Through the loophole of the former Taiwanese army bunker now occupied by the Hujingtou War Museum, on the island of Kinmen, the landscape does not necessarily look the same way since China has raised several notches its threat against this autonomous and democratic Asian territory.
It is that, on this piece of land, one of the components of the Taiwanese archipelago, mainland China cannot be closer.
A sea channel of barely five kilometers separates the island of “Little Kinmen” from the Chinese and communist city of Xiamen, in an atypical geographical proximity between the two Chinese entities, politically divided since the end of the civil war of 1949 and which now contemplate themselves with a certain concern.
Kinmen – which means “golden gate” – could become China’s symbolic gateway to Taiwanese territory, the first act of a war aimed at then claiming the rest of Taiwanese territory to bring it under its control. from Beijing. A scenario that would thus make this little piece of land and its 120,000 inhabitants walk in the sad footsteps of Crimea, in Ukraine, occupied by Russia since 2014 and which ultimately will have been the first milestone in a war pushed even further by the Kremlin for six months.
“Kinmen is a good place to live,” says Lu Jing Xiang, owner of a small oyster noodle restaurant in Jincheng Township, on the island in the Formosa Strait where fishing and sorghum farming meet. the basis of a dangerously strong local alcohol, over 50 degrees, which makes the reputation of the place. “If there is a war here, there will certainly be no winners. China is not going to attack us. She can’t take the guns, the knives and her planes to attack us. We are made of the same blood. »
On Little Kinmen Beach, just below the museum, the prospect of war is still somewhat kept alive by the presence of anti-landing metal structures pointing since the 1950s towards mainland China. Vestiges of tensions that many here on the island are struggling to bring to the present, despite the increasingly martial tone of Xi Jinping’s regime and the Chinese military maneuvers that have intensified near Taiwan in recent years.
“Kinmen and China have lived in harmony for many years and no one here believes that this balance will change, especially the young people, who have no experience of war”, indicates, over a coffee and a a bowl of peanut candy, local politician Chen Tsang Chiang, a member of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP). The openly sovereignist and pro-Taiwanese formation is currently in power in Taipei.
In the summer of 1958, Kinmen experienced the first steps of the second crisis of the Formosa Strait when it found itself under the bombs of Maoist China, which then sought to recover Taiwan starting with this piece of land. But the communist regime has above all measured the seriousness of American support for Taiwan during this crisis, which lasted only a brief summer and which pushed the Chinese back to their lands.
“In 1996, a Chinese missile flew over the island,” recalls Xu Jin Ben, owner of a small alcohol and tobacco business in Little Kinmen. “We are used to seeing the tension go up and then see it go down again. It doesn’t worry us anymore. »
All Chinese
Arriving in this atypical territory, just a few hours are enough to grasp a proximity with mainland China which is much more than geographical.
“In Kinmen, no one feels the approach of a war and no one cares,” summarizes the young Cai Cheng Lin, owner of a car garage. “Kinmen is part of China. We all immigrated here, recently or through our ancestors, from mainland China. My passport is Taiwanese, but we are Chinese. We share the same ancestors and the same culture. »
Kinmen is indeed part of the province of Fujian, divided since 1949 between mainland China and this part of Taiwan which lives peacefully, far from the torments of the capital, about an hour by plane from Taipei.
The language of this region is spoken there on both sides of a border imposed by history and the exile of the government of Chiang Kai-shek, but which the daily life of the inhabitants of the area has necessarily made a little more permeable. Just as it happened in the Crimea, moreover, between Russians and Ukrainians.
“Of my three brothers, two have married women who come from China, adds Mrs.me Linen. And their children are growing up between our two realities, without problems or tensions. China has always been peaceful with the part of Taiwan that we represent. If a war is going to happen, it will be because of politics, not because of the people who live here. »
“From an economic point of view, the people of Kinmen are very dependent on China,” notes Chen Tsang Chiang, the rare PDP politician to have been elected on this island, which is politically dominated by the conservative and pro-Chinese party, the Kuomintang (KMT ). “Some 7,000 Chinese are married to people from Kinmen. Many people here have opened businesses in China after the appearance of the three links. »
The three links? In 1991, China and Taiwan agreed to move mail, people and goods between Kinmen and the neighboring Chinese province. Links temporarily suspended since the start of the pandemic.
“More than 30,000 houses in Xiamen are owned by people from Kinmen,” said Chuang Shi Ping, a math teacher we met near the former Mashan military observation post on the eastern end of the island. “I have two. Kinmen and Xiamen form a single region. A war here would be absurd. »
A fourth link emerged in 2018, with the construction of a 16-kilometre pipeline that sends drinking water from Jinjiang, China, to Kinmen to stabilize its supply. The symbolic connection between the two entities, based on a 30-year contract, was underlined in broad strokes by Xi Jinping in order to feed his annexationist propaganda.
fear of a bridge
Discussions initiated in the 1990s to also bring in gas and electricity have still not been successful. Just like the idea of a highway bridge between Xiamen and Kinmen, whose vague plans were shelved by the openly sovereignist DPP government after it came to power in 2016, the axis of communication now being perceived as a fault in the Taiwanese defense system, which would make it easier for Chinese tanks and military equipment to enter its territory.
” The bridge ? Me, I want to see it”, drops the old Ke Rong Yi, 70 years old, crossed on the way to the airport. “Taiwan and China must unite. This is what will make us stronger and more confident in the future. Our relationship has deteriorated over the past few years because of the coming to power of the PDP, which has made everything worse. But we must also learn from Chinese democracy, because that of Taiwan is very corrupt. And the only thing that sets us apart is being able to publicly blame our elected officials, which the Chinese cannot do. »
This call for reunification, Chen Tsang Chiang says he hears it regularly, but he believes that the trend remains on the margins on this island, which is nevertheless very close to China.
“Kinmen gets on well with China, but she doesn’t want to be returned to China. We have experienced democracy here, free education, freedom of speech, and we certainly don’t want to go back,” assures the politician. He even says that a referendum, if held today, would enshrine the status quo position between the two Chinese political entities. “It is therefore by force that China will have to recover us, which remains unlikely. We have nothing here, no wealth, no strategic position… Just alcohol. »
“China has a strong urge to invade us and a plan to do so, for sure. But due to international pressure, she is not going to do it, ”says political activist Weng Ming Zhi, who has become a representative of the Taiwanese legislature in Kinmen. “China positions itself on the international scene as a peaceful country. Of course, she’s 10 times stronger than us, and our defense is weak. But she must also consider what the world would think of her after the outbreak of a war against Taiwan. It would ruin his image. »
An image barely tarnished on the island of Kinmen by the agitation of Beijing which wishes to resume Asian democracy. “China is like a bad neighbor who doesn’t behave well and who makes too much noise,” summarizes Lu Jing Xiang, while preparing to close his restaurant. “Faced with this, we have the choice to suffer or to leave. And inevitably, on an island, our choices are even more limited, since to leave, we would ultimately have to throw ourselves into the water. »
With the collaboration of Alisa Chih Yun Chen
This report was financed thanks to the support of the Transat International Journalism Fund.The duty.