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Taiwan and the mainland will hold their first official cross-strait swimming competition between Quemoy  and Xiamen  in August in a further sign of warming ties, a  Taiwanese official said. 
Fifty swimmers from each side, which were perennially  at odds until Beijing-friendly Ma Ying-jeou  won a presidential election in Taiwan last March, will swim from  a beach in Xiamen,  Fujian  province, to Taiwan's  Quemoy islands, a former defence outpost. 
The 8.5km 'Quemoy-Xiamen Crossing' was made possible after Taiwan's Mainland Affairs Council, the island's top  mainland-policy-planning body, gave  approval in March, organiser Lee Juh-feng,  a  Quemoy county magistrate, said.  
He said that since he  had become  magistrate seven years ago he had been trying to organise  a cross-strait swimming event. 
Mainland authorities have  approved the Xiamen city government as co-host of the event.
Taiwan's military, citing security concerns, had objected to the event, but after the Mainland Affairs Council gave  approval,  the military finally agreed to Mr Lee's plan, the magistrate said.
From July 15, Taiwan's military would remove  anti-tank and anti-landing-craft barricades deployed along about 350 metres of the coast  at  Shuangkou on Lesser  Quemoy -  where the long swim would end.  
'The  great meaning of the  competition is that it is an event for peace,' Mr Lee said, adding that after more than six decades of hostility across  the  Taiwan Strait, what  Quemoy residents wanted most was peace.  
With cross-strait ties  warming,  it was time  to end rivalry and military conflict so that  Quemoy would no longer  be a battlefield.
The mainland fired more than 470,000 shells at  Quemoy over 44 days in 1958, killing 618 people, in an attempt to take over the small group of islets, the closest of which is just  2km from Xiamen.
Asked if the barricades would go back up after the swimming event, Mr Lee said: 'They will be placed back only if necessary.'
Under the plan, the event will start at  Yefengzhai  beach in Xiamen at 11.40am on August 15, and  100 swimmers from the two sides will swim ashore at  Shuangkou at about 2.40pm the same day. They will be welcomed on the shore before moving on to  Quemoy proper  for a formal  presentation ceremony.
The direct swim between Yefengzhai and  Shuangkou is about 6km, but because of strong sea currents, organisers  have devised a course of 8.5km to avoid them.  
All qualifying swimmers must be able to swim  10km in 21/2 hours, the organisers said.
Each swimmer would be accompanied by a lifeguard and a boat equipped with lifesaving  facilities. 
Coastguards of the two sides would  send larger vessels to escort the swimmers to the borders of their respective waters. Only the swimmers and their lifeguards would be allowed to land at  Quemoy, the organisers said.



Swim arranged from Fujian to Taiwanese islet