The Chinese mainland and Taiwan Saturday kicked off the largest-yet unofficial cross-Straits forum and carnival at a place which used to be the frontline of Communist-Kuomintang rivalry decades ago.

Fireworks glittered the skies above the Taiwan Straits, and music and applause overflowed from the Exhibition and Convention Center of Xiamen, a coastal city in southeastern Fujian Province which faces Taiwan across the sea and was the frontline of mainland-Taiwan artillery duels from the 1950s till the 1970s.

More than 8,000 Taiwan guests have arrived for the week-long Straits Forum to be co-hosted by Xiaman, Fuzhou, Quanzhou and Putian cities of Fujian. Featuring 18 activities including a centerpiece conference, a trade fair, a cultural week, a tourism forum and a seminar on traditional Chinese medicine, it is designed to further cross-Straits exchanges on a non-official platform.

"Today, May 16, is an important and memorable day for cross-Straits relations," Wang Yi, director of the State Council Taiwan Affairs Office, said while greeting the 6,500 audience, including 4,500 Taiwanese, present at the opening ceremony.

"Fujian was the frontline for sea defense against the enemy at a time of mainland-Taiwan hostility and confrontation, and it was long harassed by cannon firing and air raids," said Liu Guoshen, director of the Taiwan Research Institute with the Xiamen University.

"Now with the peaceful development of the cross-Straits ties, Fujian with its geographic location is again on the frontline, but this time for closer cooperation and exchanges with Taiwan," he said.

Cross-Straits relations have been improving since May 2008 when Ma Ying-jeou became the leader of Taiwan.

Talks were held between top leaders of the Communist Party of China and the Kuomintang. The mainland-based Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Straits (ARATS) and Taiwan's Straits Exchange Foundation (SEF) have also resumed their long-stalled consultations. In less than a year, the two organizations had three rounds of talks, signed nine agreements and reached one consensus. Direct shipping, air transport and postal services and normalization of economic relations between the two sides are becoming a reality.

Now with the mass gathering of "brothers and sisters" from both sides of the Taiwan Straits, Wang Yi said the move reflected a new development of cross-Straits exchanges.

"It shows that the general public have become the main body of the cross-Straits exchanges and the core force to propel the progress of the cross-Straits relations," he said.

Chu Li-lun, vice chairman of the Kuomintang, said metaphorically that the Taiwan Straits used to be "wide and deep" and estranged people on the two sides.

However, people on both sides "share the same bloodline and speak the same languages," and the new development of relations in the past year have even made the Straits "shallower and narrower" than before.

After Jia Qinglin, chairman of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, the top political advisory body, declared the opening of the forum at 8 p.m., a 90-minute gala show by performers from both sides was staged.

"This show involved the largest-ever number of performers from Taiwan," director Guo Jihong said. "In fact, two thirds of them were from the island."

Describing the forum as "historic", Chu Li-lun said, "it signified a new beginning of the expanded cross-Straits exchanges."

"From tonight on, the cross-Straits exchanges will become even more broad-based and diversified,"he said.

(Xinhua News Agency May 17, 2009)