Finally thinking Strait

摘要

Xiamen, the 19th-century tea port known to the British as Amoy, became in the 20th century a fortified front line in China's struggle with Taiwan. For many years one of the only things it exchanged with Taiwan was artillery fire across the narrow strip of water that separates it from the Taiwan-controlled island of Kinmen.rnBut since it was made a "Special Economic Zone" in the 1980s, Xiamen has boomed, largely thanks to investment by Taiwanese firms. Its ties with what China still regards as a renegade province could grow even tighter soon, as both China and Taiwan consider reforms that could encourage cross-strait banking, and, conceivably, greater financial integration across Greater China.