Taiwan and China build trust

CHINA and Taiwan have agreed to set up permanent offices in each other's territory for the first time in nearly six decades of hostility, one of the biggest steps the political rivals have taken to build mutual trust.

The agreement came as China adopts a softer public approach in the run-up to next month's Beijing Olympics. It also made positive headlines on the grim one-month anniversary of the 12 May earthquake in which more than 70,000 died.

The Taiwan deal followed the first formal talks between the sides since 1999. It lends momentum to efforts to build confidence and spur co-operation between the rivals, who divided amid civil war in 1949 and whose relationship has veered from strained to outright hostile.

"It's a very positive and healthy development in relations across the Taiwan Strait," said George Tsai, a political scientist at Taiwan's Chinese Culture University.

Mr Tsai cautioned, however, that the offices would be limited to dealing with administrative matters and would offer little direct help in dealing with core political differences such as China's threatening missile arsenal and Taiwan's desire for diplomatic recognition overseas.

Beijing's communist administration, which seized power on the mainland in 1949, considers Taiwan part of its territory and refuses to recognise the government in Taipei, which means that negotiations must be carried out by semi-official bodies.

The accord also opens the way for 36 charter flights to cross the 100-mile wide Taiwan Strait every weekend. Taiwan has banned direct scheduled flights since the 1949 split.

The expanded flights will be enough to shuttle several hundred thousand Chinese tourists to Taiwan every year – below Taiwanese president Ma Ying-jeou's target of 1 million, but far above the current level of about 80,000.

Charter flights are now limited to four annual Chinese holidays and are usually packed with Taiwanese residents on the mainland returning home to visit family. Mr Ma wants to gradually expand the charter schedule and supplement it with regularly scheduled flights by the summer of 2009.

Taiwan was also set to discuss what additional help the island could provide for China's earthquake relief efforts.

The move came as hundreds of grieving parents blocked the road into an earthquake-flattened town as police sought to quell a rising wave of public anger over schools that collapsed and killed thousands of children.

Volunteers were detained, schools cordoned off and reporters barred from destroyed classrooms in at least two other towns in another sign of the government's resolve in controlling the post-quake message.

Despite assurances by authorities that unfettered coverage would be allowed, dozens of police and paramilitary troops guarded the gate of Juyuan's destroyed middle school, as a crowd of about 50 gathered outside. And at a primary school in Dujiangyan, police and soldiers also stood guard to keep out parents and journalists.

The security measures underscore how much the public fury over the deaths of so many children is unnerving the Chinese authorities. Their attempts to rein it in contrast sharply with the relative openness Beijing displayed at the start of the disaster.

Across the quake zone, tempers flared among parents as they marked the grim anniversary. Wang Ping, whose 16-year-old daughter died when Beichuan Middle School collapsed, said: "I'm 40. All our hopes were in our children. Now they're dead. Our future is dead, too."

BACKGROUND

FEW families in hard-hit parts of Sichuan province in the nation's south-west escaped losses among those killed in the 12 May quake – close to 70,000 according to the latest count, with many more missing believed dead.

But the thousands of crushed children have become the most politically-charged legacy of the disaster, distilling public anger about corruption and lax regulation blamed for shoddy school buildings. Poor construction work is suspected as a reason for the collapse of the schools.

Anguished parents yesterday marked one month since the devastating earthquake, demanding answers about flattened schools and begging forgiveness from dead children buried under the rubble.

In a sign of political tensions in the quake-hit area, Chinese police expelled volunteers and apparently detained a local dissident who had offered to support the grieving families.