Taipei- Taiwan announced new measures Tuesday to further open up the island to the mainland by allowing Chinese people to visit through two of its former defence outposts.

"The cabinet is expected to approve the new measures this Thursday to allow mainland Chinese to visit the Taiwan proper via Kinmen and Matsu," a statement from the Mainland Affairs Council said Tuesday.

The council, Taiwan's top China policy planning body, said the measures also include the issuance of landing visas for Chinese visitors to the two outlying islets close to China's southern coastal cities of Xiamen and Fuzhou.

The two islets were technically war zones in the 1950s when Taiwan and China still occasionally fired shells at each other.

The council said mainland tourists getting landing visas would only be allowed to visit Kinmen and Matsu, but not Taiwan proper; only those applying for regular visas would be eligible to carry on their visits to the main island, the council noted.

Chinese visitors are currently only allowed to visit either through a third area like Hong Kong or on newly introduced cross- strait charter flights, restricted to 3,000 mainlanders per day.

Kinmen and Matsu are excluded as transit points.

Taiwan and China had been at loggerheads since the two sides split at the end of a civil war in 1949.

Since Ma Ying-jeou of the China-friendly Nationalist Party or Kuomintang (KMT) took office in May, he has sought to engage China in a bid to achieve cross-strait reconciliation and eventual peace.

In June, the two sides resumed talks that had been suspended for at least a decade and signed agreements in July that opened up direct flights for the first time. (dpa)