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View all search results'No use worrying': Taiwanese tourists carry on despite China threat
Taiwan's tiny Kinmen Islands have become a popular tourist destination, and Beijing's military drills failed to deter domestic visitors from jetting closer to their sabre-rattling neighbour.
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This picture taken on August 10, 2022 shows tourist Joseph Lin practicing stand up paddling in the waters on the Kinmen islands with a view of Xiamen city (back) on the Chinese mainland. (AFP/Sam Yeh)
V
isiting Taiwan's tiny Kinmen Islands last week, Joseph Lin practised standing up on his paddleboard, drifting across from the Chinese city of Xiamen, where days earlier fighter jets had screamed overhead.
The Taiwanese islets, just two miles from China's coast, have become a popular tourist destination, and Beijing's massive military drills this month failed to deter domestic visitors from jetting closer to their sabre-rattling neighbour.
Lin, a former soldier from southern Taiwan's Pingtung county, refused to cancel his three-day trip, saying he believed China was only trying to appease nationalist sentiment at home with its show of force.
"I think Russia's ongoing war in Ukraine has sent a warning to (Chinese President) Xi Jinping that it would not be so easy to seize Taiwan," the 35-year-old told AFP after his paddle under the beating summer sun.
"The price would be too high."
Tensions in the Taiwan Strait are at their highest in decades as Beijing rages against a visit to Taipei earlier this month by United States House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
In response, China put on unprecedented military drills, firing multiple missiles into the waters around Taiwan as well as dispatching fighter jets and warships to simulate a blockade of the island.
