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TAIPEI, Taiwan (AP) — More than 100 Chinese tourists arrived in Taiwan on Friday on the first regularly scheduled direct flight from the mainland in nearly six decades.The China Southern Airlines flight from Guangzhou was the first of nine Chinese charter flights scheduled to land in Taiwan on Friday. Taiwan's China Airlines also flew more than 300 Taiwanese on a charter flight to Shanghai earlier in the day.

The historic step — the result of diplomatic efforts by new Taiwanese President Ma Ying-jeou — is aimed at warming relations between the self-ruled island of 23 million people and its powerful neighbor, which claims the island as its territory.

An initial 36 weekend flights will connect major cities on mainland China with Taiwan's airports, in the first direct service since the two sides split amid civil war in 1949. More than 600 Chinese guests are due to arrive Friday in week-long package tours.

"The mainlanders will be our guests," Taiwanese P...

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