Postscript : Taiwan Clings to Its ‘Crab Claws’ Against China : Martial law has been lifted, but Matsu and the former Quemoy Island remain symbols of the Nationalists’ resolve.

Huang Yen, an elderly peasant woman, clearly recalls the terror of a 1958 Communist artillery barrage against this Nationalist stronghold just off the coast of mainland China.

“When the shells exploded, we hid wherever there was a hole,” said Huang, 72. “For more than 40 days, we didn’t go out for farming. We couldn’t. I was frightened. We didn’t have enough to eat or drink. We survived on a little water and some sweet potatoes.”

From Aug. 23 to Oct. 6, 1958, in one of the great crises of the Cold War, Communist forces lobbed 475,000 artillery rounds onto Chinmen--better-known then in the West as Quemoy. The shells killed 587 Nationalist soldiers and more than 800 civilians, according to displays at a museum here devoted to the battle.

The bombardment was so heavy, Huang said, that when she ventured outside during lulls “you couldn’t even find ants on the ground.”

The 50-square-mile island and nearby islets held out, even though Chinmen (pronounced Jin-mun) lies just 1 1/2 miles from Communist-held territory. During the next 20 years, the Communists fired nearly 1 million shells against the Chinmen island group, according to official Taiwan statistics. The Nationalists responded in kind but on a smaller scale.

Today the big guns have been silent for more than a dozen years. Military administration ended Nov. 7 on both Chinmen and Matsu, a smaller Nationalist-held island group 150 miles to the northeast that was also shelled in 1958. Both groups of rustic islands, with a total civilian population of 50,000, are becoming popular destinations for tourists from Taiwan. But despite eased tensions between the Communist government in Beijing and the Nationalist one in Taipei, the islands retain a prominent role in China’s unfinished civil war.

“Chinmen is the front line. It serves as an advance warning post for Taiwan,” declared a top general on Chinmen, who said he wished not to be named so as to avoid being listed in Communist files. “Chinmen and Matsu are like the claws of a crab, protecting Taiwan.”

Nationalist control of the islands also has political importance in a three-way struggle among the Communists, the Nationalists and the main Taiwanese opposition, the Democratic Progressive Party, which favors permanent independence for Taiwan.

The view that Taiwan is ultimately part of China--a proposition ironically supported by both Beijing and Taipei--is reinforced by Taiwan’s control of Chinmen and Matsu. If the Taiwanese opposition ever comes to power and succeeds in declaring permanent independence for Taiwan, it would give up these offshore islands, which all sides consider part of mainland Fujian province.

The lifting of martial law in Chinmen and Matsu, followed by county magistrate elections in December, has been celebrated as a return to peaceful almost-normality. Travel between Taiwan and the islands, which used to be strictly controlled, is now completely free.

“Businessmen are enthused about the potential tourism dollars,” the government-run Free China Journal reported in an article about the changes. “Matsu, along with Chinmen, has been slated for development into a tourist site due to the unique blend of military facilities, historic monuments, traditional southern Chinese architecture and clean beachfronts.”

Taiwan authorities, however, continue to stress that the military threat from the mainland has not ended. The Free China Journal quoted Lt. Gen. Lo Chi-yuan of the Chinmen Political Affairs Commission as stating that “the presence of Chinese Communist military forces” in nearby parts of Fujian province “intensified” last year.

Lo said that Chinese forces had conducted two large-scale military exercises in Fujian and that “mainland fishing boats also constantly pass over the boundary . . . with suspicious intents.” Lo assured the islands’ residents that authorities “will be on constant alert and be prepared for war in the event that the Chinese Communists resort to military action.”

The mixture of new openness and latent fear leads to curious anomalies. Camouflaged antiaircraft guns stand at some Chinmen street intersections, but they do double duty as stands for traffic officers. A wide, tree-lined street dubbed “Central Avenue” far exceeds traffic needs. “In case of warfare, if they bomb the airport, we could cut the trees and use this road (as a landing strip),” a military officer said.

The restaurants and shops of Chinmen’s towns have depended primarily on off-duty soldiers for their clientele but should get a boost as tourism grows. Other economic activity on the island includes farming, raising oysters and producing fiery sorghum liquor--a favorite souvenir.

The island’s hospital, dug more than 100 yards deep into a granite hillside, routinely has about 200 beds set up. “In event of war, we can expand it to more than 1,000,” said nurse Hsu Hsiao-ping, an army lieutenant.

At the August 23 Battle Museum, the 1958 fighting becomes a vehicle for patriotic anti-Communist propaganda, which is tied to the old Nationalist dream of a counterattack from Taiwan against the mainland.

“Early in the beginning of the (1949) withdrawal of the National Armed Forces from the mainland, the late President (Chiang Kai-shek) had already made his decision to defend Chinmen and Matsu as two outposts and springboards for our counteroffensive,” a museum poster said. Under Chiang’s direction, it said, the offshore islands were “built into a Great Wall on the sea.”

The Nationalists succeeded in holding the islands in 1958 partly because the U.S. 7th Fleet was redeployed to the area.

Communist Party General Secretary Jiang Zemin, in remarks in December reported by the official New China News Agency, reiterated that Beijing would not rule out the use of force against Taiwan.

“We have always been insisting that there is only one China and Taiwan is an inalienable part of China,” Jiang said. “We (wish) to realize the reunification of China through peaceful means. But if there is to appear an ‘independent Taiwan’ or if foreign powers plot to split China, we will take resolute measures to guard China’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.”

Such threats sharpen the Nationalists’ resolve to maintain enough military forces to ward off a Communist attack on Taiwan--or at least to make it very costly.

Despite the residual threat of a new flare-up, contacts between Taiwan and China have developed rapidly in recent years. China received about 1.2 million visits last year from residents of Taiwan, which has a population of 20 million. Two-way trade, most of it conducted indirectly through Hong Kong, rose more than 20%, to about $7 billion.

These growing ties have largely bypassed Chinmen. Mainland boats are generally prohibited from drawing close to the Nationalist islands, although fishermen have been allowed to take refuge during storms. The island is sometimes used for Red Cross-supervised repatriation of Chinese citizens detained for illegal entry into Taiwan, but no routine contact is approved between Chinmen and the mainland.

For the people of Chinmen, the new era of reduced tensions can only partially erase the pain they have suffered.

“My brother went to the mainland in 1949,” said Huang, the elderly peasant woman. “Since then there’s been no letter, no news at all. I have no idea how he’s living now. I don’t even know if he’s still alive.”