The Kinmen Islands is a small Taiwanese territory located a few miles off the coast of mainland China, in Xiamen Bay. The largest island is encircled by a sandy shoreline and studded by rocks. The island is 93 miles (150km) away from the Taiwan main island (formerly called Formosa), but being so close to the Fujian coast of mainland China it has historically been within range of communist artillery batteries and surveillance.

The close proximity of the Kinmen Islands to mainland China has placed it on the frontline of several conflicts between the People's Republic and the Republic of China, meaning it could be the target of any future Chinese invasion of Taiwan.

First attack on the Kinmen Islands

In 1949, Republic of China leader Chiang Kai-shek retreated his forces to the island of Formosa (the Chinese name Taiwan was rarely used at this time) after being forced to withdraw from the mainland by the communist offensive.

The defence of Formosa required a perimeter in the form of the offshore islands. Most precarious among these was the fishing community that inhabited Quemoy, or Kinmen.

Since 1948 the reeling Nationalists planned, albeit in haphazard fashion, on withdrawing from the mainland and to scatter their army's veteran divisions among China's coastal or offshore islands. By April the following year it was reported that nearly two million Nationalist soldiers and civilians had evacuated to Formosa.

When the new Communist rulers in Peking (Beijing) declared the People's Republic in October 1949, Mao Zedong was determined to quash every last vestige of the defeated Kuomintang (KMT).

With its ranks numbering in the millions, the People's Liberation Army had its orders and remained on the offensive. The Battle of Guningtou on Kinmen spanned the last weeks of October and was underway once communist troops had occupied Xiamen, the island barely 2.5 miles (4km) from Kinmen.

On 22 October it was believed at least two infantry divisions were prepared for a crossing. By the reckoning of the nationalists this force numbered at least 20,000 Communist soldiers. The amphibious operation was underway from 24 October unpredictable fighting lasted until 28 October.

Contrary to the myth of their limited skill at naval warfare, the Communists reached the shore unopposed and assaulted a spit of rock-strewn beach on the island's northern shore: this was Guningtou.

How the battle unfolded on the first day is poorly recorded, although it's known that the nationalists were caught by surprise and initially put up a feeble defence with just machine guns. The communists took appalling losses but, undeterred, moved inland on foot. The close-quarters fighting dragged on until the next day, when artillery from the Chinese coast hammered the defending KMT troops.

Less is known about the communist forces than the nationalists, who were led by trusted veterans of the KMT armed forces such as Chiang Wei-kuo, the adopted son of the dictator Chiang Kai-shek. As an officer in the Nationalist army who had trained in Germany and commanded a tank unit, he utilised what little armour could be mustered to scatter the Communists.

Another stalwart who joined the battle was no less than General Hu Lien, who had served the KMT since the 1930s and had arrived on the second day of hostilities. Communist troops had almost overrun the village of Guningtou and were halted by the timely appearance of Lien's 12th Brigade.

The balance of manpower between the communists and nationalists at Guningtou makes for a baffling assessment as both sides had troops to spare. What decided the outcome were tanks and bomber aircraft, neither of which the Communists could bring to the theatre.

In the case of the nationalists these were outdated American-made M5A1 Stuart tanks commanded by Chiang Wei-kuo. Even Wei-kuo's half brother, Chiang Ching-kuo, had a role in the fighting, although this was obscured for the sake of his political career. Having spent his formative years in the Soviet Union as a de facto hostage, he returned to China with a Russian wife and was given a suitable rank in the army.

To their credit the Chiang brothers had a profound influence preparing the offshore islands against fresh invasion attempts and the work continued after 1951 when American advisers were embedded with Nationalist units.

According to Taiwanese accounts the Battle of Guningtou lasted 56 hours. Both sides suffered appalling losses, with the communists coming off worse; their entire invasion force was decimated and some 10,000 stragglers surrendered.

The nationalists' remaining light bombers, flying in from airstrips 60 miles (100km) away, helped scatter the enemy and prevent their evacuation attempts.

