Geography of Taiwan and Green Island to the southeast, separated from the northernmost islands of the Philippines by the Bashi Channel. The islands of Kinmen and Matsu near the coast of Fujian across the Taiwan Strait have a total area of ; the Pratas and Taiping islets in the South China Sea are also administered by the ROC, but are not part of the Taiwanese archipelago. The island of Taiwan was formed approximately 4 to 5 million years ago at a complex convergent boundary between the Philippine Sea Plate and the Eurasian Plate. In a boundary running the length of the island and
Politics of the Republic of China community has led to a "political apartheid" which "harms the human rights, interests, and dignity of Taiwan’s people.". Despite the differences between Taiwan and mainland China, contact between the two sides of the Taiwan Strait has grown significantly over the past decade. The ROC has continued to relax restrictions on unofficial contacts with the PRC, and cross-Strait interaction has mushroomed. Since 1987, when the ban on travel to mainland China was lifted, Taiwan residents have made more than 10 million trips to mainland China. The ROC Bureau of Foreign Trade estimates that indirect trade with mainland China reached about US$61.639