Soldiers on the outlying island of Kinmen regularly conduct military drills repelling amphibious attacks by Chinese troops, but the problem may soon be free-for-all landings of Chinese shoppers and businesspeople.
The war games are a reminder that this place is the front line between China and Taiwan, where beaches were mined and shots traded up until as recently as the mid-1970s, and that Beijing has not renounced the use of force against Taiwan.
“If China attacks Taiwan, we will be the first to die,” 29-year-old Kinmen bar owner Sam Chen said, as he watched recent live-fire drills with fellow residents. “Of course I am worried about war, but I also hope Kinmen can build closer ties with China. It is easier for us young people to make money.”
Photo: Pichi Chuang, Reuters
There lies the rub. Many in Taiwan, especially a newly politicized youth movement, are angry about perceived economic dominance by China, likening it to an invasion all of its own.
However, many also see the benefits of closer trade.
Rustic Kinmen, with a population of less than 129,000, is a half-hour ferry ride to China, but it takes an hour to fly to major Taiwanese cities. Just off its shores, glass-walled high-rises wink seductively from the booming port city of Xiamen in one of China’s most prosperous provinces.
Kinmen is eyeing closer commercial ties with China. It wants to pipe water from Xiamen and has plans to build a bridge and set up a glittering free trade zone with the city.
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) government also hopes greater economic integration will bolster Taiwan’s economy, but the party is expected to lose to the Democratic Progressive Party in the presidential and legislative elections on Jan. 16.
China is seeking unification with Taiwan under its “one country, two systems” formula by which Hong Kong, a former British colony, returned to Chinese rule in 1997 — and Kinmen is a test for China’s ambitions to recover Taiwan through soft power. If Beijing cannot win over tiny Kinmen, what chance does it have to convince the other 23 million on the main island of Taiwan?
Kinmen’s growth is supported by Chinese visitors drawn to reminders of war, such as weather-beaten pillboxes, the beach defenses, bullet holes in buildings and graffiti proclaiming: “Eliminate the communists.”
It is also the site of a brand new, six-story, duty-free shopping mall, billed as the largest in Asia.
“In Kinmen, we can do what Taiwan can’t, what Taiwan doesn’t dare do,” said Kinmen County Commissioner Chen Fu-hai (陳福海), who wants water, electricity and natural gas to be pumped from Xiamen.
Chen has a three-year roadmap to build a “special economic zone” in which Kinmen can share Xiamen’s economy. The proposal is being promoted by a pro-Beijing, non-profit organization in Taiwan with close ties to the Chinese Communist Party. It wants Kinmen to decide on the free-trade zone issue by referendum.
However, it would still have to get the nod from the central government before a referendum can take place.
“As long as it’s good for Taiwan’s economy and meets the needs of its people, Xiamen will be happy to make it happen,” Chinese state media quoted a Xiamen government official as saying last year.
The free-trade zone is controversial because it would allow unfettered Chinese investment on to Kinmen — something that is strictly controlled in Taiwan as a whole.
“Kinmen residents are really worried about China,” said Andy Yang, a KMT politician who supports the free-trade zone idea. “But put that aside: do we want better economic development or not?”
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
UNAWARE: Many people sit for long hours every day and eat unhealthy foods, putting them at greater risk of developing one of the ‘three highs,’ an expert said More than 30 percent of adults aged 40 or older who underwent a government-funded health exam were unaware they had at least one of the “three highs” — high blood pressure, high blood lipids or high blood sugar, the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) said yesterday. Among adults aged 40 or older who said they did not have any of the “three highs” before taking the health exam, more than 30 percent were found to have at least one of them, Adult Preventive Health Examination Service data from 2022 showed. People with long-term medical conditions such as hypertension or diabetes usually do not
POLICE INVESTIGATING: A man said he quit his job as a nurse at Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital as he had been ‘disgusted’ by the behavior of his colleagues A man yesterday morning wrote online that he had witnessed nurses taking photographs and touching anesthetized patients inappropriately in Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital’s operating theaters. The man surnamed Huang (黃) wrote on the Professional Technology Temple bulletin board that during his six-month stint as a nurse at the hospital, he had seen nurses taking pictures of patients, including of their private parts, after they were anesthetized. Some nurses had also touched patients inappropriately and children were among those photographed, he said. Huang said this “disgusted” him “so much” that “he felt the need to reveal these unethical acts in the operating theater
Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching