By Ben Blanchard
TAIPEI (Reuters) – Taiwan President Lai Ching-te will visit a sensitive group of frontline islands that sit next to the Chinese coast on Friday for the 75th anniversary of a key victory over communist forces and just over a week since China staged war games.
Taiwan has controlled Kinmen, and the Matsu islands to the north, since the defeated Republic of China government fled to Taipei in 1949 after losing a civil war with Mao Zedong’s communists.
The presidential office said on Thursday that Lai would visit Kinmen on Friday for the anniversary of the Battle of Guningtou, when Republic of China forces beat off an invasion attempt by the People’s Liberation Army, a rare victory for Chiang Kai-shek’s forces in the final days of China’s civil war.
In December 1949 the republican government withdrew to Taiwan and in the following years and months would lose a string of other islands and islets to communist forces. The Republic of China remains Taiwan’s formal name.
China views democratically governed Taiwan as its own territory and last week staged a new round of war games around the island it said were a warning to “separatist acts”. Beijing has a particular dislike of Lai, who rejects its sovereignty claims and says only Taiwan’s people can decide their future.
Lai last visited Kinmen, which sits just off the coast from the Chinese cities of Xiamen and Quanzhou, in August, for the 66th anniversary of another clash with Chinese forces, known as the start of the second Taiwan Strait crisis.
While there, he said Taiwan wants to continue its free way of life and rejects being ruled by China’s Communist Party.
China’s coast guard has since February conducted regular patrols around Kinmen following the death of two Chinese people on a speedboat which Beijing blamed on Taipei.
Kinmen is today a popular tourist destination due in part to its Cold War history, and there remains a sizeable military presence.
No peace treaty or armistice has ever been signed between Taiwan and China.
(Reporting by Ben Blanchard; Editing by Raju Gopalakrishnan)
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