A coffee shop situated within a former military fortification on Taiwan's remote Kinmen Island, once thrived on Chinese tourists. However, due to strained cross-strait relations and travel restrictions, the cafe now faces significant financial challenges as mainland visitors have dwindled.
The coffee shop sits within an abandoned military fortification, its entrance surrounded by rusting tanks.
"In the beginning, we had regular group tourists — perhaps at least two or three busloads from travel agencies every day," Zhang said.A row of anti-invasion spikes line a beach on Kinmen, with the Chinese mainland in the distance.Although China claims sovereignty over Taiwan, Chinese tourists were prevented from visiting Taiwan for years.
Residents didn't shy from the island's conflict-ridden past. Like Zhang, many opened cafes in former military fortifications, sold "war rations" in restaurants or made specialty "bomb knives" out of old Chinese artillery shells.Kinmen is roughly 1.8 miles from China, according to the Kinmen County Government — but more than 110 miles from the Taiwanese mainland.
Figures from Taiwan's Mainland Affairs Council show that the number of Chinese nationals entering Kinmen by boat dropped from more than 400,000 in 2019 to fewer than 18,000 in 2023. Others like Wu Zeng Yun — whose family once made and sold Kinmen's "bomb knives" to tourists — have shifted their businesses toward Taiwan's main island.
Standing in his small boat in the narrow strait that separates Kinmen and China, Lu said he experienced those escalations firsthand.
Taiwan China Kinmen Island Cafe Tourism Travel Restrictions
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