Taiwan agreed last month to the weekend
charter flights. 
      "We have made a lot of efforts for this day to come. We have all
given a lot. We have a lot more confidence that this will be a positive start
because letting tourists from the mainland visit Taiwan and achieving the
three links between the two sides step by step goes along with the trend of
the times and is the common aspiration of the people,"
 said Wang Yi, head of the Taiwan Affairs Office of the State Council that
steers Taiwan policies in China. 
    As many as 3,000 Chinese tourists a day will be allowed to visit the
island.
   "Tourism is the messenger of friendship and bridge for peace.
Taiwan has very rich tourism resources, including natural and cultural
resources. In addition, there are 23 million hospitable compatriots in Taiwan.
The beginning of letting mainland tourists visit Taiwan is going to set up
another bridge of friendship across the Strait," said Shao Qiwei, chief
of the Chinese National Tourism Administration.
    The 36 round trips per weekend will eliminate time-consuming Hong Kong
or Macau stopovers for China-bound Taiwanese, about one million of whom live
on the mainland.
    Around 600 Chinese, including China's top tourism official and 32 other
government leaders, are expected to board the Friday flights, the island's
government and media say. 
    Twelve airlines, eight Taiwan airports and numerous travel agents have
scrambled over the past month to prepare for Friday's flights, which ply
between Taiwan and the Chinese cities of Beijing, Guangzhou, Nanjing, Shanghai
and Xiamen.
    Although the routes are dubbed weekend charters, they run Friday
through Monday. Only travel agents can sell the tickets.
    Taiwan President Ma Ying-jeou, who took office in May on pledges to
revitalise the island's economy with closer trade and transit ties to China,
has estimated that 50 million Chinese want to visit hard-to-reach Taiwan.
    The first charter flight of the day, which departed from Guangzhou in
southern China, has landed in Taipei at 8:10 a.m. local time (0010 GMT) after
around 90 minutes of flying.