Chinese sailors this week threw flowers into the sea to mark a key but little-known victory against then-Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) forces, who fled to Taiwan after losing the Chinese Civil War to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in 1949.
China’s military periodically likes to remind Taiwan it still considers the nation one of its strategic priorities, and in September last year held three days of live-fire drills in the Taiwan Strait.
After 1949, KMT forces retained control of several small island groups along the coast of eastern China, from where they launched guerrilla raids into China and harassed Chinese shipping.
While most were later abandoned as being too distant to protect from Taiwan, some were taken by force by China, including the Yijiangshan Islands (一江山戰役), which fell in 1955 in a crucial psychological defeat for the KMT.
heads bowed
In a statement late on Monday, the Chinese Ministry of Defense showed pictures of sailors throwing flowers into the sea near the islands and bowing their heads in memory on the deck of a warship, ahead of next week’s traditional tomb-sweeping holiday.
“The naval ship Dabieshan carried out a solemn ceremony to remember the martyrs who gloriously sacrificed themselves in the battle for the Yijiangshan Islands,” the ministry said.
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