Around 1,000 people have waded along the beachfront on Taiwan's Kinmen island to mark the completion of a seven-year de-mining programme in an area that was once a frontline battleground with mainland China.

Men and women rolled up their trousers Saturday and walked through the water after a clearance operation that underlined warming ties with Beijing.

Kuomintang troops fled to Taiwan at the end of the civil war in 1949 and carpeted the frontline islands of Kinmen and Matsu, just a few kilometres from China's southeastern Fujian province, with tens of thousands of mines.

The mines helped to fend off several major onslaughts launched by Chinese communist forces during the 1950s, but then emerged as a barrier against the ever closer ties between the former cross-strait foes.

Taiwan launched a de-mining project seven years ago and military authorities say more than 126,000 landmines have now been cleared from Kinmen.

"The tens of thousands of landmines laid on the beaches of Kinmen and Matsu had haunted the people in the two places," Wu Yo-chin, deputy magistrate of the Kinmen county, said, according to a government statement.

A Matsu government official told AFP that the de-mining work there was also nearly complete.

China still considers Taiwan part of its territory awaiting to be reunified by force if necessary.

But tensions between the two sides have eased markedly since Ma Ying-jeou came to power in 2008 on a platform of beefing up trade and tourism links with the mainland. Ma was re-elected in January 2012 for a second and the last four-year term.