For decades this attempted communist landing, memorialised by the KMT regime in Taiwan, was ignored by the Western press and only considered a smaller clash in the long struggle for Kinmen and the offshore islands.

When it was finally immortalised by Taiwan's press as a lasting victory against communism it served to bookend the defeat suffered in the mainland and raise a new 'origin story' for local heroism against invasion. It was a narrative that was acceptable for a Taiwanese citizenry fed with constant warnings about the mainland's designs on their way of life.

American intervention

During the 1950s the Taiwan Strait became the Cold War's deadliest flashpoint and a potential theatre for a nuclear showdown. Since 1949, when the Kuomintang (KMT) retreated to Formosa (Taiwan) and other offshore islands, the communists in Beijing slowly overwhelmed these garrisons. The greatest prize was the capture of sprawling Hainan in 1950 just months before one million Chinese troops, dubbed 'people's volunteers', attacked UN forces in Korea.

By 1951 President Harry S Truman's administration pivoted back to supporting the KMT after its abandonment in the late 1940s. The cherry on top was assigning the U.S. Navy's 7th Fleet to sail its aircraft carriers across the strait separating the main island of Formosa from the Chinese coast, which effectively blocked any invasion attempt.

The Truman administration, then the Dwight D. Eisenhower administration later on, maintained a pro-KMT stance with the caveat that fighting would not embroil U.S. air and naval assets in Japan and the Philippines. But this is exactly what happened in the final months of 1954 when Beijing moved its forces from Korea to the coastal southern provinces.

The rationale from their perspective was clear: since 1949 KMT-backed 'guerrillas' – smuggling rings in the offshore islands such as Kinmen – had been blockading China's port cities. The People's Liberation Army (PLA) struck on 5 September with a bombardment of Formosa's island chain: the Kinmen and Matsu clusters. The Dachen, or Tachen Islands, located some 250 miles (400km) from the Taiwan coast, were pummelled into submission.

By January 1955 dozens of U.S. Navy ships organised as Task Force 502 evacuated 30,000 soldiers and civilians from the Dachens in the most brazen American intervention yet. The risk of a crossing by PLA divisions on boats panicked Taipei and the ageing Chiang Kai-shek wanted immediate American reinforcements.

A subtler approach prevailed. In a matter of weeks the superior air and naval resources of the U.S. military reinforced the Kinmen garrison with fresh artillery rounds for 6.1in (155mm) M1 Long Tom and M114 howitzers. A rare gift of the U.S. Army to their Formosan allies were divisional 8in (203mm) howitzers that had the range for hitting mainland China if they were positioned in concrete forts on the Matsus.

Over the years hundreds of U.S. advisers under the Military Assistance Advisory Group (MAAG) relocated to Taiwan. The risk to Americans embedded with KMT command staff meant there had to be strict guidelines on decision-making, so the Eisenhower administration wrung a promise from Chiang Kai-shek: there would be no attempts at a counter-invasion on the mainland in order to avoid starting World War III.

What became the First Taiwan Strait Crisis (1954-55) was portrayed by the global press as a high-risk skirmish that ebbed as a result of decisive American intervention. But neither Taipei or Beijing de-escalated in the ensuing years. Both sides grew their militaries, with the KMT fielding between 400,000 to 600,000 troops in its army, including airborne and marine units patterned after their American equivalents.

The remaining offshore islands, Kinmen and the tiny Matsu cluster, were reinforced with tunnel complexes and artillery. Constant surveillance and close calls with enemy aircraft were ever-present. A Mutual Defence Treaty and other obligations allowed the U.S. to deliver hundreds of brand new aircraft, including jets, to Taiwan's Republic of China Air Force.

By the summer of 1958 the intelligence from the Chinese coast set Taipei and Washington, D.C. on edge. The PLA was assessed to have collected almost 200,000 troops and hundreds of artillery pieces in Fujian for an upcoming operation. Its navy had grown by leaps and bounds with new gunboats armed with torpedoes.

