Taipei  - Taiwan President Ma Ying-jeou declared Sunday that Taiwan would "use the biggest sincerity" to seek lasting peace with China.

Ma spoke at a ceremony on Kinmen (Quemoy) Island marking the 60th anniversary of an historic battle in which the Chinese Nationalist forces crushed Chinese Communist troops' advances toward Taiwan.

Kinmen is an islet in the Taiwan Strait, a few kilometres off China's south-east coast.

Ma said the Battle of Kinmen, which left about 5,000 dead, re-wrote China's history and changed the fate of Taiwan and mainland China.

He thanked the martyrs for defending Kinmen, and renewed his 2008 pledge to turn the battlefield into the peace square. "Our resolve to build up our army against war and defend Taiwan remains unchanged."

"Faced with the dawn of cross-strait reconciliation, we will use the biggest sincerity to dissolve hatred and confrontation, make killing a thing of the past, and achieve lasting peace," he said.

Taiwan and China have been split since 1949, when the Chinese Nationalist Government lost the Chinese Civil War and fled to Taiwan to set up its government-in-exile. (dpa)