A mass swim across the Taiwan Strait is scheduled to be held Aug. 15, with 100 swimmers from Taiwan and China taking part, Lee Chu-feng, magistrate of Taiwan's outlying island of Kinmen, said in Taipei Monday. Lee said at a news conference that 50 swimmers from Taiwan will join 50 swimmers from China in the Fujian Province port city of Xiamen in southeastern China Aug. 15 to embark on the historic swim across the Taiwan Strait to Hsiao Kinmen -- a small islet west of Kinmen -- an 8.5-km swim that is expected to take several hours. The swim, which is being sponsored by the Kinmen county government and the Xiamen city government, will begin from Xiamen's Yefengzhai Beach and finish on Hsiao Kinmen's Shuangkou Beach, Lee said. He noted that the direct distance between the two beaches is about 6 km, but pointed out that the swimmers will have to actually swim up to 8.5 km due to the pull of ocean currents. 'They must finish the swim in 3.5 hours or less, ' the magistrate said. Addressing the news conference, Lee said the Kinmen-Xiamen swim will not only be a sports contest but also a major activity promoting cross-strait peace, as tension between Taiwan and China has noticeably eased since President Ma Ying- jeou took office in May 2008. 'We hope Kinmen will rid itself of its memories as an anti-communist battlefield six decades ago and that cross-strait peace and new possibilities will arrive after the swim,' he said. Careful to minimize the risks involved in the swim, the sponsors decided to conduct test swims June 17 and July 17 to allow the swimmers to get a better grasp of the conditions in the Taiwan Strait so that they can fully prepare themselves. In addition, the Kinmen county government will remove spear-like anti-landing barricades from the Shuangkou Beach before August to allow easier access for the swimmers. The devices -- built in the shallow waters of the beach during the Cold War era to obstruct landing craft from China -- will be replaced after the event, according to county government officials. Meanwhile, the workers assigned to Kinmen to clear landmines left over from the same period will be put to work cleaning up the Shuangkou Beach area the officials added. 