evidence: Two weeks after two Chinese fishermen drowned while being chased by Taiwan’s coast guard, tensions remain high in the waters around Kinmen, a group of outlying islands controlled by Taiwan but nestled just a stone’s throw from the shores of China. [...] For much of the Cold War, Kinmen was the site of ferocious attacks by Mao’s Communist forces, which tried to seize control of the islands with multiple amphibious assaults and repeated shelling. By the time the bombardment faded in the late 1970s, an estimated 1 million artillery shells had struck Kinmen, which covers an area roughly the same size as New York’s Staten Island. [...] At the turn of the century, when tensions eased and relations between Beijing and Taipei briefly blossomed, both sides saw Kinmen as a potential conduit for peaceful exchange. In 2001, a ferry service was launched between Kinmen and Xiamen, the closest city on the Chinese coast.