IN THE latest sign of warmer relations between mainland China and Taiwan, the self-ruled island has started to build a bridge between two small islands that is expected to eventually link up to the mainland.
The ground-breaking ceremony was performed by President Ma Ying-jeou, who has been the instigator of better ties with former enemy China. It took place on Kinmen, a small island just 6km from the southeastern Chinese city of Xiamen.
China has claimed Taiwan since Chiang Kai-shek’s Kuomintang fled there in 1949 after they lost the civil war to Mao Zedong’s communists.
Mr Ma has made improving links with China one of the main priorities of his administration, and the island has signed numerous trade deals with Beijing in recent years.
The area has been the focus of many activities aimed at underlining the growing closeness between Taiwan, which China considers a renegade province to be retaken by force if necessary, and China.
In recent years the two sides have removed underwater military barricades and let people swim from one side to the other in an annual race.
The 5.4km bridge linking Kinmen and Liehyu, or Little Kinmen, is expected to cost €194 million and is scheduled to be completed in 2016.
Local government officials said the construction would make a bridge between Little Kinmen and Xiamen more feasible.
Kinmen has critical strategic and military value and remains heavily guarded, its beaches covered with spikes to stop landing craft. However fears of invasion have ebbed in the past few years.
Between September 1954 and 1978, there was constant bombardment of the Kinmen archipelago, also known as Quemoy, by the mainlanders, who fired two million shells at the island, 480,000 of them in the first two days of the bombing. Hundreds died and many more were injured. Even into the 1970s China bombarded the island, although by then the shells were stuffed with propaganda leaflets.
The bridge’s 1.4km main body will have the world’s longest span, according to the Taiwan Area National Expressway Engineering Bureau. Four of the six spans that make up the main bridge will be 280m, five metres longer than the current record-holder, Kiso Bridge in Japan.
“Just like the locals, we are very excited about the project,” said Lu Jie-pin, an engineer on the project.