You are looking at the HTML representation of the XML format.
HTML is good for debugging, but is unsuitable for application use.
Specify the format parameter to change the output format.
To see the non HTML representation of the XML format, set format=xml.
See the complete documentation, or API help for more information. 
<?xml version="1.0"?>
<api>
  <query-continue>
    <links plcontinue="1|0|Technical_Notes" />
  </query-continue>
  <query>
    <pages>
      <page pageid="1" ns="0" title="Main Page">
        <links>
          <pl ns="0" title="Accesory Domain Gains and Losses" />
          <pl ns="0" title="Dephosphorylation on unusual amino acids" />
          <pl ns="0" title="Drug Targeting Phosphatases" />
          <pl ns="0" title="Human Protein Phosphatase Pseudogene" />
          <pl ns="0" title="Introduction to Phosphatases" />
          <pl ns="0" title="Phosphatase Glossary" />
          <pl ns="0" title="Phosphatase classification" />
          <pl ns="0" title="Phosphatases and Diseases" />
          <pl ns="0" title="Pseudophosphatases" />
          <pl ns="0" title="Sandbox" />
        </links>
      </page>
    </pages>
  </query>
</api>