China and Taiwan in first Govt talks Tuesday Feb 11,2014

China and Taiwan have begun the highest-level talks since the end of the Chinese civil war in 1949 on Tuesday Feb 11,2014

Wang Yu-chi and Zhang Zhijun, the top cross-strait officials from each side, are both attending the four-day talks in Nanjing.

Wang Yu-chi, head of Taiwan's Mainland Affairs Council said "My main aim during this visit to the mainland is to promote mutual understanding between the two sides." He added that he hoped the visit, which "did not come easily", would go smoothly, and said the two sides would not be signing any agreements during the talks.

Taiwanese officials said they would raise press freedom after Beijing denied access to some media outlets.
Beijing is likely to push Taiwan to pass a free trade deal that is currently stalled in parliament.

The cross-strait ties have improved since Taiwan's pro-Beijing President Ma Ying-jeou was elected in 2008.
Cross-strait flights began in 2008, and tourists from the mainland have boosted Taiwan's economy.
Trade agreements have allowed Taiwanese technology firms to expand massively, investing billions of dollars in the mainland China

In June 2010 Taiwan and China signed the landmark Economic Co-operation Framework Agreement, a pact widely characterised as the boldest step yet towards reconciliation



Note

Nanjing,the eastern Chinese city was the whole country’s capital when it was ruled by Wang’s nationalist Kuomintang party in the first half of the 20th century.
When the nationalists lost China’s civil war – which cost millions of lives – to Mao Zedong’s communists in 1949 two million supporters of the Kuomintang leader, Chiang Kai-shek, fled to Taiwan, officially known as the Republic of China.
The island and the mainland have been governed separately ever since, both claiming to be the true government of China and only re-establishing contact in the 1990s through quasi-official organisations

China insists that Taiwan is a part of its territory and has a stated aim of reclaiming the island.

Taiwan still calls itself the Republic of China and nominally claims the same territory as the Communist government in Beijing, although it does not press these claims.