Section 8 Communication between the Two Sides of the Taiwan Straits

Service counter for Taiwanese
was set up in the post office

Taiwan is the sacred territory of China. It has been one of the important tasks for the state since 1980s on Taiwan's returning to the motherland and fulfilling the unification of our country. To realize communication, navigation and trade between the two sides of Taiwan St fans is the important prerequisite for the unification of our country. Oil the New Year's Day of 1979, NPC issued "To Taiwan Compatriot" which declared the policy of peaceful unification o the country and put forward the proposal of realizing "communication, navigation and trade between the two sides as soon as possible". To response to and carry out the summon of the state to realize communication between the two sides, on Jan.7, 1979, the Minister Wang Zigang of MPT made a speech, which suggested to discuss with Taiwan post department about realizing communication between the two . sides as soon as possible and establishing direct communication relations. In 1982, with the topic that "eager desire of the compatriots of the two sides of Taiwan Straits" the administration of MPT made a speech to Taiwan, specially . set forth the problem of communication with Taiwan, and declared that post department of mainland was ready for the communication, hoping that the two sides would contact and discuss to promote the early realization of communication.

To realize the communication between the compatriots of the two sides of Taiwan Straits and promote the establishment of direct communication. In Feb. 1979, MPT opened up the one side post business and telegraph business from mainland to Taiwan. On Oct.7, 1981, Mad made 6 decisions, and got ready for communication with Taiwan at any time.

In the first half of 1979, When MPT opened up Post communication business to Taiwan, and communication business of mails, telegraphs, telephone calls from mainland to Taiwan was continuous. According to incompleted statistics, in 1986, 186 ordinary mails and 37 registered mails were delivered from Beijing to Taiwan. From Jan'1987 to June 1987, 1367 ordinary mails, 77 registered mails, 17,915 ordinary printings and 22 ordinary parcels were sent from Beijing, Tianjin and Guangdong. 22,254 ordinary Printings were transferred to Taiwan from other countries. To realize communication between the two sides as soon as possible, post departments and employees of mainland took it as their glorious responsibility to deliver messages and search kinsfolks for Taiwan compatriots and provided diversified services for Taiwanese by every possible means. Post departments in the whole country received many mails from Taiwanese and overseas Chinese looking for their kinsfolk, most of which used old address before the liberation. That brought many difficulties for searching. Whenever they received such difficult mails, post departments would pay attention to them. Some post office held meetings to analyze, research and appointed special person to search it. Some post offices made some internal regulations that any mail sent from overseas or Taiwan would be handled and examined separately. For difficult mails, they would discuss them together and tried their best to make "dead letter" alive. To delivery a letter from Taiwanese, postman of West Chang'an Avenue Post Office of Be1Jing visited 3 resident committees and 2 police stations, referred to residence information, inquired on I I numbers, visited 42 people and finally found the addressee. Postman Lin Yungong of Gulou Post Office in Fuzhou of Fujian Province, revived over one thousand "dead letters" from Taiwan and overseas in several years. He helped 5 couples, 3 pairs of father-sons, 4 pairs of mother-sons, 7 pairs of sisters and 52 pairs of friends which had been out of connections for over 30 years resume their connections.

In the beginning of the summer in 1982, Hefei Post Office received a search letter sent from USA with nuclear address. To find the receiver, postman Wang Jinsheng visited over 400 residents and sent 2 letters to the sender to find clues and took 13 months to deliver this letter. Wang Jinsheng also helped a female teacher receive the letter sent from overseas by her brother who had been separated for over 30 years.

The stories of post workers of mainland enthusiastically searching kinsfolks for Taiwanese and reviving "dead letters" were appreciated by both overseas and natives. It was reported in the newspaper in Hong Kong that Taiwan compatriots "were very satisfied and admiring for post offices and government of mainland actively assisting in search of their kinsfolks".