Frontline Islands: Kinmen during the Cold War

Cold War Island: Quemoy on the Front Line

Kinmen, a small island that supported Taiwan's destiny during the years of confrontation.
Once upon a time, it was shrouded in the shadow of war and military control.
How do the island residents view each event they experience?

This book uses multiple perspectives of history, politics, society, and anthropology to
Re-examine the little-known aspects of Kinmen's history from the public's perspective.

In September 2001, the author was stranded in Kinmen due to the 9/11 attacks and the suspension of flights back to China. However, this unexpectedly sparked his interest in this small island that had experienced the Cold War atmosphere and the confrontation between the Kuomintang and the Communist Party, and thus embarked on a journey to trace the history of Kinmen.

Since 1949, Kinmen, through media propaganda, has been given significance as a hub for regional and world affairs. It has become a beacon of freedom for the vast enslaved peoples of Asia, a springboard for future battles for freedom, a symbol of the confrontation between the Republic of China and the People's Republic of China, and a benchmark for the free world's efforts to resist the communist red tide during the Cold War. It has even been seen as a symbol of human progress. Tiny Kinmen epitomizes the Cold War era. But does this image of a battlefield hero truly represent historical reality, or the image of Kinmen as it is perceived by its inhabitants?

From a historical anthropological perspective, drawing on oral interviews and official documents, this book examines Kinmen society under the strict military system. It delves into how Kinmen came to be shaped by Cold War geopolitics; how it came to be a society where everything from rat tails to women's bodies to basketball was brought under military control and linked to the slogan of modernity; and how these experiences, along with official education, profoundly influenced the way Kinmen residents view themselves, even after the lifting of martial law.

This book is divided into four parts:

Part 1: Increasing Geopoliticization. In the decade after 1949, Kinmen experienced three major direct military confrontations: the initial Battle of Guningtou in 1949, the September 3rd Artillery Offensive in 1954, and the August 23rd Artillery Offensive in 1958. Throughout the 1950s, Kinmen Island was gradually geopoliticized, and a militarized system began to take shape. How did Kinmen residents, on the front lines, view these three events?

Part 2: The Transformation of Militarization and Geopoliticization. In the early 1960s, the global Cold War entered a new phase, and Kinmen's military importance declined significantly. The large-scale troop presence was Chiang Kai-shek's decision to compel the United States to defend Kinmen. Kinmen became a component of the struggle between the People's Republic of China and the Republic of China. How did Kinmen's political significance shift during these conflicts, and what impact did these changes have on local Kinmen society?

Part III: Life During the Cold War. Part III examines various aspects of social life during the Cold War, from the 1960s to the 1980s, focusing on Kinmen residents' perceptions of the Battlefield Political Committee and their coordination with it. This study demonstrates how the "capillaries of militarization" were linked to broader social institutions unconnected to the battlefield. This study can be considered part of a larger comparative social and cultural history of the Cold War.

Part 4: Demilitarization and Post-militarization. In the early 1980s, the KMT's attempt to consolidate international support by highlighting the threat posed by the Communist Party across the Taiwan Strait met with no response. The primary political purpose of militarizing Kinmen shifted to drawing public attention to the threat posed by Taiwan and thereby rationalizing and justifying the KMT's continued authoritarian rule. Therefore, the key factor leading to demilitarization was not cross-strait relations but rather domestic political changes within the Republic of China (ROC) in Taiwan.

Experts recommend:

Jiang Bowei (Head of the Department of East Asian Studies, National Taiwan Normal University)
Yu Minling (Deputy Director of the Institute of Modern History, Academia Sinica)
Li Renyuan (Assistant Researcher, Institute of History and Philology, Academia Sinica)
Lin Wei-pin (Dean of the Department of Anthropology and Vice Dean of the College of Liberal Arts, National Taiwan University)
Zhang Shuya (Associate Researcher, Institute of Modern History, Academia Sinica)
Qi Changhui (Director of the Institute of Minnan Culture, Kinmen University)
Chen Cuilian (Professor, Department of History, National Taiwan University)
Yang Suxian (Head of the Department of History, National Taiwan University)
Xue Huayuan (Professor, Department of History, National Chengchi University)
Luo Shijie (Assistant Professor, Department of History, National Taiwan University)

