latest on the compatriots of taiwan bloomberg.com
absolute peace and prosperity beckons, on the one hand, and utter peace and perhaps prosperity winks, otoh :0)
Taiwan's Kinmen Veers Toward China 29 Years After Cease-Fire
By Yu-huay Sun
Sept. 27 (Bloomberg) -- Artillery shells from China have defined Wu Tseng-dong's life. He ducked them for 20 years and earned a living making knives from their casings. Now he looks forward to meeting the enemy who launched them.
``Times have changed,' says Wu, 50, who lives on Kinmen, the island once known as Quemoy that was Taiwan's military front line against China for almost six decades. ``China was communist before but now they're capitalist.'
Starved of the Taiwanese soldiers and visiting relatives who once kept Kinmen's economy humming, the islanders are turning to their closest neighbor for future prosperity. Two-thirds of the 70,000 residents support buying electricity from China -- just 10 kilometers (6 miles) away -- and forming a special economic zone to forge closer ties, a survey by the county government shows.
Such views are anathema for Taiwan's pro-independence Democratic Progressive Party government, which faces a presidential election in March.
``We should return to the motherland so we can have more business,' says Hsu Chi-sung, 48, a former artilleryman and Kinmen native, who now shows Chinese and Taiwanese tour groups -- separately -- around the island.
``Don't forget, vote for Ma,' he tells a Taiwanese tourist, referring to Ma Ying-jeou, the opposition Kuomintang candidate, after visiting an underground pier housing naval boats.
The Kuomintang fled to Taiwan in 1949 after losing a civil war to Mao Zedong's communists. China's shelling of Kinmen led to threats of nuclear retaliation by the U.S. in the 1950s.
China still claims Taiwan as part of its territory. While the Kuomintang favors a negotiated peace, the Democratic Progressive Party pursues a separate identity for Taiwan and emphasizes China's military threat.
Cease-Fire
Kinmen residents aren't buying the warnings. After bombarding the island every second day for 20 years, China declared a cease-fire in 1978. The military gave way to civilian rule on Kinmen 15 years ago.
These days Wu, who forges each shell casing into as many as 80 knives, relies on stocks hoarded over the years.
Power shortages are now a bigger threat than artillery. Kinmen risks running short of electricity in two years as the local liquor-maker expands, says Tu King-chun, director for state-run Taiwan Power Co. on the island. A 10-kilometer cable to China would ease supply concerns, Tu says.
``Technically there's no problem,' he says, adding that political differences must be solved first.
`Recover the Motherland'
Visitors don't lack reminders Taiwan and China remain at war. Watchtowers stand in some intersections and anti-paratrooper columns dot farmland. Signs saying: ``Don't forget we have an obligation to recover the motherland' adorn some buildings.
Since 2001, China and Taiwan have permitted direct shipping for trade and tourism between Kinmen and China's Fujian province. Tourists may exchange Chinese yuan on the island.
Still, Taiwan restricts the number of Chinese visitors to 600 a day and only Fujianese may apply.
China enforces its own curbs. Duan Xianqing, a former soldier from Jinjiang, says approval of his visa took two months.
``The investigations went back to eight generations of my ancestors,' Duan says on his first trip outside mainland China. ``The people on this tour all have clean records politically and are excellent professionally.'
As a soldier, Duan spent time watching Kinmen through binoculars.
``Now I'm seeing it in person,' he says. ``I toured big streets and small alleys and was quite impressed.'
Hurt Feelings
On Duan's itinerary: a radio station that broadcast propaganda and the wreckage of a communist command center during the 1949 battle that halted their advance to Taiwan island. Museums that celebrate Kuomintang victories were omitted.
``We don't take mainland tourists there because it hurts their feelings,' says tour guide Hsu, who bought a house in Xiamen, the nearest Chinese city, with his profits.
At the peak of hostilities, Taiwan stationed 120,000 soldiers on the 150 square-kilometer island, says Lee Juh-feng, the county commissioner. That number has dropped to about 6,000, according to Taiwan's Defense Ministry.
Five years ago, relatives visiting soldiers were the main source of income for Chang I-wen, who owns a 30-room hotel in downtown Kinmen. Now she is betting on Chinese tourists, who account for a third of customers.
``If all mainland Chinese are allowed to come, then we'll be full,' says Chang, 56. ``We won't need tourists from Taiwan.'
Service industries accounted for 54 percent of Kinmen's economy in 2005, compared with 64 percent in 1996, county figures show.
`Gifts From Mao'
The Democratic Progressive Party needs every vote it can get. Its presidential candidate, Frank Hsieh, trails the Kuomintang's Ma by 24 percentage points, according to a Sept. 22 survey of 723 adults by the United Daily News newspaper.
Chinese electricity and an economic zone aren't the only items on islanders' wish list. More than 80 percent want a bridge to Xiamen, the county survey of 1,158 residents found in April. The margin of error was 3 percentage points.
Third-generation knife-maker Wu is honing his tourist patter. Taiwanese soldiers wanting souvenirs used to bring him old Chinese ordnance, he says. Now he tells mainlanders: ``Bomb shells were gifts from Mao Zedong.'
To contact the reporter on the story: Yu-huay Sun in Taipei ysun7@bloomberg.net .
Last Updated: September 26, 2007 17:49 EDT |
