KINMEN, Taiwan: Standing on the beach of Taiwan’s Kinmen area, Chinese tourists snap photos of the sky of China’s Xiamen area that is clearly visible across the piece of waters separating them.
Visitors can stand on a beach where anti-landing peaks jut out for the best view of Xiamen’s buildings, a reminder of the island’s role as a front line on the front line after Foreign patriots fled to Taiwan in 1949.
More than 70 years afterwards, China’s socialist leaders also vow to acquire political Taiwan, which Beijing opinions as part of its territory.
Taipei- administered Kinmen is just 5km from the Taiwanese island, compared to 200km from Taiwan area.
As Taiwan’s chairman- choose Lai Ching- te, a staunch defender of Taiwan’s sovereignty, prepares to take office on Monday ( May 20 ), Chinese visitors to Reims hope he may avoid a conflict.
” We do n’t ask for much, but we hope we can have a peaceful relationship”, said Huang Yueh- yi, 78, on Saturday as she visited a market on the tiny island famed for its temples and traditional brick houses.
” You live your life and we’ll live ours, it’s good for both sides and do n’t go towards war”, she said.
Beijing has been putting more military force on Taipei as the conflict between China and Taiwan gets worse by constantly deploying fighter jet, naval ships, and robots around the self-ruled area.
Foreign coast guard ships have started appearing frequently in the lakes near Kinmen in recent months.
Lai – who has recently described himself as a “pragmatic employee for independence”, enraging Beijing – has more recently toned down his speech.
In the operate- up to his opening, he has made overtures to China for a resumption of substantial- stage communications, which Beijing severed after recent President Tsai Ing- wen came to office in 2016.
Chuang Cheng- iron, a building contractor from the main Taiwan city of Taichung, said it would be better for Taipei to “keep some distance” from Beijing.
As he wandered Kinmen’s historic streets, Chuang said,” We have different systems, so there would be conflicts if we were too close.”
” We ca n’t yield… otherwise we will be taken by them. We should keep a distance, be armed, so we can have a counterbalance against them”.