Peace and development are the shared aspirations of people on both sides of the Taiwan Strait, Xu Kewei, a member of the 14th National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), said on Wednesday.

Xu, also a member of the Standing Committee of the Central Committee of the Taiwan Democratic Self-Government League, made the remarks while attending a group interview during the CPPCC Members' corridor ahead of the closing meeting of the fourth session of the 14th CPPCC National Committee at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing.

As long as young people from Taiwan region and the Chinese mainland maintain frequent exchanges and move toward each other, the future will surely be brighter, Xu said.

Xu said that in recent years he has seen young people from Taiwan thrive on the mainland in various fields. Some have blended tastes from both sides of the Taiwan Strait through a cup of milk tea to build chain brands, he said, while others have applied AI to traditional manufacturing and emerged as industry dark horses. 

Others have also explored new ways of cultural inheritance through the resonance of Gezaixi, or Gezai opera, which was on the first list of national intangible cultural heritage, and is mostly popular in Fujian Province and Taiwan of southeast China, Xu added.