Chen Ing-wen strides up to a rocky outcrop some 3 km (1.9 miles) from China's coast on Taiwan-controlled Kinmen island and demonstrates how as a soldier he used to shoot from there at Chinese trawlers that got too close.
"It was just to scare them - but they weren't scared," said Chen, 50, who did his military service on Kinmen from 1991 to 1993. "We were not trying to kill them, just warn them away."
A recent spike in tensions, with China's air force carrying out four days of mass incursions into Taiwan's air defence zone starting on Oct. 1, caused alarm in Western capitals and Taipei that Beijing may be planning something more dramatic. Kinmen, along with the Matsu archipelago further up the Chinese coast, has been held by the government in Taipei since the defeated Republic of China forces fled to Taiwan in 1949 after loosing a civil war with the Communists.
A much-reduced military garrison remains, way down from 100,000 at the height of fighting, with tanks on occasion rumbling through back roads and soldiers guarding hidden entrances to command posts dug under the thick rock. The time warp Kinmen exists in is everywhere to see, though much of that is intentionally kept for the tourists.
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