This fall, a special group of students will arrive at Taiwanese universities: Roughly 2,000 young men and women from 41 universities in the PRC. They will become the first from Mainland China to enroll in full degree programs in Taiwan in more than 60 years. This development seems to be another sign of the warming ties between the former rivals breaking down yet another barrier that have separated them in the past. After the Civil War, China and Taiwan split in 1949 though Beijing still considers the island part of its territory and has threatened to invade should Taiwan move toward formal independence. But ties improved dramatically when Beijing-friendly President Ma Ying-jeou came to power on a platform of boosting economic ties with China. Accordingly, the plan is a result of talks between the two governments last year with the goal of forging closer trade ties and promoting educational exchange between the two countries.

One of the problems addressed through this deal by Taiwanese authorities is the shortage of students in the island’s educational institutions, sparked by dwindling birth rates which may result in the closing of more than one in three Taiwanese colleges by 2021 – if nothing is done about it that is. At the same time, the plan includes a provision that would only allow Taiwanese universities to admit no more than two percent of their available places to Chinese students.

Vice versa, Taiwanese students have atttended mainland Chinese universities for years, mainly attracted by their low tuition fees, about 7,000 Taiwanese are currently enrolled in higher education in China.

For mainland Chinese, this will be an almost adventurous opportunity since very few are familiar with the ROC because of the PRC’s strict travel bans. Only in the last three years haven they been lifted to a certain degree. The decision last year to open the island’s universities in 2011 was controversial enough to start debates in the Taiwanese legislature and parlament has yet to support the measure.