Republic of China (TWN)

The South China Sea and the growing interest of great powers in it are filled with newspaper headlines. The following text aims at a thorough analysis of this area from several dimensions, hoping that it will contribute to a better understanding of this remote, but probably key to the geopolitics of the 21st century.

Quemoy Island ( sometimes referred to as Kinmen and everything else ) is historically a very unique place: Chiang Kai-shek won there. In October 1949, twenty thousand Mao's soldiers landed there and were either killed or at least scattered. Here Mao intended to use an atomic bomb and was very angry with Khrushchev for not lending him one to start World War III. Unheard communists then reconciled themselves with artillery. In 1954, they began bombing, and starting in August 1958, they fired half a million times from the cannons in forty-four days.