Altogether 500 students and teachers from both sides of the Taiwan Straits gathered in Nanjing Thursday morning for a four-day summer camp to promote cross-Straits exchanges and enhance understanding among the younger generation.

The participants, including 300 from Taiwan, paid respect to the Mausoleum of Dr. Sun Yat-sen, forerunner of China's democratic revolution, Thursday morning and were scheduled to visit elite Southeast China University, a modern Chinese history museum, and the Memorial Hall of the Victims in the Nanjing Massacre, an atrocity committed by Japanese invading troops during World War II-- in the afternoon.

From Friday to Sunday, they will travel to other cities of the eastern Jiangsu Province in four groups.

Sun Yafu, deputy director of the Taiwan Affairs Office of the State Council, or the central Chinese government, said all participants to the summer camp are brothers and sisters and should care for, love and support one another.

"We hope young people from the two sides of the Taiwan Straits will enhance communication, exchange more visits and make concerted efforts in promoting cross-Straits peace and development," he said at the camp's opening ceremony.

Two student representatives, one from Zhongshan (Dr. Sun Yat-sen) University in Taiwan, and the other from Nanjing University on the mainland, said that on behalf of their peers that they will avail themselves of this opportunity to enhance mutual understanding among youngsters from across the Straits and build a "bridge of friendship" for them.

Jiangsu Province is one of the major interfaces for the mainland's cultural, economic and technological cooperation with Taiwan.

According to Li Yuanchao, secretary of the Jiangsu Provincial Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC), Taiwan compatriots had made 3.95 million trips to the eastern province by late 2004, visiting relatives, seeking business opportunities and for sightseeing tours.

"About 50,000 Taiwan compatriots are living permanently in Jiangsu Province," he added. "Of the top 100 Taiwan businesses, at least 60 have come to invest in Jiangsu."

(Xinhua News Agency July 7, 2005)