For the first time, the two sides open tourist offices on each other’s territory. This is an historic precedent set by the Taiwanese president. Mainlanders now constitute the largest group of foreign visitors, overtaking the Japanese.

Taipei (AsiaNews/Agencies) – Mainland China and Taiwan have agreed to open tourist offices on each other's territory for the first time in 60 years of bitter rivalry. The move comes as government data show that tourists from the mainland have overtaken those from Japan as the island's top visitors in the first three months of the year.

Mainland tourists made 344,000 visits to Taiwan in the first three months of the year, nearly double the figure for the same period last year, compared with around 270,000 visits by Japanese tourists, official figures show.

On an annual basis, mainland tourists made around 970,000 visits to Taiwan last year, trailing closely behind 1,006,000 visits by Japanese tourists.

Authorised by the island's top government tourism body, the Taiwan Strait Tourism Association is set to open an office in Beijing on 4 May.

Shao Qiwei, head of the China National Tourism Administration and the Cross-Strait Tourism Association (CSTA), announced that his agency would inaugurate a Taipei office on 7 May.

They will be the first semi-official representative offices by the two sides since they split in 1949 at the end of the civil war between Communists and Nationalists.

Wen Liu, spokesman for Taiwan's tourism association, said preparations for the inauguration of the Beijing office were nearly complete. “All we need is the final confirmation," he said. "The office is expected to provide Chinese tourists with more detailed information on tours in Taiwan."

Beijing considers Taiwan a rebel province that must be brought back into the fold, by force if necessary. It has used a number of means, diplomatic and military, to convince other nations not to officially recognise Taiwan as an independent nation.

Relations between the sides had worsened following the election in 2000 of President Chen Shui-bian, of the Democratic Progressive Party, because of his stance in favour of Taiwan independence.

Two years ago, his party lost the election to President Ma Ying-jeou. Although elected under the banner of the Kuomintang, China’s Nationalist Party once led by the fiercely anti-Communist Chiang Kai-shek, Ma has boosted trade links with the mainland.

However, his China-friendly policies have not gone down too well with voters who punished him and his party twice in local elections, forcing him more than once to apologise for his mistakes.

In fact, many Taiwanese not only reprove of his close ties with the mainland, but also blame him for mishandling the aftermath of Typhoon Morakot, which killed hundreds of people.

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