Written by Sarah Wu
KINMEN, Taiwan (Reuters) – Thirty years ago, this southern Chinese city was as low-lying as Taiwan’s Kinmen Island, Chen Tsang-chen points to the skyscrapers of Xiamen across the ocean from his office. I remembered that.
In the decades that followed, the 68-year-old former politician watched Kinmen’s forests, sorghum fields and villages change little while a metropolis of 5 million people rose to prominence.
The Taiwanese-controlled island, about the size of Washington, D.C. and just three miles off the coast of China, needs a bridge to Xiamen, a “connection to its economic lifeline.” Chen says.
But the proposed bridge has become a flashpoint ahead of Taiwan’s Jan. 13 presidential and parliamentary elections, with leaders of major political parties gathering on the island to speak out about its construction and national security. ing. This gets to the heart of the most important question voters will answer at the polls: How should Taiwan relate to China?
Kinmen Island is a stronghold of Taiwan’s main opposition party, the Kuomintang Party (KMT), which traditionally favors close ties with China. Like many Kinmen residents, Mr. Chen believes that China is the key to development and argues that residents should be able to vote on the proposed bridge.
“Must this tiny 151 square kilometer island, home to tens of thousands of people, forever remain a chess piece for both sides of the Strait?” he asked. “Don’t we have a voice?”
For Taiwan, Kinmen Island is the front line of democracy and the closest place to China where voters cast their votes. For China, Kinmen Island is a litmus test of Beijing’s ability to keep Taiwan under Beijing’s control and a prime target of its charm offensive.
In September, China announced its most comprehensive blueprint to date for cross-strait integration, featuring stronger transport, energy and business links between Xiamen and Kinmen. Chinese officials announced in November that construction had begun on the Xiamen side of the bridge, which connects to Kinmen city.
Nationalist Party presidential candidate Hou Yuxi said he would build “the most important symbol of peace on both sides of the Strait” if residents wanted it, and vowed to hold a referendum on the bridge.
The ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DP) government, through the Taiwan Mainland Affairs Committee, dismissed the Chinese government’s proposal as “wishful thinking” and a futile attempt to lure Taiwanese people with economic incentives. The council called the bridge “a Trojan horse that poses an enormous risk to national security.”
China, which claims Taiwan as its own territory despite Taipei’s opposition, says “unification” with Taiwan is inevitable and has threatened to use force to bring democratically ruled Taiwan under its control. never abandoned.
The Chinese government has framed the election as a choice between peace and war, urging Taiwanese voters to make the “right choice” to promote cross-Strait relations.
China has taken particular exception to the Democratic Progressive Party’s presidential candidate, Vice Chairman Lai Qingde, as a dangerous separatist.
Lai maintained the status quo and said only Taiwanese people could decide on the future.
The KMT also says that although it strongly opposes independence, Taiwan’s 23 million people should decide their own future.
Is the bridge too far?
Some 20 Kinmen residents interviewed for this article hailed the bridge as a sign that Taipei and Beijing could work together, a driver for growth or a means of travel unconstrained by ferry schedules. There are some too.
Other voters, particularly younger voters, worry that this will lead to unwanted investment and erode the political freedoms Kinmen enjoys as part of Taiwan. Many in this growing group identify as Taiwanese rather than Chinese, and want to promote Kinmen culture and reduce dependence on China for economic opportunities.
One of them is Wen Yuwen, 34, a bookstore owner. She is among the 22% of Kinmen residents who voted for Democratic Progressive Party candidate and current President Tsai Ing-wen in 2020, nearly triple the Democratic Progressive Party’s support in the 2012 poll.
On the wall of Wen’s bookstore is a poster that reads, “Young people, please return to your hometown to vote for a better future.” The bookshelf is lined with books related to society and politics, such as “What is democracy?”
As is common among young people on Kinmen Island, Mr. Wen studied and worked on mainland Taiwan before returning home. She said she hopes her book and events will spark discussion about public issues.
When the ferry stopped during the pandemic, “we could certainly feel very clearly that we were two different countries,” Wen said.
Before that, residents took ferries to Xiamen for entertainment and grocery shopping, where many people have real estate, businesses, and families.
Wen said this frequency is natural given their geographic proximity and historical ties, but he worries that the bridge would further blur the lines between the two countries’ political systems. he said.
“If Kinmen Island were to move even closer to mainland China, would this still be a place I would want to live?” she asked. “Why does it seem like there is only one development possibility?”
Residents of Kinmen Island once made a living from the services of the tens of thousands of Taiwanese soldiers stationed here until martial law was lifted in 1992. In 2001, his 30-minute ferry service between Kinmen and Xiamen opened, and the island began to transform into an island magnet. For Chinese tourists.
From Kinmen’s north coast, cranes can be seen building a huge airport to serve Xiamen. Kinmen Vice Mayor Li Wenliang said the most likely bridge route would be to connect to Xiamen via the airport. He estimated that the extension would be up to eight kilometers and cost more than $322 million (NT$10 billion).
Prospects for increased cross-strait integration will see Taiwanese investors buy most of the 118 units in Kinmen’s first serviced apartment building, said Henry Lee, general manager of Chow Mau Realty, which is overseeing the sale. It is said that it became like this.
Advertisements for the building, which opened a year after Chinese President Xi Jinping laid out his vision of “integrated development” in 2019, show that real estate prices are higher in Xiamen than in Kinmen.
“If people can get in, money can get in,” says one brochure with a map of the proposed bridge.
(Reporting by Sarah Wu; Additional reporting by Fabian Hamcher and Ann Wang; Editing by Antoni Slodkowski and Michael Perry)