Even more troubling was the rise of its air force, with 1,000 new Soviet fighters – the MiG-15 and MiG-17 – and the Ilyushin-28 medium-range bomber. Matters got out of hand once again on 23 August 1958 when coastal batteries hammered Kinmen with 40,000 shells inside 24 hours.

A shaken and injured Defence Minister Yu Ta-wei returned from Kinmen and met with the international press to make Taiwan's case: Beijing was ready to launch a full-scale assault. The 7th Fleet performed its usual mission reinforcing the islands while the ROC Air Force tangled with its rival on the mainland using air-to-air missiles. This time around the pinnacle of U.S. military technology was lavished on Taiwan.

The non-stop shelling of the Kinmen islands lasted 44 days, with the 7th Fleet taking pains to avoid getting within howitzer range as it escorted the resupply missions, while the sky buzzed with Taiwanese Saber jets. Aerial clashes with Chinese MiGs began at the start of August and lasted two months (the Cold War's first dog fights involving air-to-air missiles). The siege was lifted by October, but the circumstances remain debatable.

Did Beijing hesitate and order a cessation when its army began to run low on artillery shells? Or did the implied threat of nuclear attacks on Chinese airfields serve as enough warning from the Americans? After all, the deployment of Matador cruise missiles armed with nuclear warheads on a Taiwanese air base was a poorly kept secret.

Other contingencies involved tactical nuclear warheads for 8in (203mm) howitzers and the arming the Honest John rockets destined for Taiwan with the same. The PLA continued raining artillery shells on the Kinmen islands. When President Eisenhower visited Taipei in June 1960 the PLA signalled its displeasure with 86,000 shells on Kinmen.

The pattern continued every week, albeit with fewer shells and on select days, for two decades. But the Eisenhower administration encapsulated the Taiwan Strait crises as separate campaigns of Chinese aggression.

The truth was more complicated as the two regimes that once fought a civil war on the mainland continued their struggle in the nuclear age with the world's most advanced technology. But the course of history, as always, took unexpected turns in the following decades.

By the 1960s the Chinese mastered nuclear weapons and secret diplomacy was carried out with the Americans in the years after. On 1 January 1979 the bombardment of the Kinmen islands stopped as Beijing and Washington, DC entered a new era of economic co-operation.

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Taiwan's forces are training to ride the subway into war if China invades

• Taiwanese troops are training to go to war via the subway.

• Dozens of heavily armed soldiers were filmed taking the train during the island's annual war games.

• Taiwan is conducting its largest-ever version of the exercise amid rising tensions with Beijing.

Taiwanese troops were seen on Monday carrying Stinger missiles and grenade launchers on Taipei's subway as they trained to fight off a Chinese invasion.

Footage of the drill, part of the island's annual Han Kuang war games, was published by the Military News Agency. The outlet is run by Taiwan's Ministry of National Defense.

Similarly, the US military also conducts combat training in tunnels and subway systems to prepare for urban warfare in megacities.

However, the Taiwanese defense ministry's news branch wrote that its soldiers weren't just learning to fight on the subway, but also to "use underground facilities to transfer troops."

Several clips showed dozens of heavily armed soldiers riding the subway, taking escalators, and leaving via ticket gantries before taking position away from the station.

The training exercise involved soldiers of Taiwan's military police and Third Army Command, who toted anti-armor rockets and practiced tactical movement in subway cars and stations.

Some soldiers were filmed driving forklifts to load ammunition and other gear onto service trains of the subway lines.

Taiwan's national news agency, Central News Agency, reported that the exercise ran between the Shandao Temple Station and Longshan Temple Station. The stations are three stops apart, and the route goes through Taipei Main Station, a major interchange.

Greater Taipei's urban core, home to roughly 6.5 million people, is serviced by six main subway lines and a few extensions.

