China will lift a decades-old ban on travel to Taiwan today, it was reported.
China has had tight restrictions on its people visiting Taiwan since 1949 when the Nationalists under Chiang Kai-shek fled to the island at the end of the Chinese civil war. A limited number of mainlanders have been able to travel there on business.
The move could further ease tension after visits to China by two of the island's opposition leaders.
Ultimately, it is up to the Taiwan government under independence-leaning President Chen Shui-bian to decide if travel restrictions are eased, however. Taiwan has its own tough rules restricting mainland visitors.
Beijing views the island as a breakaway province, which must eventually be unified with the mainland - by force if necessary.
In the year or so since China relaxed rules on travel to Hong Kong, and a tourism boom brought by Chinese visitors has boosted retail sales and been an important factor in the territory's economic recovery.
China has said people from Taiwan made 3.7 million trips to the mainland in 2004, while only 145,000 mainlanders visited Taiwan.
China this month offered to ease restrictions on contacts between the two sides after visits to China by Lien Chan, head of Taiwan's Nationalist Party, which once ruled all China, and James Soong, head of the island's second-biggest opposition party.