China and Taiwan signed a landmark deal on Friday to launch regular flights between the long-time rivals, though they will be limited to weekend charters, as politics is put aside in favour of practicalities.
Apart from special holidays, there have been no regular direct flights across the Taiwan Strait since 1949, when defeated Nationalist forces fled to the island amid civil war with the Communists.
China claims sovereignty over self-ruled and democratic Taiwan and has pledged to bring the island under its control, by force if necessary.
Taiwanese media said the first flights would start on 4 July, and that the first Chinese tour groups to Taiwan would start arriving from 18 July, two key election pledges of Taiwan President Ma Ying-jeou.
Talks between China and Taiwan had been broken off for almost a decade, with Beijing refusing to deal with the then President Cheng Shui-bian, who it suspected to wanting to push the island towards formal independence.
"The good momentum of cross-Strait relations development is hard-won and we should cherish and nurture it," Xinhua news agency quoted Wang Yi, head of China's Taiwan Affairs Office.
The talks were conducted by two semi-official bodies in the absence of formal diplomatic links. Yet trickier issues such as a peace treaty and the hundreds of missiles Taiwan says China has aimed at it were not believed to have been mentioned under a proposal to tackle "first the easy, then the hard".
Ma hopes letting Chinese tourists visit can boost the island's economy, while opening direct flights will save time and money for the hundreds of thousands of Taiwanese who live and work in China and now have to fly via Hong Kong or Macau.
By Ben Blanchard, Reuters
