Cross-Strait "Three Links" Launched

Background: From the Call for Direct Links to Decades of Indirect Contact

On 1 January 1979 the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress issued its Message to Compatriots in Taiwan, saying "we hope that the two sides will soon establish air and postal services so that compatriots on both sides can have direct contact", and urging the two sides to "develop trade, supply each other's needs and conduct economic exchanges"; postal links, transport links and trade came to be known together as the "three links". For nearly three decades afterwards travel and goods between the two sides had to pass through third places; according to AFP, flights usually had to route through Hong Kong or Macau airspace and cargo ships were generally forced to detour through Japanese waters. Before 2008 holiday charters, emergency medical charters, humanitarian charters and special cargo charters were opened, but only as ad hoc arrangements.

The negotiating channel between the mainland's Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Straits (ARATS) and Taiwan's Straits Exchange Foundation (SEF), set up after the Koo–Wang talks of 1993, broke down after 1999 and did not resume during Chen Shui-bian's eight years in office; AFP reported that Chen had refused Beijing's overtures for direct daily transport links, wary that they would draw the island too close to China.

The Two Chen–Chiang Talks of 2008

After Ma Ying-jeou took office in May 2008, ARATS president Chen Yunlin and SEF chairman Chiang Pin-kung met in Beijing in June and on 13 June signed the Minutes of Talks on Cross-Strait Charter Flights, opening weekend passenger charters "formally from 4 July"; until direct routes opened, the charters would temporarily route through the Hong Kong flight information region.

On 4 November 2008 Chen and Chiang signed in Taipei agreements on sea transport, air transport and postal services, together with an agreement on food safety, each to "take effect within forty days of signing". The air agreement opened a northern direct two-way route across the Taiwan Strait and turned the weekend flights into "regularised passenger charters", with 21 points opened on the mainland, including Beijing and Shanghai, and eight in Taiwan, including Taoyuan, Taipei Songshan and Kaohsiung, for up to 108 round trips a week; the sea agreement allowed ships owned by capital from either side and registered on either side to carry passengers and cargo directly, required them while in the other side's ports to "fly the company flag, with no flag for the time being at the stern or mainmast", and exempted shipping income from business and income taxes on both sides; the postal agreement opened direct letter, parcel, express mail and postal remittance services.

15 December: Direct Transport and Post Launched Together

On 15 December 2008 direct air transport, direct shipping and direct postal services between the two sides began on the same day. According to CNA, a flight from Shenzhen landed in Taipei shortly before 9 a.m. and the first flight from Taipei to Shanghai departed at 8 a.m.; ships could now sail between 11 ports in Taiwan and 63 on the mainland without transiting a third region, and send-off ceremonies were held at Keelung, Taichung and Kaohsiung. According to AFP, the new route cut the Shanghai–Taipei flight by more than an hour to about 80 minutes, and Taiwanese officials estimated that airlines and passengers would save about NT$3 billion a year and shipping firms more than NT$4 billion.

Wang Yi, director of the Taiwan Affairs Office, told a shipping ceremony in Tianjin that it was "another important day in the history of cross-strait relations" and that "the trend of peaceful development for the relationship between two sides cannot be stopped" (as quoted by AFP). At a ribbon-cutting in Kaohsiung, Ma Ying-jeou said: "From now on, dialogue will replace opposition."

Reactions

On 17 December the DPP Central Standing Committee issued a statement saying that "the three links are a major national policy bearing on national sovereignty and security", accusing the Ma government of "illegally forcing the launch of the three links before the Legislative Yuan had reviewed the four agreements", and charging that it had "pinned its hopes for economic development on China, exposing Taiwan to the danger of becoming another Hong Kong or Macau", without measures for the relocation of traditional industries, competition for farm products or unemployment.

On 31 December Hu Jintao told a meeting marking the 30th anniversary of the Message to Compatriots in Taiwan that since May cross-Strait talks had "resumed on the basis of the '1992 Consensus' and achieved important results, and comprehensive, direct and two-way 'three links' have taken a historic step", and among six proposals for the peaceful development of cross-Strait relations called for "expanding the direct 'three links'" and for a comprehensive economic cooperation agreement.

Aftermath

What began on 15 December were regularised charter flights rather than scheduled services. On 26 April 2009 Chen Yunlin and Chiang Pin-kung signed in Nanjing a Supplementary Agreement on Cross-Strait Air Transport providing for scheduled passenger and cargo flights and opening a southern route and a second northern route. By the time Ma Ying-jeou met Xi Jinping in Singapore in November 2015, the heads of the two associations had held eleven rounds of talks.