1987
July: Martial law is lifted in Taiwan, setting the stage for future contacts with Mainland China.
November: The first step is made in easing a 40-year cross-Straits travel ban. People in Taiwan are allowed to travel to the mainland if they have relatives there. Many artists and performers make the trip.
1988
June: Musicians and composers from Taiwan and the mainland meet in Hong Kong for a conference on contemporary Chinese music. The event is one of the first major arts exchanges.
July: The Thirteenth National Congress of the Kuomintang approves policies to allow people-to-people contacts, indirect trade, and gradual progress in relations with mainland China.
September: The ROC allows people from the mainland to attend funerals of relatives in Taiwan or visit relatives who are ill. Many artists and performers take advantage of the new rule.
November: Private organizations in Taiwan are allowed to send representatives to mainland cultural, sports, academic, or business activities. Taiwan also opens the door to visits by “outstanding” mainland talents.
December: The government approves five Peking opera scripts by mainland playwrights for staging in Taiwan. Previously, no script written in the mainland after 1949 could be performed on the island. (Eventually, local opera troupes will be able to perform mainland scripts at their own discretion.)
1989
January/February: Several well known Taiwan and mainland art and music magazines begin exchanging articles introducing cross-Straits artistic developments.
April: Taiwan allows media personnel to conduct interviews, shoot film footage, and produce TV programs on the mainland.
June: Popular singer Ling Feng (凌峰) begins airing one of the first officially approved—and highly popular—TV series on Mainland China, featuring the scenery and lifestyles of different provinces.
September: Pianist Li Jian (李堅) becomes the first mainland artist to take part in a money-making performance in Taiwan. The promoter sells high-priced programs to get around a rule against selling tickets to mainland performances. Audiences willingly go along.
1990
June: Taiwan further opens the door to mainland performers, artists, scholars, athletes, and media personnel, as long as they do not pose a security threat and do not take part in money-making activities.
September: The Ming Hua Yuan Taiwanese Opera Troupe becomes one of the first high-profile Taiwan groups to travel across the Straits. They perform at the Asian Games Arts Festival in Beijing.
October: The Taipei Symphony Orchestra performs The Butterfly Lovers, by Chen Gang (陳鋼) and He Zhanhao (何佔豪), the first post-1949 mainland musical composition to be performed in Taiwan.
November: The ROC government officially establishes the Mainland Affairs Council to oversee policymaking concerning the mainland, including cultural exchange. The quasi-private Straits Exchange Foundation is also formed to help promote person-to-person contacts.
1991
June: Li Qingchun (李慶春) becomes the first Peking opera actor to visit Taiwan directly from the mainland. He performs with his two brothers, both of whom live in Taiwan. Well-known local Peking opera actress Wei Hai-min (魏海敏) visits the mainland to study under actor Mei Baojiu (梅葆玖).
August: Taiwan allows media personnel from the mainland to conduct interviews, shoot film footage, and produce programs in Taiwan.
December: Professionals from the mainland can now take part in money making activities in Taiwan, allowing local promoters to sell tickets to their performances.
1992
January: Taiwan allows exhibits of antiques from the mainland.
April: The Chinese version of Death of a Salesman is staged in Taiwan. Chinese-American director Daniel Yang had originally proposed the project in 1989, but was turned down by the ROC government because the script was translated by a high-ranking mainland official.
June: Taiwan allows performing troupes from the mainland to appear on stage. Previously only soloists or duets could appear.
July: Fujian Television Station personnel visit to film A Trip to Taiwan for broadcast to mainland viewers.
September: Raise the Red Lantern, a mainland film directed by Zhang Yimou (張藝謀) and produced by Taiwan director Hou Hsiao-hsien (侯孝賢), wins the Silver Lion in Venice. The project is one of the first of many cross-Straits cooperative efforts in film.
October: The National Central Ballet of Beijing becomes the first internationally recognized mainland group to appear in Taiwan; the Shanghai Kun Opera Theater is the first traditional theater troupe to visit from the mainland; the Singing and Dancing Troupe of Yunnan Nationalities introduces mainland folk culture. All three shows attract full houses.
