National Taiwan University Professor Huang Guang-guo, who is also apresidential adviser, said at a Taipei seminar that China had experienced an "academic and cultural vacuum" as a result of the tumultuous period of the Cultural Revolution from 1966 to 1976.

Huang said that on the other hand, a culture with Taiwanese characteristics -- which merges traditional Chinese and Western cultures -- was vibrant in Taiwan and has begun to penetrate into the mainland and produced enormous influence there.

At the same time, China, after its economic clout has rapidly grown, has been trying vigorously to retrieve Chinese culture.

With an aim to promote Chinese language and culture and support local Chinese teaching internationally, it has established the first Confucius Institute in Seoul, South Korea in 2005, and the number of such institutes has expanded to around 250 around the world.

Taking advantage of the Confucius Institutes platform, Taiwan could join hands with China in tapping into the global Chinese-language cultural market while at the same time exercising its influence on the mainland.

The seminar on the Taiwanese culture's influence on cross-straits relations, was sponsored by the Straits Exchange Foundation (SEF), a semi-official body commissioned by the government to handle exchanges with China in the absence of formal contacts.

Professor Chu Yun-han of National Chengchi University said that as an immigration society, Taiwan has been more open to outside influence, making its culture a combination of Chinese tradition and modernization.

He said that this kind of Taiwanese culture, under the great Chinese culture framework, has its niche in taking a very important position in the Chinese-language world in terms of cultural development.

Chu said that Taiwan's unique culture has laid a solid foundation for Taiwan's "soft power", and the country should be more confident of itself in the face of increasing competition from China in the cultural arena.

Pointing to the uniqueness of Taiwanese culture, Secretary General Yang Tu of the National Cultural Association said the performance art sector in Shanghai was surprised to find puppet shows of the Ming Dynasty (1368 -1644), which had disappeared in China, has been kept active in Taiwan when a Taiwanese hand puppet show troupe gave performances there.

"This is just one of the advantages for the culture with Taiwanese characteristics," he added.

SEF Deputy Secretary General Ma Shao-chang said Chinese culture could serve as an important pillar for the two sides of the Taiwan Straits to find consensus in future cross-straits negotiations.

(By Liu Cheng-ching & Bear Lee)