Not far from the rusted-out tanks and anti-landing spikes that litter the beaches of Kinmen County, 92-year-old veteran Yang Yin-shih reads his newspaper in the shadow of the enemy that regularly adorns its pages.
Several kilometers from Yang’s home on the tiny Kinmen Islands is China, where he can see for himself the military might that threatens his homeland.
Beijing last week staged unprecedented war games around the self-ruled democracy in a hailstorm of rage after US House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi visited Taiwan’s capital.
Photo: Sam Yeh, AFP
As Chinese vessels dotted the Taiwan Strait and missiles plunged into the waters surrounding the islands, a real risk of conflict reared its head.
However, Yang was unfazed by the latest beating of Beijing’s war drum, despite the islets of 140,000 people sitting just 3.2km across from the Chinese city of Xiamen.
“I am not nervous. Kinmen is calm and quiet,” he said, cracking a smile between his morning routines of watching television and strolling through his neighborhood.
Yang witnessed the deadliest bombardment of Taiwan’s closest islands to China more than 60 years ago, and said the latest drills are small in comparison.
In 1958, China fired more than 1 million shells at Kinmen and nearby communities, killing 618 people and injuring more than 2,600.
“The bombardment [in 1958] was more nerve-racking. It was more tense back then,” he said. “It’s hard to tell the situation — whether [China] intends to intimidate or has plans to attack.”
Despite the current tensions and bitter memories of conflict, many Kinmen residents hold friendly views of China after years of close trade and travel links across the short stretch of sea.
Taiwan suspended ferry services to Chinese cities because of COVID-19, but Yang Shang-lin, a 34-year-old in the tourism sector, said he hopes Kinmen will reopen to Chinese visitors soon despite Beijing’s sabre-rattling.
“Taiwan is more free and we don’t want to be ruled by China,” he said. “But we have to make ends meet.”
Yet there is a divide on the islands, with some Kinmen residents ready to defend their homeland against Chinese aggression.
“Should there be a war I will fight,” said Huang Zi-chen, a 27-year-old civil engineer.
“I was born in this country and I have to go through thick and thin when my country needs me,” he said during a break from supervising a construction project.
While the Kinmen Islands once served as a natural barrier to invasion, Beijing could now easily bypass them with its superpower armory of missiles, jets and aircraft carriers.
Car rental worker Yang said that “the disparity in military strength is far too great,” leaving Kinmen with little hope of beating back a Chinese onslaught, especially given its size and proximity to China.
“I would not want to go to the battlefield since there would be no chance of winning,” he said.
James Chen, an 18-year-old student who is one of the few of his age not to have left Kinmen to study or work in a city on Taiwan’s mainland, said fighting should be left to professional soldiers.
“I think there is a 50-50 chance of China using force against Taiwan, but we have no control over China, we should just be ourselves,” he said.
That means life is very much carrying on as normal in Kinmen.
Residents are not rushing for the bunkers to hide, or to supermarkets to stockpile, but rather singing karaoke at home and dining out with friends.
As 73-year-old Cheng Hsiu-hua played card games with her neighbors outside their homes in one of Kinmen’s quiet streets, she brushed off the possibility of Chinese troops one day landing on their shores.
“No, we are not afraid. They [Chinese troops] won’t come over here,” she said.
If Beijing did bring arms to bear, the elderly Yang says he would rather accept peaceful unification than conflict.
So he offers a message to the Chinese government, one learned from the legacy of the bombardment he saw with his own eyes decades ago.
“Don’t go to war. War brings suffering and misery,” he said. “There will be death on both sides.”
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