China’s Closest Island to Taiwan Is a Monument to Reunification
Pingtan is marketed as mainland China's “closest point to Taiwan.” Today, the cross-strait ties that once made the island a thriving location for exchanges have all but disappeared.
The Diplomat
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“This road will lead all the way to Taipei,” the taxi driver told me as we drove across a huge bridge leaving the mainland of China’s southeastern Fujian province to head to the small island of Pingtan. The Beijing-Taipei Highway is the road’s official name, and despite ending at this small fishing island, on Chinese map apps, it shows the road crossing the sea all the way to Taiwan. In many ways, this bridge-that-doesn’t-exist serves as a metaphor for the island I was about to visit.
Unlike other islands along Fujian’s coast, Pingtan is more than just a few sleepy fishing villages. It is touted by China’s tourism industry as “the closest point to Taiwan” and is covered in monuments – like the bridge – to an eventual reunification with the self-administered island that China claims as part of its territory.
Pingtan saw a strong military presence through much of the Cold War era, when the Chinese Nationalists who fled to Taiwan sought to retake the mainland. When tensions thawed and the two sides began dialogue in the early 1990s, Pingtan rebranded itself as a key link in cross-strait business, much of which current geopolitics has brought to a halt.
68 Nautical Miles
My first stop was the 68 Nautical Mile Scenic Spot. From here – as the name suggests – it’s only 68 nautical miles to Taiwan. Near the tourist spot’s busy parking lot is a large military barracks. Next to a sign forbidding tourists from photographing any military installations, another sign asked Tesla drivers not to park their vehicles too close – presumably due to a fear that American-made vehicles may be compromised.
The spot is essentially a rocky outcrop on the far eastern side of the island, and it’s covered in various art installations dedicated to “peace across the Taiwan Strait” and “a swift return to the Motherland.” Many of the larger rocks have poems inscribed on them, written by Taiwanese writers with pro-China sentiments.
During my visit, strong winds battered the outcrop as groups of mostly middle-aged Chinese tourists scrambled over the rocks to pose for photos. Most of them seemed oblivious of the deeper geopolitical implications of the place and were just looking for a fun day out.
I was curious what these tourists think of life on the other side of this sea. Few of them were interested in talking to a foreigner about such a politically hot question. “They used to live better than us, but now we are developing fast, and our Taiwanese compatriots admire us,” one man in his 50s told me, adding that “reunification” was only a matter of time.
This is the standard response you would get if you ask any stranger in China their views on cross-strait tensions.
I had heard that Pingtan is also home to a community of Taiwanese, mostly running small businesses selling good here. I wanted to see if I could find any.
Tourists pose for photos by giant Chinese characters proclaiming Pingtang “The mainland Motherland’s closest point to Taiwan Island.” Photo by Cs haoh via Wikimedia Commons.
Taiwan Town
On the way to the main town, I passed by an almost abandoned looking shopping village built in the architectural style of Taiwan: round sloping orange tiles roofs over red brick walls. The town, which was signposted as Taiwan Town, is a vestige of a time when cross-straits relations were better, and many Taiwanese would come to the mainland to do business. Back then, selling various Taiwan products, such as tea, alcohol, medicinal products, and various cakes and cookies was incredibly profitable.
Now only a large Chinese-state-run duty-free store and a few shops are still open. I thought this might be a good place to find some Taiwanese people to talk to. The duty-free store, while sweeping in size and seemingly never-ending, was almost totally empty. I decided to go to one of the smaller stores that was open.
A lady approached me and asked if I could speak Chinese. I initially mistook her for a Taiwanese person by the way she spoke. She was from Pingtan, she said. I asked her why her accent sounded Taiwanese. “I lived on Kinmen Island for over ten years. All these products are from there,” she said.
Kinmen is an island south of Pingtan, one of only two islands off the coast of mainland China still held by Taiwan. It’s also the only part of Taiwan that mainland Chinese are able to visit in the current climate – and even then, only those from Fujian and Shanghai, and under strict conditions.
