In Taiwan’s sleepy Kinmen islands, which have been described as the frontline of any potential conflict between Beijing and Taipei, the mood is far from warlike. From their sandy shores, the glistening skyscrapers of Xiamen, a Chinese coastal city just three miles away, are a winking reminder of the wealth and security that Beijing promises to deliver to Kinmen should Taiwan and China be unified.
But as politicians in Taipei debate the likelihood of armed conflict with Beijing, which wants to unify China and Taiwan and has not ruled out the use of force to do so, the Taiwanese citizens of Kinmen see a past and future that is inextricably linked with the superpower next door.
While the politicians consider the options for strengthening Taiwan’s defences, on Kinmen local officials are discussing a controversial plan to build a bridge to Xiamen that would see barriers to China reduced rather than enhanced.
The Kinmen archipelago has been governed from Taipei since the nationalist KMT party, defeated by the communists in China’s civil war, retreated to Taiwan in 1949. During the two Taiwan Strait crises of the 1950s, the islands were heavily shelled by the People’s Liberation Army.
But now the bombs have stopped falling and the artillery shells are turned into kitchen knives for tourists. The anti-landing barricades that dot the beaches facing China are rusting. “Our culture and history are already very connected. Kinmen people don’t feel threatened by China,” says Zhou Xiaoyun, who is running to be a local councillor for the Taiwan People’s party (TPP).
Founded in 2019, the TPP – which, like the KMT, advocates for cross-strait cultural and economic exchanges – is disrupting the presidential race in Taipei and gaining a foothold in Kinmen, which has traditionally been a KMT stronghold.
Kinmen’s economy is heavily reliant on tourism. Until 2019, nearly half of the tourists came from China. But that year, amid strained relations, China banned individual tourists from travelling to Taiwan. The following year, citing Covid-19 restrictions, Taiwan banned Chinese tour groups as well.
Both bans are still in place, although since 20 July the Chinese relatives of Taiwanese people’s mainland spouses have been allowed to visit via the ferry from Xiamen if they have a permit. Still, locals fear that their livelihoods are being hammered for the sake of distant politicking.
“It’s just impossible,” says Michael Szonyi, a professor of Chinese studies at Harvard University and author of a book about Kinmen, for the archipelago “to conceive of a prosperous future that doesn’t involve China”.
“Before 1949, Kinmen belonged to Fujian province [in China],” says Wu Jiajiang, chief executive of the local branch of the TPP. “After 1949, we became a war island and lost the benefits of trading with China.”
Wu is part of a cross-party coalition that is advocating for a “peace bridge” that would connect outlying Taiwanese islands with China. The idea is part of a broader proposal to turn Kinmen into a demilitarised zone – there are currently about 3,000 troops stationed on the islands – which supporters say would help to de-escalate tensions with China and boost the territory’s economy.
Locals complain that medicines and utilities on the islands are expensive, in part because it is difficult to import supplies.
But critics, including the ruling Democratic Progressive party (DPP), say that the bridge is a Trojan horse that would endanger national security. It could become “a road that lures wolves into the house”, said Hsu Chih-chieh, a DPP legislator, last year.
Li Hao-lun, the chief executive of the local DPP office, says that the bridge has unwelcome similarities to the one connecting Hong Kong and mainland China’s Shenzhen.
The bridge represents a feeling on Kinmen that close ties with China are inevitable. About 30% of the islands’ water is pumped in from Fujian’s Longhu Lake via a pipeline that opened in 2018. In 2014, Kinmen’s local government signed a contract with a Chinese energy company to provide liquefied natural gas, and there are discussions about connecting the energy grid with China’s.
“In most parts of the world, politicians are able to make decisions about how to source water without reference to global geopolitics,” says Szonyi. On Kinmen, “that’s impossible”.
The most obvious illustration of Kinmen’s links to China can be found at the ferry terminal. Twelve boats a day carry passengers across to Xiamen, where people travel to do business, see family and buy property. Before Covid, there were more than 30 daily crossings, and demand now far outstrips supply, with travellers jostling at the kiosks for last-minute spots that become available from the waiting list.
Chen Yujun is originally from China but married a Taiwanese man and had a daughter in Kinmen. On a recent trip to Xiamen, she complains, she had to wait more than two hours for a space on a ferry – a bridge would be “really convenient”. The strained relationship between Taipei and Beijing has no impact on regular people, she says.
Fewer than 70,000 of Taiwan’s 23 million-plus people live on Kinmen. But some analysts fear that annexing the islands could be a way for China to “salami-slice” its way to a wider takeover of Taiwan without provoking a strong reaction from the US, which has not ruled out responding militarily to support Taiwan in the event of an attack by Beijing.
Locals seem sanguine, but Szonyi notes that despite Kinmen’s cultural affiliation with China, “democracy is extremely important to them”.
That much is clear in public debates – the likes of which would be impossible in China – about whether building closer links with Beijing is desirable. But many people still feel buffeted by forces from Beijing and Taipei that are beyond their control. “If China wants to invade, they don’t need a bridge,” says Wu.
Additional research by Chi Hui Lin
