Taiwan's goodwill flights to China

Sixteen flights operated by Taiwanese airlines between Shanghai and Taipei over Chinese New Year are being hailed as a breakthrough in relations between China and Taiwan.

The charter flights will take Taiwanese businessmen who work on the mainland home to Taiwan to celebrate Lunar New Year, which falls on 1 February, and then take them back again when the holiday is over.

The flights are significant because it will be the first time since 1949 that Taiwanese airlines have been allowed to fly to China.

Political disagreements between Beijing and Taipei mean there are currently no direct links, including flights, between the two sides.

Many see these New Year semi-direct flights, which still have to make a stop-off in either Hong Kong or Macau, as a step towards that goal.

Costly exercise

There is certainly no shortage of Taiwanese people who would like to see direct flights between China and Taiwan, including long-suffering businessmen who regularly make the trip to the mainland.

The lack of direct flights means anyone travelling between Taiwan and China has first to stop off at a third place, usually Hong Kong or Macau.

In some cases this leads to bizarre situations in which aircraft touch down for just a few minutes.

While passengers remain on board, flight numbers are changed before the planes continue on their way.

All this means journeys cost more and take longer. It currently takes at least five hours to get from Taipei to Shanghai, although a direct flight could make the trip in under two hours.

Michael Huang, a director at Taiwanese computer firm Acer Inc, said it takes him about 12 hours to get from Taipei to his firm’s China office in Beijing.

After a long day, much of it spent waiting around airport terminals, all he wants to do when he arrives in the Chinese capital is check into his hotel and rest.

“It is very time consuming, but we do not have any choice,” said the 40-year-old, who said he would love to be able to fly direct from Taipei to Beijing.

Eager customers

Businessmen are not the only ones who would like to see direct flights between China and Taiwan. Travel agents and airlines would also welcome them.

Taiwanese people currently make about three million trips a year to China, a figure that would surely increase if there were direct flights.

The key route would be between Taipei and Shanghai, currently home to hundreds of thousands of Taiwanese businessmen and their families.

Far East Air Transport Corp, which will operate six of the 16 New Year flights, is just one Taiwanese airline keen to show its interest in direct links.

Talking about the New Year flights, a company spokeswoman said: “First of all, we want to provide a service to Taiwanese businessmen, but it also shows we have the capability to fly directly to Shanghai.”

Taiwan government officials say they too would like to see direct links, including trade, transport and postal connections, between the two sides.

‘Friendly gesture’

Cabinet spokesman Chuang Suo-hang said the government allowed these semi-direct flights to make it easier for Taiwanese businessmen to return home for Chinese New Year, but also as a signal to China.

“The decision is a friendly gesture that shows we are ready to open direct flights. It is a step forward,” he said.

But a lot would need to happen before direct flights were allowed.

There is deep distrust on both sides, the root of which is the disagreement over whether Taiwan is a part of China, as Beijing thinks, or a separate entity, as Taiwan’s President Chen Shui-bian believes.

Deadlock

Cabinet spokesman Chuang said for direct flights to become a reality there would first need to be government-to-government talks with no preconditions.

He said these were needed in order to work out such things as security issues.

And therein lies the difficulty, because China refuses to hold official talks with Taiwan unless the island accepts there is just one China.

The result is stalemate. There are even those in Taiwan who have criticised these New Year flights as little more than a gimmick.

At about US$450 each, seats on the special flights cost about the same as a normal flight between Taipei and Shanghai. And, they still have to call off at a third place and so take just as long.

Despite this though, the New Year flights, which begin on Sunday, are a positive step forward in relations between China and Taiwan.

But until one or both sides makes a grand gesture, or until their differences can be fudged to get talks going, permanent direct flights will remain as elusive as ever.