She recommended some Kaoliang liquor to me, a specialty of Kinmen with an alcohol volume of 56 percent. The liquor was bottled in aluminium missile-shaped containers, a nod to Communist China’s constant shelling of the Nationalist-held island that sits just a few miles off the coast of the mainland, but over 100 miles away from Taiwan.
Similarly, Kinmen’s famous kitchen knives are made by melting down the thousands of bombs that litter Kinmen from the mainland’s past attacks. Conscious of the great irony of Taiwanese selling China’s own bombs back to them, I asked her if her store sold such knives. Unfortunately, she said, they didn’t.
I decided to explore Taiwan Town a little further. Nearly much every shop was closed down. From the signs in the windows, it seems like in the not-too-distant past, these dozens of shops had all specialized in specific goods or regions of Taiwan. “Matsu and Kinmen Liquor” one shop window said. “Taichung City specialties,” said another. “Alishan and High Mountain Oolong teas.”
The mall was still fully functional, and ambient music was playing from speakers attached to streetlights. Security guards still manned several booths throughout this bizarre shopping village, and toward the farther end it looked like some construction was going on.
Empty Symbols
While the precise percentage of Pingtan’s total GDP that comes from cross-strait business is unknown, it is certainly touted by the local government as a key sector in the island’s economy. Statistics from the Fujian province government suggest that trade between Pingtan and Taiwan has doubled in the past five years, reaching 15 billion yuan by 2025, and over 1,500 Taiwanese businesses are registered on the island.
However, much like the name of the giant bridge that links this otherwise sleepy island to the mainland, these numbers are mostly symbolic. A combination of heavy subsidies, preferential customs treatment, and state-backed infrastructure all prop up this cross-strait business, despite the lack of any real return. Places such as the Taiwan Town, while perhaps thriving when relations were warmer, now merely exist to serve Beijing’s narrative of the economic benefits China can bring.
And for such a small, and otherwise insignificant, island, Pingtan has some large infrastructure projects. The bridge linking Pingtan to the mainland of Fujian – the aforementioned Beijing-Taipei Highway – is an impressive structure in itself. It’s a double-decker structure: the top part is a six-lane highway, and below are the tracks for a high-speed rail line. At over 16 kilometers long, it is one of the longest cross-sea road-and-rail bridges in the world.
It’s a powerful symbol of the proposed development that the Chinese government would offer Taiwan – the carrot to the stick of the constant military drills the military and coast guard regularly carry out on the edge of Taiwanese waters.
There are dozens of old towns dotted around the island, and the architecture here is very different from other traditional houses in Fujian. Here, the buildings are made of thick granite blocks, designed to withstand the incredibly strong winds that constantly batter the island. Some of the older houses are decorated with oyster and clam shells stuck into the walls, too.
Traditionally the homes of fishermen, many of these structures have now been turned into restaurants and B&Bs for tourists. I had heard that many of these were owned by Taiwanese, although again, I was unable to find any.
As I wandered up to small temple dedicated to the sea goddess Mazu, I spoke to a local man. He told me the Mazu statue inside the temple was donated by his brother, who had previously spent time in Taiwan working in the fishing industry. He brought the statue back from there. The goddess Mazu, who is said to protect fishermen when out at sea, is worshiped by the people of both Fujian and Taiwan – yet another symbol of the wish for reunification.
A One-sided Dream
Exploring the island of Pingtan, one cannot help but feel the emotional pull of this dream for reunification. I was once told that in political debates, emotions always trump logic. Pingtan certainly paints a powerful, and almost convincing narrative – although it is clear it is aimed at a domestic audience.
It is also increasingly one-sided. Before my visit, I was led to believe the island would be full of Taiwanese doing business. Perhaps there are still some around, but I did not find them. On the other side of the strait, few Taiwanese have any serious desire to be a part of China. Polling over the past decades overwhelmingly points to a desire to maintain the current ambiguous status quo – neither declaring formal independence from China nor accepting the rule of Beijing.
