AFP
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NOS News•today, 18:31
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Sjoerd den Daas
correspondent China
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Sjoerd den Daas
correspondent China
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On the third day of the military exercise around Taiwan, the People’s Liberation Army warplanes again crossed the centerline between China and Taiwan. Warships conducted exercises near the coast of the democratically governed island. Beijing also sent drones to several Taiwanese islands off the coast of China.
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Tourists crowd the Peace Pier in the Chinese coastal city of Xiamen. The Golden Eagle Six, a tour boat, is about to set sail. It is one of the few options Chinese tourists have these days to see a little more of Taiwan. Since the start of the pandemic, ferries to nearby Taiwanese islands like Kinmen have been canceled.
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“I’ve never been there,” says one of the waiters, laughing. “But that’s going to change, because we’ll be reunited with Taiwan soon.” When asked what he thinks of the increasing tensions, the man is pulled away by his wife. Once on the boat, people are more talkative. “Taiwan will undoubtedly return to China,” says another tourist, who watches the looming islands over the railing. “Our military is getting stronger, right?”
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Taiwancrisis
Several attacks were carried out on Kinmen in the 1950s. In the autumn of 1954 the islands were bombed by the men of China’s strong man Mao Zedong: the first Taiwan crisis was a fact. In 1958, the Second Taiwan Crisis followed with another bombardment. “I can still remember that,” says an elderly tourist, wearing a Mao pin.
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“No one wants to fight, we hope for peaceful reunion,” he says. “But if the United States gets involved, we will certainly go to war.” The younger passengers on the boat feel the same way. “We hope for a peaceful reunification,” said Xiong, 21, who is now living in the country. “But if Taiwan continues to strive for independence, there will certainly be fighting.”
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There are no bombs flying in the air around Kinmen now. But here too China is trying to intimidate Taiwan. Not directly to invade Kinmen. There is little to be gained from land grabbing, á la Putin with Crimea, experts say: China wants the full loot. The People’s Liberation Army reports on social media platform Weibo that the training sessions are intended to test ‘attacks on land and sea’.
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‘Taiwan wants to be part of China again’
“If it were dangerous here, we wouldn’t have set sail, would we?” says a woman, with her husband and son on vacation from Jiangxi. “I don’t think there’s any reason to get very nervous,” her husband said, when asked about the risks of the military exercise. The way the Taiwanese look at it doesn’t seem to bother the Chinese on the boat. “They would prefer to belong to China again,” replies the man with the Mao pin.
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Polls from Taiwan’s Chengchi University show a different picture. 85 percent of Taiwanese want nothing to do with communist China. They prefer to maintain the current status quo. Taiwan is theoretically independent under the flag of the Republic of China, although few countries recognize this.
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On the sightseeing boat from Xiamen –
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On the sightseeing boat from Xiamen –
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In the port of Xiamen –
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The Taiwanese snack street in Xiamen –
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The Taiwanese snack street in Xiamen –
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Back on shore, night falls over Xiamen, the capital of Fujian. A province closely associated with Taiwan. Hokkien, with Mandarin the official language in Taiwan, was brought by Fujianese immigrants who emigrated to the island long ago. Standard Chinese now predominates on Taiwanese Snack Street, although there are few people left to talk to in the run-down neighborhood. Many restaurants and snack bars are closed.
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Gu Huiyuan’s restaurant, which has been there for twenty years, is still open. But there is no reason to cheer. “It was packed here every day, everyone could make money,” she says. Compared to the photos she shows on her phone, there is indeed little left of Taiwanese Snack Street. The large characters on the gate of the street have also disappeared. “They fell off a year or two ago and have never been replaced,” says a neighbor.
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Corona lockdowns have taken their toll here and Taiwan’s snack street just won’t recover. A symbol of the clouding relationships, Gu believes, who has now changed course himself. “In the time of Ma Ying-jeou, we still sold Taiwanese snacks here,” she says, referring to a Taiwan president who was sailing a friendlier course towards China. Gu now mainly serves dishes from Uyghur cuisine. “It was time for a change,” she laughs.
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