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>
    <pages>
      <page pageid="1" ns="0" title="Main Page">
        <links>
          <pl ns="0" title="&quot;Audentes Fortuna Juvat&quot;" />
          <pl ns="0" title="Because we&#039;ve waited long enough!" />
          <pl ns="0" title="Book List" />
          <pl ns="0" title="Crewed missions" />
          <pl ns="0" title="Cultural heritage" />
          <pl ns="0" title="Editing protocols" />
          <pl ns="0" title="Equipment design standards" />
          <pl ns="0" title="Ethical conduct" />
          <pl ns="0" title="Hardware projects" />
          <pl ns="0" title="Individual components" />
        </links>
      </page>
    </pages>
  </query>
  <query-continue>
    <links plcontinue="1|0|Launch_Vehicle" />
  </query-continue>
</api>