Taiwan's Kinmen a treasured island

Student soldiers put on a show for the
tourists each day by firing blanks from
the big guns that protected Taiwan
from China's mighty army a few kilometres away.

DATELINE KINMEN ISLAND - Travelling through Taiwan is like peeling an onion - every layer exposes new wonders.

Like this incredible island that once stood as the first defence against China's mighty communist army but today is being transformed into a vacation wonderland where local officials like Kinmen Magistrate Wo-Shih Li is hoping that his tiny piece of paradise will soon be overrun by tourists from China's mainland.

In anticipation of that day, Kinmen has cleaned up its beaches - that means they've rid 80 per cent of their beaches of the land minds placed on them to try and halt a Chinese advance had one ever come.

China and Taiwan have been feuding ever since Chinese came here in the 1940s to escape communist rule. Bombs rained down on Kinmen from China - only a few kilometres away - during that period but now, thanks to diplomatic efforts, the two countries are much friendlier - Taiwan is even the biggest foreign investor in China now.

Now efforts are under way to have a 6 kilometre bridge built between Kinmen and China's Xiamen, a popular resort town that I can see from where I'm standing on the Taiwanese island. Xiamen gets 30 million tourists a year and with a bridge, Magistrate Li anticipates a lot of those tourists will be drawn to his island. Already, Kinmen gets 360,000 Chinese visitors a year - they come by ferry.

Of  course, linking Taiwan to the mainland is always a sensitive issue among the Taiwanese thanks to Chinese insistence that Taiwan still belongs to it.
 

When the day finally does come and the bridge is complete, the Chinese will be thrilled to find an island lush with vegetation, a dramatic coastline and some of the loveliest people in Asia.

They'll also find a local liqueur known as Kaoliang that packs a punch sans hangover; peanut candies that are crunchy and sweet; thousands of bird species which migrate here each year; quaint villages that were built during China's earliest dynasties; and a culture that dates back 6,000 years when Kinmen was first settled.

The Chinese have been denied passage to this island for too long - it's time to bridge the gap because Kinmen is a treasure that more people should see.