(Arranged in stroke order)

Professor I-Ming Sung of Harvard University's Department of East Asian Studies is the first scholar in the English-speaking world to systematically write about the local history of Kinmen. However, his work goes beyond simply writing a "local history of Kinmen"; rather, he examines local studies through the lens of geopolitics, militarization, and modernization. He examines the transformation of Kinmen's local society within the context of the US-Soviet Cold War and the Sino-Taiwan standoff. On the one hand, he describes how, from 1949 to 1992, Kinmen was suddenly governed by a militarized utopian modernism, shaped by the dramatic shifts in the international landscape. On the other hand, he also meticulously explores how Kinmen society internally responded, compromised, and resisted these changes. Finally, Professor Song explained the various implications of Kinmen studies: for example, how they can reflect Taiwan, highlighting the similarities between Chiang Kai-shek's governance of Taiwan and Mao Zedong's rule of China, and providing a case study for comparison with other highly militarized societies around the world. Professor Song's research approach transcends the study of Kinmen as a case study of a remote Taiwanese island. Instead, in his writing, Kinmen symbolizes the Cold War era and carries profound implications. — Lin Wei-pin (Dean of the Department of Anthropology and Vice Dean of the College of Liberal Arts, National Taiwan University)

Over the past two decades, Taiwan has been largely absent from Cold War studies, whether as an object of study or as a subject of research, whether in the history of Cold War international relations or the sociocultural shift in Cold War history. Kinmen attracted global attention during the two artillery battles in the 1950s, but has since been lost in the torrent of history; many Western books on the general history of the Cold War no longer even mention the Taiwan Strait crisis that once held the world's breath, let alone the impact of the Cold War on Kinmen and its residents. This book is an exception, focusing on this place and issue, using a special book to analyze the impact of the Cold War on Kinmen in various aspects, and believes that Kinmen's development can be compared with other places in similar situations. This book can deepen our understanding of the Cold War and the development process of the current situation across the Taiwan Strait. It is indeed a work worth reading and pondering. - Zhang Shuya (Associate Researcher, Institute of Modern History, Academia Sinica)

In the second half of the 20th century, amidst the Kuomintang-Communist confrontation and the global Cold War, the Kinmen Islands underwent a 38-year "wartime administration" system, undergoing comprehensive militarization. How did the global Cold War affect Kinmen society? How did Kinmen residents cope with the unexpected arrival of a military system? This book, drawing on historical and anthropological methods, combining archival materials and field interviews, recounts the frontline experiences of Kinmen residents from the perspectives of militarization, geopolitics, modernization, and battlefield memory, analyzing Kinmen's social and cultural transformation under the shadow of the Cold War. This is an outstanding study of Kinmen history and a unique social history of the Cold War. Professor Song Yiming's unique observations and insightful analysis have propelled Kinmen historical research to the forefront of global historiography, bringing the humble Kinmen region to the showcase of university publishers. ——Yang Suxian (Dean of the Department of History, National Taiwan University)

For the Republic of China (ROC) government, which retreated to Taiwan in late 1949, Kinmen was the front line in the conflict with the Chinese Communist regime, and its status as a "battleground" has long been synonymous with the region. With the increasing attention paid to Cold War history, Kinmen has become a crucial research site.
Professor I-Ming Sung, Director of the Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies at Harvard University, presents "Frontline Islands: Kinmen during the Cold War," a masterpiece that has garnered the most attention. Through a wealth of oral histories, interwoven throughout the book, and drawing upon archives and research findings, it chronicles the evolution of Kinmen from the Battle of Guningtou to contemporary times, noting institutional changes and focusing on the history of people's lives. The book also presents the current domestic concerns about the "White Terror" and "military prostitutes" within the context of historical time and space. The book is also written in a fluent, accessible, and accessible manner. Overall, it is an excellent work for understanding Kinmen's history during the Cold War. -- Xue Huayuan (Professor, Department of History, National Chengchi University)

2016-08-15

國立臺灣大學出版中心

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