What Does It Mean To Be From Taiwan’s Outlying Kinmen Islands?

TaiwanPlus News

People from Kinmen have historically been on the frontline of conflict in the Taiwan Strait. But the islands’ geographic proximity and economic ties to China make the issue of identity a complicated one for the people that live there.

Transcript

00:00In 1958, after the August 23rd bombing,

00:03all the soldiers wore helmets.

00:07Wang Ling, a tour guide, says soldiers used to roam these streets

00:11on Taiwan's outlying Kinmen Islands,

00:13which are governed by Taiwan but are much closer to China,

00:16and used to be the front line of battle between the two sides.

00:20For people living here, still caught in the middle of cross-strait tensions,

00:24identity can be a complicated question.

00:27Wang was raised in Kinmen and now owns several businesses here.

00:31But when she was a teenager, she identified as Chinese.

00:35That changed only after she moved to the main island of Taiwan for college.

00:51Wang says depending on their background and age,

00:54each person on Kinmen may have a different answer to the question,

00:57where are you from?

00:59Opinions vary even along this one street.

01:05Yan Jiren, who owns a Chinese medicine shop,

01:08says his ancestors came to Kinmen from southeast China,

01:11and he goes back often to see family.

01:13When asked where he's from, he says,

01:24So both sides are from Kinmen.

01:31The Republic of China is Taiwan's official name.

01:34It once governed mainland China before its troops were defeated

01:37by the communists in the Chinese Civil War,

01:39and it was forced to flee to Taiwan in 1949.

01:42On the mainland, the communists then established the People's Republic of China.

01:47But at the time, the ROC still considered itself

01:49the legitimate government of both Taiwan and mainland China.

01:53And nowadays, though some in Taiwan still believe this idea,

01:56others reject it.

01:57But Yan's 30-year-old daughter gives a different answer.

02:06But she wouldn't often say she's from Taiwan,

02:08and that's relatively common here.

02:11Just steps away from the medicine shop,

02:13another business owner gives yet a different answer.

02:15My wife is from Taiwan, and I'm from Fujian.

02:21Yet another complication.

02:23Kinmen residents hold Taiwanese ID cards,

02:25but on them it says they're from Fujian province.

02:28This refers to the ROC's Fujian province, not mainland China's.

02:32Taiwan and Fujian used to be considered separate provinces within the ROC.

02:42On another part of these islands,

02:44Li Kaizhen, an oyster farmer and village head,

02:46would say he's from Kinmen.

02:48But he says he could also consider himself Chinese,

02:51because his ancestors came from China.

03:09All these different identities exist side by side on this small island,

03:13illustrating the complexities of this place,

03:15both friendly with China and Taiwan's first line of defense against it.

03:20From where I'm standing in Kinmen, China's only a few kilometers away.

03:24Across the water is the Chinese city of Xiamen.

03:27Here is also a reminder of Kinmen's role as a front line between Taiwan and China.

03:32Until the 1990s, these speakers broadcast propaganda over to China.

03:44People here recognize that Kinmen is in a unique position,

03:47like this business owner, who identifies as Taiwanese.

04:14Kinmen is connected to Xiamen by ferry, just a 30-minute ride.

04:18Kinmen residents go to China often, and some own property there.

04:22In 2018, Kinmen even started importing water from China.

04:26But a sociologist who studies Kinmen

04:28warns of the potential consequences of these links.

04:43China has vowed unification with Taiwan, and threatened to take it by force.

04:47But although some here may consider themselves Chinese,

04:51one Kinmen County counselor says many residents still want democracy.

05:13It's under a democracy that all these different opinions exist in Kinmen.

05:43And where Chinese flags are sometimes hung alongside Taiwanese ones.

05:48It's also a place where Chinese people live alongside Taiwanese.

05:51Irene Zhao, who's from China, says it's a great place for her and her husband,

05:55who's Taiwanese, to live and raise their kids.

06:13Now, people here, like Wang and her husband, who's from Beijing,

06:17grapple with how to articulate the complexities of living on Kinmen to their children.

06:39In their own ways, people here on this small island group

06:43are doing their best to make sense of their position between Taiwan and China.

06:48Ryan Wu, Pichi Zhuang, and Keynes Cuaranta for Taiwan Plus.

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