WEARING matching pink shirts to mark the occasion, 100 excited Chinese tourists piled off the Xiamen Airlines flight in Sungshan Airport, Taipei.
Yesterday was the first time in three decades that the airport had opened to international traffic.
At Taoyuan International Airport in northern Taiwan, 230 passengers on a China Southern Airlines flight from Guangzhou touched down.
Fire trucks
shot water at the first plane in a welcome gesture to the first regular commercial flights in nearly six decades.
Pilot Liu Shaoyun, who is also the chairman of China Southern Airlines, gave a gleeful thumbs-up after touchdown following the 90-minute flight.
"From today onward, regular commercial flights will replace the rumbling warplanes over the skies of the Taiwan Strait, and relations between the two sides will become better and better," he said.
Before boarding another flight to Taiwan, courtesy of Air China from Beijing, Shao Qiwei, head of China's tourism administration, said the regular flights will "build a bridge of friendship to our hospitable compatriots in Taiwan".
Taiwanese premier Liu Chao-shiuan said he wanted to impress the mainlanders.
He added: "I hope we can work together to impress them with the Taiwanese people's good nature, politeness, passion and hospitality."
An initial 36 flights this weekend will connect major cities on mainland China with Taiwan's airports.
More than 600 guests were scheduled to land yesterday, prior to enjoying week-long package tours.
Taiwan's China Airlines also flew more than 300 Taiwanese on a charter flight to Shanghai earlier yesterday.
Chinese passengers were welcomed to Taiwan through an arch made of colourful balloons amid traditional dragon dances and greetings from Taiwanese officials.
The historic step is the result of diplomatic efforts by new Taiwanese president Ma Ying-jeou and aimed at warming relations between the self-ruled island of 23 million people and its powerful neighbour, which claims Taiwan as its territory.
Although Taiwan has allowed limited charter flights for holidays in recent years, the regular weekend service is a major step forward in normalising travel between the rivals split by civil war in 1949.
"I am very happy about my first visit to Taiwan," said 55-year-old estate agent Wen Jianxin from Guangzhou. "I have found Taiwan's streets to be very clean and orderly. I am impressed."
Wen said she wanted to see other sights that she has only read about and seen on TV, such as Sung Moon Lake.
However, Taiwanese officials were working hard behind the scenes to avoid the potential of embarrassing confrontations between the visitors and any anti-communist activists.
Followers of Falun Gong, a group strongly opposed to the Chinese government, had indicated they would not stay away from several popular tourist sites, despite a request from local government.
Falun Gong, a spiritual movement rooted in Buddhism, Taoism and traditional Chinese beliefs, has been persecuted in China, and Beijing banned it in 1999, describing the organisation as an "evil cult".
Despite these lingering tensions, trade and travel between the two sides booms.
Mainlanders have visited Taiwan under various cultural exchange programmes in limited numbers, but they had to go first to Hong Kong or other destinations before travelling on to Taiwan.
BACKGROUND
THE Taiwan Strait separates the self-ruled island and China, which still claims Taiwan as its territory.
Suspicious of its powerful communist neighbour, Taiwan had barred direct travel to and from China for decades as a security measure, and most mainland tourists were also banned.
These flights – the first commercial flights in nearly six decades – could transform ties between the two.
Since taking office in May, the Taiwanese president, Ma Ying-jeou, has persuaded Beijing to strive for peace and closer economic links.
Mainland authorities agreed to the tourist flights in talks with Taiwan last month, hoping the increased regular contact could help push their goal of eventual unification.
Deal that brought ex-Taleban leader on side
LAST October, in north Helmand, the Afghan government sealed a deal with Mullah Abdul Salaam and his Alizai tribe, which had been fighting alongside the Taleban in the province.
He was the Taleban corps commander and governor of Herat province under the government that fell in 2001.
It is the first time Kabul and its western allies have been able exploit tribal divisions within the Taleban in southern Afghanistan.
Mullah Salaam defected just hours before British and Afghan forces retook the Taleban stronghold of Musa Qala and was rewarded with the governorship of the town.
The delicate secret negotiations with the Afghan government are part of a programme of reconciliation backed by British commanders.
