The negotiations between Taiwan and China about direct charter flights are reportedly not making progress, thus casting serious doubt on a possible wide-ranging accord between the two parties.

Below are extracts from an article written by the Associated Press and published by the International Herald Tribune:

Negotiations to bring more of China's tourists to Taiwan are not making progress, a senior Taiwanese official said Wednesday [18 July 2007], raising doubts for a broad-ranging accord on closer economic ties […].

Taiwan's Cabinet-level Mainland Affairs Council has made the economic package a priority, but it's unclear if it can be reached before President Chen Shui-bian leaves office next May [2008].

The tourism talks have been under way for several years, and are viewed as part of a package that includes parallel discussions on direct charter and cargo flights between Taiwan and the mainland.

The package is aimed at facilitating closer economic links between the sides, which despite splitting amid civil war in 1949 have a close economic relationship.

But progress on the package is stuck, the Taiwanese official told The Associated Press on Wednesday [18 July 2007].

The official, who is experienced in cross-strait relations, spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the information.

"The negotiations on the charter flights are moving but it's useless if just the charter flights are moving forward," the official said. "This is because the sides have linked charter flights and tourism together and there hasn't been any progress on advancing tourism."

A spokesman for Taiwan's Mainland Affairs Council, the Cabinet-level body responsible for conducting relations with China, said talks between the sides on the package have not been interrupted.

"Negotiations on both tourism and charter flights are still under way, but I cannot disclose details about them," said Liu Te-shun.

Under a long bruited plan, Taiwan would allow as many as 365,000 Chinese tourists to visit the island annually — about ten times the current number.

A major sticking point has been Taiwan's refusal to accept a Chinese condition that visitors arrive on direct charter flights from the mainland.

Regular commercial flights between the two have been banned since the sides split, and direct charter flights are confined to major holidays — including the Lunar New Year.

Taiwanese businesses hope charter flights can bring a larger number of Chinese to spur the sagging local tourism industry, though some in the ruling Democratic Progressive Party oppose an expansion, because of fears it could increase Taiwanese economic dependence on the mainland, and even facilitate an influx of Chinese spies.

China wants closer links, but many Taiwanese analysts say it may be reluctant to promote them now, because it doesn't want to aid the DPP in the run-up to legislative elections in January of 2008, and the presidential poll two months later.

Many in the party favor making Taiwan's de facto independence permanent, a move that China has said would be grounds for attack.

Beijing views Taiwan as part of its territory and is committed to unification — by persuasion if possible, by force if necessary.

While Chinese tourism to Taiwan is severely limited, traffic in the other direction — much of it involving the several hundred thousand Taiwanese businesspeople resident on the mainland — is thriving.

An estimated three million Taiwanese travel to China each year, mostly via Hong Kong.

China and Taiwan's annual trade is in excess of US$80 billion (euro58 billion) — overwhelmingly in Taiwan's favor — and there are more than US$100 billion (euro72 billion) in Taiwanese investments on the mainland.