China has urged the authorities in Taiwan to resume dialogue and lift a 50 year ban on direct links.

Vice Premier Qian Qichen said he wanted to resurrect negotiations over direct trade, transport and postal links which stalled in 1999 over longstanding disagreements over Taiwan's sovereignty.

Charter flights

Fly empty from Taiwan to Shanghai, stopping in Hong Kong Take Taiwanese living in China home for New Year Take them back to China after holiday, returning empty

His comments came as Taiwanese airlines prepared for their first flights to China since 1949, when the two governments split following civil war.

The charter flights, which have to make a stop in Hong Kong, will transport Taiwanese living in Shanghai home for the Chinese New Year holidays.

The issue is politically sensitive, and as part of the negotiated agreement, the planes will have to fly empty from Taiwan to China. On the return leg, after Chinese New Year, they will fly Taiwanese back to China then return to the island empty.

The existing alternative is for passengers to fly to Hong Kong and change airline, an often slow and expensive option.

'Open agenda'

Mr Qian told a seminar on Friday: "So long as both sides hold talks under the principle of 'one China', the agenda can be open, the status can be equal".

Passengers will have to switch planes in Hong Kong or Macau

In Taiwan, a senior official said the island was ready for talks, but only through the semi-official Straits Exchange Foundation which Beijing has refused to deal with since 1999.

Beijing regards Taiwan as a breakaway province and has threatened to invade if Taiwan declared independence.

Correspondents say the charter flights to and from Shanghai, scheduled to run from 26 January to 10 February, mark an important step forward in relations between the two rivals.

Taiwan's business community, pouring ever more investment into China, is also strongly championing the lifting of the ban on transport links.

So far 1,200 of the 1,700 seats of offer have been booked.