evidence: This is Kinmen, a tiny, windswept island in the Taiwan Strait, controlled by Taipei but less than 10 kilometres from the Chinese city of Xiamen. Kinmen’s proximity to China has been a curse and a blessing. The island was shelled heavily in the 1950s during the First Taiwan Strait Crisis and has lived with the threat of violence ever since. But it has also benefited from improved ties between Taiwan and China, with Chinese tourists helping to drive an economic boom visible in new construction across the island. [...] Kinmen has long been a stronghold of the Kuomintang (KMT) party, which supports eventual unification with China – though not under Communist control – and is seen as more conciliatory toward Beijing, despite a long, bloody history between the two sides. During the last KMT administration, in 2015, Chinese President Xi Jinping held a summit with Taiwan’s then-president Ma Ying-jeou, an event still seen as the high-water mark of cross-strait relations.