China to carry out first medical emergency flight to Taiwan
(AP)
Updated: 2006-09-13 20:23
TAIPEI - A Chinese airline will carry out the first medical emergency
flight to Taiwan from Chinese mainland in a small breakthrough between the
sides, Taiwan announced Wednesday.
A Taiwanese businessperson's 70-year-old relative, surnamed Chen, will fly
from the southern Chinese city of Guangzhou to Taipei on Thursday, accompanied
by medical personnel from China, Taiwan's government said.
Chen suffered from a brain hemorrhage and was taken to the Dongguan City
Hospital near Guangzhou last Friday, but relatives wanted a transfer to Taiwan,
said Johnnason Liu, the spokesman for the Mainland Affairs Council - the
government body in charge of relations with China.
Liu didn't say which airline was carrying out the flight.
Despite thriving commercial relations between the sides, Taiwan has long
banned direct flights and direct maritime links on security grounds.
China and Taiwan split amid civil war in 1949 and the self-governing island
fears that aircraft and ships from the mainland could be used as a cover for
attack.
In June, the MAC announced it would allow medical emergency flights and
direct cargo flights carrying equipment for Taiwanese factories on the mainland
on a case-by-case basis.
The first direct cargo flight under the new guidelines flew between the
island and Shanghai in July, carrying equipment for a chip factory established
by Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. in the eastern Chinese
city.
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