(CNN) -- Two giant pandas arrived in Taiwan Tuesday after leaving China's Sichuan province for their new home, in a sign of improving ties between the cross-strait neighbors. Tuan Tuan and Yuan Yuan rest at a giant panda research center in Sichuan province on Monday. Tuan Tuan and Yuan Yuan, both four years old, had been living in Ya'an since the May 12 earthquake that damaged their former home in Wolong in Sichuan, according to the state-run Xinhua news agency. The pandas ate a meal of steamed corn buns and carrots before they were placed in a truck and taken to the Sichuan capital of Chengdu. From there, they were flown to Taiwan.
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Pandas will live at Taipei zoo, expected to debut during the Chinese lunar new year
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Panda goodwill the latest sign of warming relations between Beijing and Taipei
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Regular flights began between the two sides for the first time since 1949
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About 1,590 pandas live in China's wild, and there were 239 captive bred in 2007
Beijing has always considered the island a part of @placeholder and has threatened to go to war should Taiwan declare formal independence.