As China's leader Xi Jinping ordered missiles to be fired over Taiwan this month, his military was also making a statement, albeit a far less dangerous one, off China's east coast.
The main island of Kinmen, along with a smaller "Little Kinmen", form the closest outpost of Taiwanese controlled territory to China, with just a few kilometres separating the two sides.
As many of the 70,000 or so residents slept, a Chinese military drone flew across the water over Kinmen.
In response, some of the Taiwanese soldiers stationed there fired warning flares to drive it away.
It was hardly equivalent to the rocket fire near another far-flung outpost, the Matsu islands, or the missiles near Taiwan itself, but it briefly disrupted the relaxed atmosphere that had long prevailed in this unlikely frontline.
And for some, it brought back memories of a time when the Kinmen islands were caught in an active battle between Chinese Communists and the Nationalists based in Taiwan.
Kinmen's memories of a previous Chinese bombardment
Local Kinmen resident Cai Tianding, a convenor of a military history enthusiast group, said his parents lived through a time when Kinmen was a hotly contested frontline.
During the 1950s, the island was swarming with 100,000 troops fighting for Chiang Kai-shek's Republic of China against the Communists.
Shelling over the water was a reality of life on the islands for almost 20 years, as China attempted to bring the Nationalists and the people of Kinmen into submission.
On deserted beaches along both islands, small remnants of this period of history remain.
Lines of rusty anti-landing stakes still stick out of the sand, pointed directly at China over the skyline, while concrete bomb shelters are dotted all over the island.
But conflict with the neighbours in Xiamen, about 3 kilometres away at the nearest point, has seemed less likely over the years.
Kinmen even opened trade links with China in the 2000s and has been strengthening its economic relations ever since.
Now, as tensions rise again after US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's visit to Taiwan, few think Kinmen will be targeted.
"I don't think people here were too worried, we couldn't see the drone," Mr Cai said.
"Kinmen has lost its strategic importance, so if the Chinese Communists really do attack, I think they would directly target Taiwan, not here."
It's a view widely shared on Kinmen, including by the islands' sole representative to Taiwan's parliament, the Legislative Yuan.
"If there is a war, most people here think the Chinese government will attack Taipei first instead of going through Kinmen like in the past," local member Jessica Yu-jen Chen said.
"We feel we're safer here than in Taipei."
The strategy behind Kinmen islands' push for closer economic ties
The close proximity to China means despite the presence of up to 4,000 troops, few believe Taiwan's military could defend the islands if Beijing tried to take them.
And that seems to add a layer of reassurance to locals, who have largely embraced closer economic ties with the Chinese city across the water, that is until the COVID-19 pandemic put a stop to it.
More than 40 ferries a day used to crisscross the water and special regulations allowed Kinmen residents easy access to Xiamen.
Now the ferry terminal is closed.
When the ABC last visited in 2019 just months before the pandemic began, Chinese and Taiwanese flags were hoisted side by side along a commercial street popular with tourists including many from China.
Now they've been removed due to perceptions among some visitors from Taiwan that they sent a disloyal message, according to multiple Kinmen locals.
"The feelings here are quite different to [the feelings on] Taiwan island," Ms Chen said.
She's a strong proponent of building a bridge to link Kinmen to Xiamen, a proposal that was given serious consideration the last time her political party, the KMT held power at the national level in Taiwan.
The idea has been shelved though since the much more China-wary Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) party took the presidential office in 2016.
Recently the local Kinmen County Council again publicly pushed for the bridge, with the council head Wang Tzu Pao telling the ABC that the more economic interests Xiamen residents have in Kinmen, the less likely the chances of conflict in future.
But some residents on Kinmen aren't so relaxed about China's increasingly assertive rhetoric about taking control of Taiwan.
Does the future of the Kinmen Islands hang in the balance?
A taxi driver told the ABC he was "very nervous" about what the Chinese forces on the other side thought of Ms Pelosi's visit Taiwan.
And a police officer said M-16 assault rifles had recently been issued on the island with the intention of deploying police to support troops if conflict broke out.
"If there is heavy pressure internally in China, they would be bound to take something or occupy somewhere to demonstrate that their threats aren't just rhetoric," said Yorke Wu, a bed and breakfast owner and former local political campaign adviser.
"It's quite possible that Kinmen and the Matsu islands could be taken."
Forty years ago when the skyscrapers of Xiamen started to rise across the water, many locals wondered if they were part of a Communist facade to project strength.
Now the cranes are building something different, a massive new international airport for Xiamen on an island directly opposite Kinmen.
Large sand dredging boats work non-stop in the waters just off Kinmen to reclaim land for the project, narrowing the physical distance ever so slightly, as the political gulf between Beijing and Taipei widens.
"I hope my government could communicate more and show a more friendly attitude," Ms Yu-jen Chen said, referring to the DPP administration of President Tsai Ing-wen.
"And also at the same time, I also hope the Chinese government could show a more friendly attitude," she said.
"We don't like the ways things are now."
In the past week, China released its first white paper on Taiwan in more than 20 years, removing a previous pledge not to send troops or officials post-unification, in a 'One Country, Two Systems' offer similar to what Beijing gave Hong Kong.
Given Hong Kong's entire political opposition was either arrested, exiled and/or banned from contesting elections, the revised language is being viewed as a sign of growing confidence and aggression from Beijing.
"In my view, we are just pawns in all this. What can we change? Mr Wu asks.
He ponders whether Kinmen will lose its special attributes if it becomes just another piece of the People's Republic, or if it will have an economic boom.
No doubt others are wondering the same thing all over the island.
