Remnants of military conflict surround Zhang Zhong Jie’s cafe.
The coffee shop sits inside an abandoned military fortification, its entrance surrounded by rusting tanks.
It is a scene the residents of Taiwan’s distant Kinmen Island know well. All that separates the cafe from mainland China are 6 miles of choppy water and a row of anti-invasion spikes along the beach.
Despite the long-standing tensions between Taiwan and China, tourists from the mainland were the cafe’s major income because it opened in 2018.
“To start with, we had regular group tourists — perhaps at the least two or three busloads from travel agencies daily,” Zhang said.
But five years on, things look very different.
A row of anti-invasion spikes line a beach on Kinmen, with the Chinese mainland in the gap.
Source: Jan Camenzind Broomby
Although China claims sovereignty over Taiwan, Chinese tourists were prevented from visiting Taiwan for years.
In August 2019, Beijing blocked individual travelers from visiting Taiwan, citing poor cross-strait relations. In 2020, tour groups were banned from visiting due to Covid-19 pandemic.
For a lot of on Kinmen, the shortage of Chinese visitors has been devastating.
“We have not had mainland tourists for years,” Zhang said. “The tourism industry in Kinmen has long been heavily reliant on Chinese tourists, so the impact is unquestionably significant.”
From tanks to tourism
Within the mid-Twentieth century, Kinmen was on the front line of China’s conflict with Taiwan.
Soldiers trained on its beaches, towns were stuffed with anti-Communist propaganda, and bomb shelters were tucked away in gardens.
Unopened shops line the streets of Kinmen.
Source: Jan Camenzind Broomby
But because the military presence in Kinmen subsided, the island pivoted toward tourism.
Residents didn’t shy from the island’s conflict-ridden past. Like Zhang, many opened cafes in former military fortifications, sold “war rations” in restaurants or made specialty “bomb knives” out of old Chinese artillery shells.
A brief boat ride away
Kinmen is roughly 1.8 miles from China, in accordance with the Kinmen County Government — but greater than 110 miles from the Taiwanese mainland.
Because of this, “business in Kinmen generally depends heavily on… links with mainland China,” said local tour guide Chen Hua Sheng. Half-hour-long boat rides that connect the island with China are running again, but have been mostly stuffed with Taiwanese passengers since Chinese travelers weren’t allowed to go to Kinmen.
With the top of Covid, many hoped those boats would ferry Chinese visitors back to Kinmen over again.
But on Feb. 14, two Chinese residents were killed during a collision between a Taiwanese Coast Guard boat and a Chinese boat, sparking an escalation of tensions.
Chinese tourists at the moment are traveling to a few of Taiwan’s distant islands, however the return of travelers to Kinmen has been slow. Figures from Taiwan’s Mainland Affairs Council show that the variety of Chinese nationals entering Kinmen by boat dropped from greater than 400,000 in 2019 to fewer than 18,000 in 2023.
For Wu Zeng Yun, CEO of the governmental Kinmen-Matsu Joint Services Center, the shortage of tourists has been interpreted as a punishment from Beijing, he said.
Struggling under pressure
Local business owners have felt the impact of the lack of Chinese tourists, who previously contributed nearly $200 million to Kinmen’s annual economy.
Noodle shop owner Beddy Chang said Chinese visitors once comprised 80% of her customer base. Without them, she’s now turned to exporting products abroad, she said.
Others like Wu Zeng Yun — whose family once made and sold Kinmen’s “bomb knives” to tourists — have shifted their businesses toward Taiwan’s major island.
“Without mainland tourists, we take our business out,” Wu explained. “We often hold events in shops across Taiwan.”
But others have had less luck.
After former restaurant owner Lu Wen Shiung closed his business, he began fishing and offering boat tours to complement his income. But this too has been difficult, he said.
Lu Wen Shiung turned to fishing and boat tours after closing his restaurant on Kinmen.
Source: Jan Camenzind Broomby
After the Feb. 14. incident, China’s Coast Guard significantly increased its presence in the realm, crossing into Kinmen’s restricted waters on quite a few occasions, staging military exercises in May and even boarding a Taiwanese tour boat in February.
Standing in his small boat within the narrow strait that separates Kinmen and China, Lu said he experienced those escalations firsthand.
He showed videos he filmed on his phone of Chinese Coast Guard ships bearing down on him as he motored through the waters around Kinmen.
“There may be a slight concern that if we’re taken while in our waters, we may be subjected to some unconventional treatment,” Lu said, staring out across the waves.
Sustained hope
In late July, Taiwanese and Chinese authorities reached an agreement over the Feb. 14 boat incident that allowed the bodies of the dead Chinese fishermen to return to the mainland.
At the top of August, local Kinmen legislator Chen Yu Jen travelled to Beijing to debate the resumption of tourism to Kinmen. She was told that Chinese tourists would soon return.
A military outpost on Kinmen island, Taiwan.
Source: Jan Camenzind Broomby
The primary group of mainland tourists arrived in Kinmen in late September, in accordance with local media.
The 22 individuals who arrived for a two-day visit don’t represent a full-scale return of Chinese tourism, however it is a start. Nevertheless, some in Kinmen expressed skepticism that the situation would ever return to what it once was.
But local guide Chen is optimistic, he said.
“We hope mainland Chinese people can visit Taiwan and Kinmen again to advertise economic development on either side.”
— Translators Alex Huang and Edison Tseng contributed to this report.
