Quemoy and Matsu
(1990 est. pop. 43,000). The islands of Quemoy and Matsu are part of a group of fifteen islands that are located in the Min River estuary about twelve kilometers off the coast of Fujian Province in China. The two islands, which were occupied by the Chinese Nationalist Party (Guomindang) forces during the Nationalist evacuation of the mainland in 1949, belong to Taiwan. The larger island is Quemoy (also known as Kinmen, Chin-men, or Jinmen), which covers an area of 132 square kilometers, while the smaller island of Matsu (also known as Ma-tsu or Mazu) covers only 12 square kilometers. The heavily fortified islands became the focus of political crises between the People's Republic of China (PRC), which controls the remaining thirteen islands in the group, and the Republic of China on Taiwan, 210 kilometers to the east. Today, agriculture is the main occupation on Quemoy, and the islands have a population of about 43,000 (1990).
Historically, the islands have served as refuges for people fleeing wars on the mainland or as shelter for pirates. The famous pirate Cheng Cheng-kung (Koxinga) fought the Manchus and the Dutch from his stronghold on Quemoy. Following the outbreak of the Korean War in 1950, the United States's Seventh Fleet was placed in the Taiwan Straits to prevent the Nationalists and the Communists from attacking each other. Having just been elected U.S. president, Dwight D. Eisenhower withdrew the fleet in February 1953, and in August 1954 the Nationalist government in Taiwan moved 58,000 soldiers to Quemoy and 15,000 to Matsu. In September the two islands came under heavy bombardment from mainland forces, and the fighting spread to other islands in the East China Sea. In the early months of 1955, the fighting further escalated and involved coastal ports on the mainland. In the United States, nuclear strikes against the PRC were considered, but this was opposed by leading European members of NATO. In April 1955 the PRC offered to negotiate a cease-fire, and the bombardment of the islands stopped on 1 May 1955.
In 1958 the crisis flared up again, and the islands were shelled once more. This time the United States extended its mutual security pact with Taiwan to include Quemoy and Matsu and once again deployed the Seventh Fleet to the area. It has been proposed that the reason large numbers of native Taiwanese soldiers were sent to the two islands was to prevent them from staging an armed rebellion in Taiwan. The island of Quemoy has now been opened to tourism.
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