1993
January: The Central Orchestra of China, the mainland’s premier Western style orchestra, performs in Taiwan.
February: The Wedding Banquet, a Taiwan film, and The Woman From the Lake of Scented Souls, a mainland film, share the top prize at the Berlin Film Festival. It is the first time for both sides of the Straits to be represented concurrently at the festival. The Neo-Classic Dance Company also tours the mainland, the first Taiwan dance group to do so with ROC government sponsorship.
March: The Ya-yin Ensemble becomes the first Peking opera troupe from Taiwan to appear in the mainland. Hua Wenyi (華文漪) is the first mainland op era actress to perform at the Presidential Office in Taiwan. Also, an international exhibition of contemporary mainland painting, “China’s New Art, Post-1989,” opens in Taiwan.
May: The China Beijing Opera Theater, the mainland’s most respected Peking opera troupe, performs in Taiwan to sold-out audiences. Farewell to My Concubine, filmed in Mainland China, wins the top award at Cannes. Although financed by a Taiwan producer, the film cannot yet be shown in Taiwan because its cast is made up mostly of mainland actors. The Cannes Jury Prize goes to The Puppetmaster, a Taiwan film. The Beijing People’s Art Theater, the mainland’s major (Western-style) drama company also performs in Taiwan.
June: The first mainland films to be shown publicly in Taiwan are featured at the Cross-Straits Film Festival.
August: The Central Chinese Orchestra, the mainland’s best-known traditional Chinese orchestra, performs in Taiwan. The drama Peking Man, by mainland playwright Cao Yu (曹愚), is staged in Taiwan. The show stars actors from both sides and tells a story set in both Beijing and Taipei. Also, the popular Hebei Pan Tzu Opera Troupe performs. (It becomes the most-invited mainland troupe.)
October: Taiwan’s Cloud Gate Dance Theatre visits Beijing and performs Legacy, a dance about the island’s first Chinese settlers.
November: Performers from both sides appear together in a Peking opera production, Butterfly Loves the Flower, in Taiwan.
December: Films with more than half of their cast featuring mainland actors can now be shown in Taiwan if they are major award winners; Farewell to My Concubine appears at local theaters.
1994
January: Mainland composer Zhao Jiping (趙季平), who wrote the soundtrack for Farewell to My Concubine, conducts the Taipei Municipal Chinese Classical Orchestra. The Shanghai Symphony Orchestra also performs; its tour includes a free outdoor concert at the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Park, attracting a huge crowd. In the same month, the Mainland Affairs Council establishes a fund of NT$S3 million (US$2 million) for cross-Straits cultural and academic exchange.
March: Twenty-four Taiwan tourists are murdered at Qiandao Lake, Zhejiang province, in the mainland. The incident leads to a four-month suspension in Taiwan of all government-sponsored cultural exchange. The mainland film Farewell to My Concubine and the Taiwan film The Wedding Banquet share the limelight as entries in the 1994 Academy Awards.
May: To Live, a mainland film produced by Taiwan company ERA International, wins the Jury Grand Prize at the Cannes Film Festival.
June: Musicians from Taiwan and the mainland team up for a major Western-style opera production in Taiwan, The Great Wall. The project also features a mainland costume designer.
September: The first group of instructors from the Beijing Chinese Opera School arrive in Taiwan to teach at National Fu Hsing Dramatic Arts Academy. Taiwan audiences also get a taste of the mainland’s modernizing faction in Peking opera, represented by the Shanghai Beijing Opera Theater.
October: Excerpts from two of the mainland’s “model operas,” written during the Cultural Revolution, are performed at the National Concert Hall in Taipei.
1995
February: Taiwan’s renowned Peking opera actress Wang Hai-Po leads a group of local actors to the mainland to perform with the Shandong Beijing Opera Theater.
April: The Ju Percussion Group, a well-known musical ensemble in Taiwan, performs in the mainland.
May: The Shanghai Kun Opera Theater, featuring one of the oldest forms of Chinese theater, performs for the third time in Taiwan; the group also visits nine local high schools to introduce the art to students. The Zhangzhou Taiwanese Opera Theater also performs in Taiwan.
—compiled by Virginia Sheng