Taiwan's Cold War fortress islands off China's coast — military tunnels under the granite, god statues in sea caves, and baijiu distilled in ammunition crates
The Matsu Islands — a cluster of granite islands 200km off Taiwan's west coast and just 10km from mainland China — were a front-line Cold War military fortress from 1949 until the 1990s, when tourism was finally permitted. What the army left behind is extraordinary: an entire network of tunnels bored through granite hills, capable of sheltering troops and small boats from artillery; fortified bunkers and gun emplacements on every hill; and an entire island — Beigan — largely preserved as it was in the 1970s. The army also fostered the local tradition of producing Matsu Gaoliang (sorghum liquo…
The Matsu Islands were the scene of the First (1954–55) and Second (1958) Taiwan Strait Crises, when the People's Republic shelled the islands intensively. During the 1958 crisis alone, the PRC fired 474,000 artillery shells at Kinmen and Matsu — the islands survived, and the shelling actually continued on an every-other-day ritual basis until 1979. Military rule ended in 1992; the last conscript soldiers left in 2013. The islands are now a national scenic area and UNESCO aspiring geopark, marketed on the unusual combination of military history, Mazu religious culture, and scenery.