AT Lyu Chen-yi’s noodle restaurant in Kinmen, a chain of islets located in the Taiwan Strait, the tap water is sourced from Fujian Province on the mainland. Recently, Lyu purchased a TV box from Xiamen, a coastal city in Fujian, enabling him to enjoy mainland TV programs. With anticipation, Lyu eagerly awaits his upcoming shopping trip to the mainland. According to Lyu, a bridge connecting Kinmen and Xiamen would be ideal. Many residents of Kinmen, including Lyu, feel a strong affinity with Xiamen as if it were their own hometown. “Prior to the outbreak of COVID-19, I paid more than 10 visits to Xiamen and Quanzhou every year, sometimes just for a dinner with friends,” said a Kinmen taxi driver named Chi. On a local beach, Chi was able to easily identify the prominent buildings along Xiamen’s coastline, which lies only a short distance away across a narrow channel. Tap water serves as another example of Kinmen’s deep ties to the mainland. The water supply project from Fujian to Kinmen was initiated in 1995 and after years of hard work, infrastructure construction commenced in 2015, finally providing water supply in 2018. Weng Tze-pao, the former head of Kinmen’s water works, said that without the water supply from the mainland, Kinmen would have struggled to withstand the droughts in the past few years. In 2019, Kinmen experienced a 100-day consecutive dry spell, followed by two subsequent years of record-low rainfall. Even the Kinmen Kaoliang Liquor plant, the manufacturer of a local specialty liquor, would have faced water shortages without the mainland supply, as per Weng. “Blood is thicker than water,” said Su Linan, deputy secretary of the Quanzhou municipal committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC). For centuries, the people of Quanzhou had migrated across the Strait. Today, more than 9 million Taiwan residents can trace their ancestors to the city. Water supply between the mainland and Kinmen pointed to the possibility of cross-Strait integration, said Chen Guoliang, former chief of Fujian’s water resources department. The assessment of a project to connect Kinmen’s electricity supply network with the coastal region of Fujian has been completed, and survey work for a bridge between Xiamen and Kinmen is currently underway. Zhu Fenglian, a spokesperson for the Taiwan Affairs Office of the State Council, announced in June that a guideline on supporting Fujian Province in establishing a demonstration area for cross-Strait integrated development will soon be released by the CPC Central Committee and the State Council. This guideline aims to facilitate personnel exchanges, promote smoother trade and investment, and foster greater exchanges and cooperation between Fujian and Taiwan. Lei Chien, chief of a women’s organization based in Taipei, expressed the significance of Fujian’s transformation from being at the forefront of cross-Strait military confrontation to becoming an exemplary zone for cross-Strait integration. Lei anticipates a more comprehensive plan for integration in the future.(Xinhua) | 