GOODWILL FOR FUTURE EXCHANGES

Xi also said the Chinese mainland will further promote cross-Straits cooperation and exchanges in all fields, deepen economic and social integration, and enhance the sense of a community of common destiny.

The peaceful development of cross-Straits ties needs not only high-level interactions, but also mutual understanding and mutually beneficial exchanges at the grassroots level, according to Chang.

"The mainland hopes that bonds between people on both sides of the Straits are not influenced by political divergence and exchanges in all aspects can continue to improve," he said.

Micky Chen, chairman of the Management Institute in Taipei, said economic and trade exchanges between two sides of the Straits showed strong momentum in recent years and are still moving forward.

Last year, tourists from the mainland accounted for 40 percent in total tourists to Taiwan. The mainland is also Taiwan's largest destination of investment and export.

"In recent years, the economic and trade ties is becoming more and more intertwined with other facets of cross-Straits relations, including educational and cultural exchanges," according to Chen.

Xi said the results of the peaceful development of cross-Straits ties should be safeguarded by compatriots from both sides.

A latest achievement of cross-Straits ties is the return of the head of a 1460-year-old marble Buddha statue back to the mainland 20 years after being stolen.

In 1996, the statue's head was chopped off and disappeared from a tower in north China's Hebei Province. In 2014, a follower in Taiwan bought the statue's head at auction and donated it to Master Hsing Yun, founder of the Fo Guang Shan Monastery in Kaohsiung, southern Taiwan.

Hsing Yun decided to reunite the head and the body, and escorted the statue's head to Beijing late last month himself.

The head of a Buddha statue can be chopped off, but the spirit of the Buddha cannot. It's just like the cross-Straits ties, Hsing Yun said.