Four minutes' worth of Internet traffic flowed this week over the first data cables linking China and Taiwan.
The undersea cables cost four Chinese and Taiwanese telecoms $6.4 million to build and represent more than just a simple communications link between the two nations.
Relations between China and Taiwan have been tenuous since 1949 -- Taiwan views itself as an independent nation, but the Chinese government wants it reunited with mainland China.
However, the cables are the latest product of the countries' recent efforts to improve ties through new transportation routes, communication networks and other economic links. Taiwan's president, Ma Ying-jeou, has emphasized the importance of better relations with China since he first took office in mid-2008.
"This is part of a crescendo of increasing economic, logistic and person-to-person links across the Straits -- we've seen direct flights increasingly replacing the flights via Hong Kong or Macau and a growing number of tourists from the mainland visiting Taiwan," Duncan Clark, an analyst from BDA China, told the BBC.
The cables connect Xiamen, a city in southern China, with the Kinmen islands, located about 125 miles off the coast of Taiwan's main island.
Can data cables help improve relations between different countries? Share your thoughts in the comments.