After the initial bombardment of Kinmen and Matsu in 1958, Mao, when confronted by the very real possibility of U.S. naval intervention, made a remarkable offer. If the U.S. Navy stayed out of the Strait of Formosa, he would bombard Kinmen and Matsu only every other day. The offer had been rejected, but Mao, after a unilateral one-week cease-fire was extended to three weeks, had begun the on-again, off-again bombardment on his own.
The Taiwanese had replied in kind. For the next twenty years the PLA had launched symbolic artillery bombardments on Kinmen every Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday, while Taiwan had fired at the mainland every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Sunday, by unspoken agreement, was a holiday for both sides, a day of rest. By the time the ritual duels ended in 1978, 570 ROC soldiers had died… along with an unknown number of PLA troops on the mainland.
As a sideline to the artillery duels, though, Taiwan had engaged in extensive propaganda attacks on the mainland. At one point the largest neon sign in the world had stood above this very beach, with characters large enough to be read from the port city of Xiamen on the mainland. It had read, "Three Principles of the People: Reunify China," which, interestingly enough, was a popular slogan on both sides of the Strait of Formosa. The sign, evidently, had become a major tourist attraction on the mainland; when Taiwan finally took it down, the city council of Xiamen had formally complained.
Loudspeakers, also claimed to be the largest in the world, had been set up on both sides of the channel, blaring propaganda broadcasts back and forth. Morton couldn't quite imagine what that cacophony must have been like. And, since artillery shells loaded with leaflets didn't travel all that far, Taiwan had begun a program of launching balloons from Kinmen bearing canisters loaded with top-secret propaganda material for dispersal across the mainland.
The world finally learned the true nature of this propaganda, however, when one balloon actually traveled halfway around the planet and was intercepted in Israel. The canister was opened, and it contained…
Transparent women's underwear.
Evidently, Taipei thought the frilly airborne gifts would undermine PLA morale, inducing large numbers of them to defect.
The balloon drops had their serious side. During 1989, balloons had carried Taiwanese newspapers across the channel, to keep the mainlanders informed of what was going on at Tiananmen Square, and it was said that some people in Fujian Province relied on the air drops for news in the same way that folks in Nazi-occupied Europe had tuned in to the BBC on illegal radio sets.
But for the SEALs, the idea of bombarding the enemy with sexy lingerie was priceless, "worth every penny of admission," as MN1 Fuentes had put it.
"Maybe we should pack a few hundred rounds of Playboy," Logan added. "You know, bring out the really big guns."
"That might go against the Geneva Convention, Jammer. Cruel and unusual."
"Okay, okay. We'll save the skin magazines for the terrorist suicide bombers… you know, the ones who grow up as Islamic fundamentalists, not even allowed to look at a woman until after they get married."
"You have a nasty and fiendishly twisted mind, Jammer. I like that."
"Why, thank you, sir!"
Morton's mood sobered, however, after his 2IC completed his report and returned to the barracks. Taiwan and Mainland China had been playing a very strange, very deadly game for over fifty years, and as the U.S. government had estranged itself more and more from Taipei, they'd understood that game, understood its nature, understood its sheer deadliness less and less.
And First Company was smack in the middle of play.
Over the years, tensions between Taiwan and the mainland had gone up and down. In general, and from the West's perspective, things had gotten better. As diplomatic overtures were made to the People's Republic, as Washington and the rest of the world distanced itself from the Nationalists, Beijing's rhetoric had toned down and the threat of an invasion across the Strait of Formosa had grown more remote. This was due in large part to the growth of Taiwan's economic presence on the mainland; nowadays, Taiwan did more business with Mainland China than they did with the United States. Kinmen, once a base for 70,000 ROC troops on an island with a total population of only 52,000, now maintained a garrison of only about 10,000 men. Frogmen still used the island to stage intelligence-gathering incursions across the channel, but not with the regularity — or the sheer viciousness — of years past. Today the island was a tourist attraction, and the main port of embarkation from which illegal Chinese immigrants to Taiwan were shipped back to the mainland.
But the situation had changed sharply just in recent years… and ironically, the change had been brought about by Taiwan's democratization. Kinmen and Matsu had been under direct martial rule until 1993; the islands had even maintained their own currency, to keep all the money, and the people, from fleeing to Taipei. The Nationalists had ruled Taiwan with an iron hand, first under Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek, then under his son, Chiang Chingkuo. An opposition political party — the Democratic Progressive Party — had been permitted only grudgingly, and after 1986.
The Nationalist party, the Kuomintang, or KMT, had maintained all along that it was the rightful ruling government of all of China; in fact, over 460 KMT legislators pretending to represent mainland constituencies had retained their seats in the government — since they were unable to stand for reelection in their districts — until they were at last forced to retire in 1991. The nation's first truly free elections had been held shortly after that.
And Beijing continued to insist that Taiwan was a rebellious province of the People's Republic, that Taiwan would be invaded if the island ever made a formal declaration of independence, or if it dragged its feet in negotiations to reunify with the PRC. Beijing had not made any moves in that direction beyond diplomatic pressure against attempts to sell weapons to Taiwan, which they considered to be interference in China's internal affairs, and a great deal of rhetoric. With Taiwan investing in more and more mainland businesses, Beijing was not anxious to shut down the flow of hard cash.
But with the arrival of the DPP on the political scene, things had been changing, changing fast, and not necessarily changing for the better. The Democratic Progressives were calling for the creation of an independent Taiwan, a Republic of Taiwan that would have no claims to the mainland but would also be free of Beijing's rule. They'd been making other moves as well — requesting a seat in the UN for the ROC in 1994, for example, though they'd been expelled from that organization in favor of the PRC in 1971. When Taiwan's president, Lee Tengui, made a high-profile visit to the United States in 1995, Beijing had responded by holding "missile tests," dropping test warheads into the sea twelve miles from Taiwan's coast… and letting it be known that Los Angeles was within range of China's nuclear arsenal.
The missiles had flown again in 1996, in a transparent attempt to scare Taiwanese voters away from Lee. This ham-fisted version of diplomacy backfired when the U.S. Navy sent two carrier battle groups to Taiwanese waters and Lee won a landslide. Beijing had resorted to missile diplomacy yet again in 2000 to prevent the election of a DPP presidential candidate — Chen Shuibian — and again their attempt to control Taiwanese elections had failed.
But now the DPP was pushing harder than ever for an independent Taiwan, and that was flatly and completely counter to Beijing's will. Though the ROC continued to pretend that things were getting better, the mainland was casting a longer and darker shadow across the strait than ever. Pundits wrote that Taiwan held a very angry dragon by the tail and that now they were clinging to it for dear life. The latest use of missiles against Taiwan merely underscored Beijing's determination. Their "renegade province" would not be granted independence, whatever the rulers in Taipei might imagine.