By Daniel Nardini
Jinmen is a group of islands just four miles away from the city of Xiamen, a city on the coast of China. Jinmen at this time are just a bunch of quiet islands where the inhabitants have been living, traveling and praying in their traditional temples for centuries. Interestingly, I saw a youtube video of an American who was able to take a ferry from Xiamen to Jinmen for a day. All of this sounds all completely unremarkable, and in any other context it would be. It cannot be imagined for one minute that Jinmen could still be the flash-point for World War III.
How is this even possible? Back in 1949, the Chinese Communists won the bitter and extremely bloody civil war (1946 to 1949) against the Chinese Nationalists. The defeated Nationalists retreated to Taiwan, where they have been ever since. The Nationalists, besides retaining Taiwan, also retained the Penghu Islands (which are halfway between Taiwan and China), and the offshore islands of Jinmen and Matsu. Jinmen and Matsu are just a few miles offshore from China itself, and if ever the People’s Republic of China (ruled by the Communists) wanted to seize these islands they could easily do so.
In the 1950’s the Communists tried to do so. They bombarded these two islands virtually non-stop for months, and the United States threatened to use nuclear weapons against China if it did not stop (one of the reasons why China itself developed nuclear weapons). Thus, we nearly had World War III back in 1958—-a not-so-well known episode where the world nearly came to the brink of nuclear catastrophe (the more infamous near World War III episode remembered was the Cuban Missile crisis in 1962).
So how is it possible that even after all this time Jinmen could still be the flash-point for World War III? Part of any plan to take Taiwan would be to attack Jinmen. Jinmen is the closest observation post for Taiwan for any major build-up of Chinese military forces for an invasion of Taiwan. Worse, bombing and trying to take Jinmen would be the beginning of an attempt to take Taiwan itself. If all of this happens, then an invasion of Taiwan is imminent and with it Japan would be brought into a war with China and then eventually the United States and hence World War III. Even if by some miracle nuclear weapons and weapons of mass destruction (chemical and biological weapons) are not used, the sheer number of deaths from World War III will be in the tens of millions for everybody concerned. At this point, Jinmen remains a sleepy island hamlet where there is some travel between China on the one hand and Taiwan on the other. Let us hope it remains this way.
Jinmen
By Daniel Nardini
How is this even possible? Back in 1949, the Chinese Communists won the bitter and extremely bloody civil war (1946 to 1949) against the Chinese Nationalists. The defeated Nationalists retreated to Taiwan, where they have been ever since. The Nationalists, besides retaining Taiwan, also retained the Penghu Islands (which are halfway between Taiwan and China), and the offshore islands of Jinmen and Matsu. Jinmen and Matsu are just a few miles offshore from China itself, and if ever the People’s Republic of China (ruled by the Communists) wanted to seize these islands they could easily do so.
In the 1950’s the Communists tried to do so. They bombarded these two islands virtually non-stop for months, and the United States threatened to use nuclear weapons against China if it did not stop (one of the reasons why China itself developed nuclear weapons). Thus, we nearly had World War III back in 1958—-a not-so-well known episode where the world nearly came to the brink of nuclear catastrophe (the more infamous near World War III episode remembered was the Cuban Missile crisis in 1962).
So how is it possible that even after all this time Jinmen could still be the flash-point for World War III? Part of any plan to take Taiwan would be to attack Jinmen. Jinmen is the closest observation post for Taiwan for any major build-up of Chinese military forces for an invasion of Taiwan. Worse, bombing and trying to take Jinmen would be the beginning of an attempt to take Taiwan itself. If all of this happens, then an invasion of Taiwan is imminent and with it Japan would be brought into a war with China and then eventually the United States and hence World War III. Even if by some miracle nuclear weapons and weapons of mass destruction (chemical and biological weapons) are not used, the sheer number of deaths from World War III will be in the tens of millions for everybody concerned. At this point, Jinmen remains a sleepy island hamlet where there is some travel between China on the one hand and Taiwan on the other. Let us hope it remains this way.