Spikes jut from the beaches of Taiwan’s Kinmen island, military checkpoints serve as traffic roundabouts and bunkers double up as tourist cafes — reminders everywhere of the conflict decades earlier with Chinese communist forces.
Kinmen, which lies 200 kilometres (120 miles) from Taiwan island but only seven kilometres from the Chinese mainland, was a battlefield frontline for the nationalists who fled to Taiwan in 1949, and the target of frequent bombardments up until 1979.
Now Kinmen residents are preparing to vote in a crucial presidential election on Saturday that is being watched closely from Beijing to Washington, and whose winner will set democratic Taiwan’s course over the next four years.
“Xiamen, Kinmen — their doors face each other,” said Lin Ma-teng from his courtyard home on Lieyu, Kinmen’s closest inhabited islet to China.
The southeastern Chinese city of…
