POSTAL LINKS ACROSS THE TAIWAN STRAITS

The Taiwan Straits were blocked in 1949, and neither visits nor communications have been possible ever since. Blood compatriots on the two sides suffered untold grieves from separation across the expanse of waters.

In January 1979, the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress addressed "Message to the Taiwan Compatriots", proposing that in a effort toward peaceful reunification of the motherland, the two side should start direct shipping and postal links as soon as possible. Then in May and June, the postal authorities on the mainland initiated unilaterally telegraph, long-side telephone, surface mail, and registered letter services.

Taiwan began in October 1987 to allow some Taiwan residents to visit their relatives on the mainland. The next March saw a Red Cross letterbox erected for ordinary mail to the mainland. Postal staff members on both sides of the Straits made every effort to serve Chinese so long disconnected from each other. They tried every way possible to deliver letters that often came without exact addresses, and there appeared many inspiring stories and touching scenes.

The snowballing volume, however, soon found the Red Cross letterbox too small. At last in June, 1989, Taiwan permitted its postal authorities to formally take up ordinary mail for mainland addresses. Gradually, airmail services in packaged sacks were inaugurated between the Taipei Airmail Center and Beijing and Shanghai, and between Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Fuzhou and Xiamen on the mainland the Taipei Airmail Center. Meanwhile, a surface mail service in package sacks went into operation between Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangzhou on the mainland and Taipei and Keelung. With the establishment of these routes, the two sides across the Taiwan straits had finally their open but indirect mail connections.

Last June1993, "the Compensation Agreement on Tracking Registered Letters across the Straits" became effective after it was signed by non-governmental associations authorized by the two sides. With this agreement coming into force, the Taiwan postal agencies began to dispatch registered mail to the mainland, and to accept requests to track registered letters. This signaled a new development for the two sides to link up by mail.

Postal businesses across the Taiwan straits been growing rapidly since the indirect two-way mail connection was in place. The total number of mail pieces being exchanged sprang from some three million in 1988 to about 38 million pieces. Meanwhile, mutual visits between the postal executives on both sides have resumed in some cases and increased in others. In the past decade, more than 300 officers in over 30 tour groups have visited each other across the Straits.

The nature of the current postal connections is still indirect, and neither variety nor quality of the current service satisfy the actual needs of the public. A direct mail link between the two sides will require more joint efforts from all walks of life on both sides across the Straits.

• The Trade Union of Chongqing postal service warmly welcomes the Trade Union delegation from Taiwan postal service
• In 1997 the delegation of the postal and correspondence committee of China Correspondence Association visited the post office stamp-collection service center in Taiwan
• The Taiwan guests are visiting the Shanghai Pudong Post office
• The commemorative medal Mr.Wu Fenggang, from China Stamp Printing Bureau, got when he attended the First Taiwan Stamp Exhibition
• The Chinese international Judge Mr.Linag Honggui together with the international judge and collector from Taiwan
• Shanghai received the first lot of direct packages mailed from Taibei
• The parcel mailed directly from Taipei to Shanghai
• The Taiwan Ali Mount post office
• The mailbox in a Taiwan post office

In recent years, with the increasing exchanges between the postal personnel on the two sides across the straits, better understanding and further friendship has been developed .A colleague of Taiwan postal service wrote a song of the character "the same”