A direct air route between Qingdao City in east China's Shandong Province and Taichung City in China's Taiwan region officially resumed on Thursday, ending a seven-year suspension.
Operated by Shandong Airlines, the first outbound flight departed Qingdao Jiaodong International Airport with 167 passengers at 07:50 and arrived at Taichung Ching Chuan Kang Airport at 10:20. The return flight left Taichung at 11:20 and landed in Qingdao at 13:50 with 172 passengers.
The route will operate once a week on Thursdays, with a one-way flight time of approximately 150 minutes.
Mainland airline resumes direct cross-Strait route
China's central government budget for basic research is set to see a 16.3-percent increase in 2026 compared with last year, said an official for the country's Ministry of Finance at a press conference in Beijing on Wednesday.
Wang Ye, deputy director of the department of science, education and culture of the Ministry of Finance, made the announcement in response to a media inquiry on China's support policies for basic research.
Wang said the central government budge prioritizes science and technology as a key field for giving support.
"We will continue to scale up input and strengthen efforts to guarantee funding. The central government budget for basic research in 2026 will increase by 16.3 percent compared with last year. Driven by fiscal funds, China's total spending on basic research has risen rapidly, climbing from 55.5 billion yuan (about 8.2 billion U.S. dollars) in 2013 to 277.8 billion yuan in 2025, ranking the second worldwide. Its proportion in the country's total research and development expenditure has gone up from 4.68 percent in 2013 to 7.08 percent in 2025, hitting an all-time high," Wang said.
She said that the Ministry of Finance has been coordinating resources to fund the construction and operation of major national science and technology infrastructure as well as service platforms for sharing science and technology resource.
Funding will also be provided for selecting and fostering outstanding students in basic disciplines, according to Wang.
The Ministry of Finance will also support comprehensive training and recruitment of talents in the field of basic research and let them unleash their full potential, she said.
The ministry will back implementation of major science and technology programs, and hunt and cultivate talents for research programs.
"Going forward, we will keep pursuing the goal of boosting China's strength in science and technology and steadily increase fiscal investment in basic research. Meanwhile, we will also intensify supervision and administration to ensure that fiscal funds are precisely allocated and efficiently utilized so that the input will see coordinated increase in quantity and improvement of efficiency," Wang said.
China increases central government budget for basic research: official
