Kinmen, Taiwan – On the sandy shores of Taiwan, Liu Xi Jiu puts on his goggles as he prepares to run across one of the most dangerous stretches of water in the world.
Originally from Beijing, he is competing in the only event of its kind, a seven-kilometer (4.3-mile) swim race across a geopolitical flashpoint, from Taiwan's Kinmen Islands to the city of Xiamen on China's east coast.
Around them, 200 athletes from China, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macau laugh and joke as they warm up. Ahead of them, beyond the rows of anti-invasion spikes that line Kinmen’s golden beaches, Xiamen’s signature skyscrapers glisten in the morning sun.
But the warm weather and sense of friendly competition mask increasingly tense relations across the strait separating democratic Taiwan from China, which claims the island as its own.
The swimmers, who are preparing for the gruelling 90-minute crossing, hope their camaraderie can serve as an example for smoother exchanges in these choppy waters.
Kinmen and its residents have always had a close relationship with China, Wu Zeng Yun, executive director of the Kinmen-Matsu Joint Service Centre, told Al Jazeera.
Although Wu's workplace now functions as a local branch of Taiwan's central government, the building still bears the name of the Fujian Provincial Government. The characters, emblazoned in gold above the imposing entrance, are a reminder of the time when Kinmen was part of China's Fujian province.
“In the past, my uncles did business in Tong'an on the mainland,” Wu said, referring to the historic district visible across the water from outside his office.
“It was a shared living area,” he added. “You just had to go to the dock, board a boat to Tong'an and pay the fare.”
But after the end of the Chinese civil war in 1949, everything changed. Faced with defeat at the hands of the communists, the Nationalist government of the Republic of China fled Beijing and settled in Taiwan. It also retained control of the Kinmen Islands, more than 300 kilometres from Taipei.
The island's residents were cut off from the province they were once part of and soon found themselves on the front lines of a political battle between Taipei and Beijing that at times erupted into violence.
As China regularly bombed the island until 1979, residents recall hiding in bunkers around the island, taking cover as bombs fell on their villages.
China reaffirmed its willingness to use force to take control of Taiwan, which it considers its territory, in a white paper published in 2022. The Taipei government says Taiwan's people should be the ones to decide its future.
Heightened tensions
Standing at the ferry terminal at Kinmen's Shuitou Pier, lawmaker Chen Yu Jen said her father was aboard one of the first ships that reconnected Kinmen with China in 2001.
At the time, there were hopes that such connections could help improve relations between Taipei and Beijing, but as Chen heads to the gate, preparing to follow in his father's footsteps, that hope has yet to materialize.
In mid-February, Kinmen was again at the centre of tensions between the two sides of the strait after a confrontation between the Taiwanese coast guard and a Chinese boat that was caught fishing in its waters. Two of the fishermen died.
To make matters worse, the Chinese ship was found to have capsized after colliding with the Taiwanese vessel, a fact that Taipei had initially omitted in its account of the incident.
In response, the Chinese Coast Guard (CCG), indirectly under the command of Beijing's Central Military Commission, stepped up its presence in the region.
Looking out over the turbulent waters from his small boat, local fisherman and business owner Lu Wen Shiung says the fishing community has already felt the impact.
“When relations between the two sides of the strait were less tense, we had good relations with coastal fishermen from the mainland,” he recalled. “If the mainland fishermen had a good catch, they shared it with us.”
But as GCC ships have begun regularly crossing Kinmen's territorial waters, a line that was widely respected until February, Lu now faces pressure from Chinese vessels even as his ship approaches Kinmen's shores.
“The activities of the Chinese Coast Guard have changed significantly. They now frequently patrol our waters,” Lu said.
In an unprecedented move, the GCC even boarded a Taiwanese tourist boat in February. Three months later, it announced a series of military exercises in Kinmen for the first time.
“Every time we go out to sea, we encounter them,” said fisherman Lu, referring to the CCG. “This year, they have already chased me three times.”
In early July, a Taiwanese fishing boat with two Taiwanese and three Indonesian citizens on board was also seized by the Chinese Coast Guard and taken ashore, accused of violating a summer fishing ban. The boat's captain remains under investigation, but the crew was released this week.
“Some fishermen working nearby are worried that any misstep could result in their boat being detained,” Kinmen County Councillor Tung Sen Pao told Al Jazeera.
While analysts say China’s incursions are part of Beijing’s “gray zone” tactics to exert pressure on Taipei, some in Kinmen worry about the potential risk of escalation and accidental conflict.
Recognition and respect for Kinmen’s restricted waters are “crucial to maintaining peace,” said Wu of the Kinmen-Matsu Joint Service Center. “If the mainland unilaterally denies them, it increases the risk of conflict.”
“If border units, coast guards and coastal police clash during their duties… it could lead to unnecessary disputes and accidents, which could trigger military conflicts, which would be detrimental to both sides,” said Councillor Tung.
Positive aspects
Despite the anger caused by the fishermen's deaths, some are hopeful that Kinmen can once again become a place of cross-strait collaboration, noting a level of “goodwill” between the local governments on the island and in Xiamen.
On July 30, Taipei’s Straits Exchange Foundation (SEF), a semi-official organization tasked with promoting cross-strait cooperation, and its Chinese counterparts finally reached an agreement that would repatriate back to the mainland the bodies of the Chinese fishermen whose deaths sparked the initial spike in tensions in February.
Now that the men's bodies have returned to China, some hope tensions will ease.
A former Taiwanese soldier, detained in March after his ship ran aground in Chinese waters, was also released this month.
Back on Kinmen beach, Chinese swimmer Liu stands shoulder to shoulder with his Taiwanese competitors, looking out towards the Chinese coast.
For him and many other Chinese swimmers, the race marks their first participation in Taiwan.
Like the competition organisers, the swimmers hope the race will serve as an example of what can be achieved through cooperation and of the diplomatic progress already made.
“Such sporting events help foster ties between people,” he said. “I hope both sides can resolve issues peacefully.”
Hearing the sound of the starting horn, he dives headfirst into the waves, speeding through the water on his way to Xiamen.
“In the past, the sea was a battlefield between Kinmen and Xiamen. They fought each other with bullets,” recalled Ms. Chen. When she was a child, Kinmen’s shores were strictly off-limits, reserved for military purposes.
“Now this sea is a place of peace. People can swim across it and back,” he said.
