(Xinhua)
Updated: 2007-11-02 09:42

BEIJING -- Nearly 400,000 Taiwanese currently live on the Chinese mainland at the end of September this year, including more than 18,000 who have settled down, according to the Taiwan Affairs Office of the State Council, or cabinet.

There are about 270,000 "cross-Strait marriages" made between people from the mainland and Taiwan, said Dai Xiaofeng, director of the exchange bureau, part of the State Council office.

Up to the end of September, Taiwan peopl2e made more than 45.83 million visits to the mainland, and mainlanders made more than 1.56 million visits to the island, said Dai in an exclusive interview with Xinhua.

"More than 46 million visits to the mainland, twice the number of the Taiwan population -- 23 million -- will be made by Taiwan people by the end of this year," Dai said, adding 1.6 million visits to Taiwan would be made by people from the mainland.

Dai made the statement on Thursday ahead of the 20th anniversary of Taiwan authority lifting the mainland visit ban on November 2, 1987.

Over the past 20 years the cross-Strait exchange had followed an "extraordinary development path" with more fields involved and scope expanded, Dai said.

Dai said the decades after 1949 witnessed a historic grief shared by people on both sides of the Taiwan Strait when "fathers and sons, and brothers who lived separately on either side of the Strait could not get together, couples could not meet each other and family reunions were out of the question."

But cross-Strait communication was an "irreversible trend of the era", Dai said. The Taiwan authority lifted the ban and allowed some residents to visit their mainland relatives in 1987 due to the strong wish and demand from people on both sides of the strait.

Taiwan compatriots later broke various restrictions imposed by the Taiwan authority to visit the mainland either for sightseeing or investment.

Statistics from the Ministry of Commerce show the total investment on the mainland by Taiwan companies increased more than 140 times in 17 years from 1989 to 2006, with the investment figure standing at US$45.04 billion by September 2007, making the mainland the largest investment destination of Taiwan.

Xu Mang, director of the economy bureau of the Taiwan Affairs Office, told Xinhua that the mainland was Taiwan's largest export market, with the cross-Strait trade volume reaching 693.3 billion U.S. dollars in September 2007. Taiwan exports to the mainland reached 573.7 billion U.S. dollars that month, boosting the island's trade surplus to more than 454.1 billion U.S. dollars.

Xu said cross-Strait charter flights had been operated during Spring Festival holidays for four consecutive years and more sea routes had been opened between the mainland and Taiwan.

Statistics show more than 22,000 passenger voyages and 4,000 cargo direct-route shipments were made between mainland coastal cities in Fujian Province and Taiwan, carrying 2.37 million passengers and more than 4.83 million tons of goods.

The mainland had made a package of policies to boost cross-Strait exchanges, including 54 preferential measures for Taiwan compatriots promulgated since 2005 and 48 economic, trade and cultural exchange policies agreed at the three forums jointly held by the Communist Party of China (CPC) and the Chinese Kuomintang (KMT), or the Nationalist Party, since 2006, Dai said.

The policy package had helped Taiwan people with more convenient residential, employment and medical conditions, and offered preferential measures to Taiwan farmers and fishermen in their sale of fruits, vegetables and aquatic products to the mainland, which boosted the cross-Strait agricultural exchange and alleviated financing difficulties of some Taiwan enterprises, he said.

"Up to now, the mainland has carried out all planned preferential policies for Taiwan, and is actively promoting the settlement of issues that required consultation by both sides," Dai said.

The two sides also witnessed more high-level exchanges in recent years, Dai noted, citing CPC General Secretary Hu Jintao's landmark meetings with Lien Chan, then KMT chairman, and James CY Soong, chairman of the People First Party based in Taiwan, in April and May of 2005.

However, Dai pointed out that the Taiwan authority tended to limit exchanges, which were greatly affected by secessionist moves in Taiwan.

"Various facts show that only to strengthen exchange and cooperation can people from both sides gain mutual trust and see estrangement thawing. This accords with the fundamental interest of all the Chinese people," Dai said.