Chiang said he will also exchange views with Chen on other key issues, including possible Taiwan's assistance concerning the post-quake relief and reconstruction projects in China's devastated southwestern Sichuan Province.

Chiang and his 19-member delegation arrived in Beijing to a warm welcome yesterday from Zheng Lizhong, the executive deputy director of the Taiwan Affairs Office of the State Council, and other Chinese officials.

He will hold talks this morning with Chen, chairman of the Beijing-based Association for Relations across the Taiwan Strait (ARATS), for the first formal discussions between the sides since 1999.

Chiang's delegation include two vice Cabinet ministers -- the highest-ranking Taiwanese officials ever to participate in bilateral talks.

Speaking to reporters in Beijing, Chiang said the upcoming talks are a good beginning and he expects to see more cross-straits negotiations in the future.

"In the future, we hope the two sides can hold talks on mutual trust and create a win-win situation," he said.

Before leaving Taipei, Chiang said he was well aware of the historic nature of his mission.

"Our most important goal is to promote peace," he told reporters at Taiwan's Taoyuan International Airport.

The 75-year-old economic planner said he expected to sign an accord opening the way for 36 charter flights every weekend to cross the Taiwan Strait of 100 miles (160 kilometers) that geographically separate the Taiwan and China.

Taiwan has banned direct scheduled flights since the 1949 division of the two sides. The expanded flights will be enough to shuttle several hundred thousand Chinese tourists to Taiwan every year -- far above the current level of about 80,000.

President Ma Ying-jeou has set a target of eventually luring 1 million Chinese tourists a year to Taiwan.

Charter flights are now limited to four annual Chinese holidays, when they are packed with Taiwanese residents on the mainland returning home to visit family.

Ma wants to gradually expand the charter schedule and supplement it with regularly scheduled flights by the summer of 2009 to meet the needs of people traveling across the strait by bypassing unnecessary transit stopover in Hong Kong or other third cities.

An estimated half a million people from Taiwan now live or work in China with extensive capital investments.

China has already absorbed more than US$100 billion in Taiwanese investment over the past 15 years.

An additional number of more than 1 million of Taiwanese visit their kin or the wide varieties of scenic spots on the mainland.

The number of Taiwan residents currently attending higher educational institutions is also on the increase.

Ma won the presidential election in March largely on his promises to fight domestic corruption and reinvigorate Taiwan's economy by hitching the island's wagon to China's economic juggernaut.

Chiang's delegation is seen as the first concrete step in fulfilling that pledge.

It is expected that the two top negotiators will sign agreements following the talks to launch the cross-strait weekend direct charter flights and for visits by Chinese tourists to Taiwan in early July.