No statistics on the new travel routes were immediately available, however.

Lai Shin-yuan, chairwoman of the Mainland Affairs Council, said that anyone in Taiwan may fly to Kinmen or Matsu to hop on a ferry to go to Amoy or --iamen and Fuzhou, the provincial capital of Fujian, and onward to other parts of China.

All that residents in Taiwan need are their travel documents to use the newly opened time-saving routes.

Previously, only residents of Kinmen and Matsu and China-based Taiwan businessmen were allowed to board ferries, the quickest of which takes a mere 20 minutes to cover the distance. Trips on the Kinmen-Amoy ferry route ballooned to 341,152 entries and exits in 2006, twelve times the 21,377 when the service was first started in 2001.

The increasingly popular service induced the MAC, Taiwan’s China policy decision-making Cabinet agency, to allow all the people on the island to travel to the Chinese mainland through Kinmen and Matsu.

The Cabinet decision follows the landmark meeting in Beijing between the Straits Exchange Foundation and its Chinese counterpart Association for Relations across the Taiwan Strait on June 11-14.

Documents were signed at the meeting to get direct charter flights across the strait on weekends, which will begin July 4 will also let Chinese tourists visit Taiwan at the same time.

Such flights, however, are still more time-consuming and costlier than the flight-ferry service between the offshore islands and Fujian.

The direct flights still have to detour through Hong Kong air space.

At least three airline companies in Taipei are adding flights for Kinmen to carry an increasing number of passengers from Taiwan to the offshore island.

UNI Airways Corporation is planning to increase Taipei-Kinmen flights by one or two a week when the summer vacation starts. There will be altogether 24 weekly flights.

Trans Asia Airways will add one flight a week starting tomorrow. There will be six Taipei-Kinmen weekly flights, a spokesman said.

Mandarin Airlines will also increase Taipei-Kinmen flights.

Travel agents said they hope the MAC will ease restrictions on Chinese arrivals in Kinmen and Matsu.

“We hope tourists arriving here from China will be granted 72-hour visa free privilege on arrival,” said Yang Tsai-ping, president of the Kinmen Association of Travel Agents.

Given visa-free permission in Kinmen, Chinese tourists will be able to continue to board planes on the offshore island to travel to Taiwan.

Lee Chu-feng, magistrate of Kinmen, is urging President Ma Ying-jeou to consider demilitarizing the offshore county.

Kuomintang lawmakers believe the large garrison in the county of Kinmen may be withdrawn because it is no longer necessary to continue Taiwan’s symbolic gesture of defense against a Chinese invasion.

A People’s Liberation Army division invaded Kinmen in 1950. The invasion was successfully repelled. An artillery duel started on August 23, 1957. Known as the Quemoy crisis, it lasted for two months.

No hostilities have since taken place.

Lin Yu-fang and Suai Hua-min, the two legislators, said the change in warfare has made it unnecessary for Taiwan to keep a large garrison in Kinmen.

“Instead,” Lin said, “we should try to create a peace corridor between Kinmen and --iamen.”

Demilitarization will pose no danger to Taiwan national security, said Suai, a retired army lieutenant general.

The Ministry of National Defense has made plans for Kinmen’s demilitarization after Taipei gave up Chiang Kai-shek’s attempt at a counteroffensive to retake China, Suai said.

“We didn’t enforce it lest we should raise suspicion that the Republic of China in Taiwan is forsaking Kinmen and Matsu,” Suai said. “Now that Kinmen is on its own feet economically,” he added, “the withdrawal of the garrison won’t affect its economy.”