PENGHU, TAIWAN – In the predawn darkness on an island in the Taiwan Strait, Taiwanese troops earlier this month pulled long, gleaming 105-millimeter shells from their green plastic canisters. After all the ammunition had been checked and safely loaded through hatches on four tanks, troops waited silently for the order to fire. The soldiers are among the thousands of troops that form a garrison on the Penghu Islands and they are training for war with China.
If Beijing decides to attack, they will be on Taiwan’s front line. A popular tourist destination known for its pristine beaches and coral reefs, this strategically crucial cluster of 90 islands and islets, about 50 kilometers off the southwestern coast of the main island of Taiwan, would be hit in the first wave of an attempted Chinese invasion, according to senior Taiwanese security officials and military experts.
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