evidence: Kinmen is a place for the discriminating. At the terminal of the ferry to the mainland, the territory of the People's Republic of China, a taxi-driver waits patiently for his next fare and gently plays his flute as he does so. The humblest café will produce a fine meal using the freshest vegetables for less than £2. [...] Six decades ago, Kinmen was better known in the West as Quemoy, one of the key locations in modern Chinese history. The nationalist Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek had deployed his Kuomintang nationalist forces alongside those of Churchill, Roosevelt and Stalin in the "Big Four" fighting the war against Japan. But in 1948 they lost the fight in China to the more disciplined communist forces and decamped to the island once called Formosa. Today, it is known variously known as Taiwan, the Republic of China, or Chinese Taipei. Chiang dug in fiercely in the Quemoy archipelago here and at Matsu, to the north, dreaming that the islands could be the springboard for a reconquest of mainland China. His forces repelled a serious invasion attempt in 1949.