Han Kuang, run for over 40 years, is focused on countering a Chinese invasion and also trains Taiwan's troops for contingencies if Beijing successfully lands its forces on the island.

This year's exercise is Taiwan's largest in scale so far, running for 10 days and featuring a heavier emphasis on drills with civil forces and civilians to test the entire island's war readiness.

Taiwanese troops on Saturday also deployed the American High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems, which Taipei received last year, for the first time in the Han Kuang drills.

All of this comes as Taipei's current government, known for resisting Beijing, grows increasingly concerned about emerging hostilities with mainland China. Chinese leader Xi Jinping has pledged to reunify the island under Beijing's control, and said his country would never renounce its right to use force to reach that goal.

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On Taiwan’s forgotten front line, all the defensive drills in the world may not matter

The tanks and armoured vehicles rolled onto the sandy beach in the dead of night on Taiwan’s Kinmen island, lying in wait for the signal.

Within minutes, the order came over the loudspeaker, and the drills began with a series of huge explosions shaking the ground of this small island, located just two kilometres from China.

The rumbling thunder of rockets being launched towards the water could be heard from the edge of the beach. Seconds later, the sound of machine guns and a howitzer split the air while lasers lit up the night sky with orange lines.

The drills taking place at the Houhu Seaside Park on Kinmen’s east coast are part of Taiwan’s annual Han Kuang military drills. They are hosted there to showcase its military prowess and prepare its troops in the event of a Chinese invasion.

This year, the exercises are the biggest and longest ever, with more than 22,000 reservists deployed for 10 days of weapons training as well as a wide range of field exercises, which have included running through Taipei’s subway system in the middle of the night.

The drills on Kinmen are particularly important, given that its proximity to China has earned it the label of Taiwan’s “front line”.

However, those who live on Kinmen, including the troops, believe that this designation may no longer be valid; with some of the world’s most advanced weapons, if China wanted to attack Taiwan today, it could go straight for the jugular and hit the capital, Taipei.

“In the past, the military technology was not that advanced so the Chinese communists could only bomb Kinmen Island, but now they can launch missiles across the ocean, even to the United States,” said Yu-Jen Chen, who represents Kinmen in Taiwan’s Legislative Yuan – similar to a member of parliament in the UK.

As part of this year’s larger Han Kuang drills, they will also involve “unscripted” portions to more accurately simulate what would happen in the event of an attack.

On Kinmen, this means that some of the soldiers participating in the night-time drills have not been told key information in advance.

“They will only be deployed to the beach, when they receive the order from their commanders,” said a military source who spoke on the condition of anonymity as they are not authorised to speak to the media.

“Previously they would have a planned mobilisation, but this time they don’t have an arranged deployment.”

Similar to the rest of Han Kuang, the drills on Kinmen this year are the largest ever, with all 3,000 soldiers stationed on the island taking part.

Nine M60A3 tanks and four CM21 armoured vehicles were seen lining up before launching a torrent of projectiles towards Taiwan island.

There will also be continuous shooting across the main island, neighbouring Lesser Kinmen and nine surrounding islets, marking the first time all 12 are using live fire.

“This is the biggest one in history. While the islets have been included as part of the annual Han Kuang in the past, this year we made adjustments to have simultaneous live-firing on all of them,” Lt Gen Wang Shi-Tu, commander of the Kinmen Defense Command, told The Telegraph.

“This is because of the threats, especially the threats coming from the other side of the Taiwan Strait.”

China claims Taiwan as part of its territory, a stance which the government in Taipei rejects, and has not ruled out the use of force to “reunify” the country.

However, those who live in Kinmen don’t believe that the drills are all that useful.

“I was joking with a general who said that if a war happens they will mobilise their troops to hide in the mountains so we can avoid escalating the battle and minimise the destruction on Kinmen,” said Wang Song-Wei, who works at the Kinmen county government.

There used to be approximately 100,000 troops stationed on Kinmen Island, but over the years this number has decreased to the 3,000 or so here today – hardly enough to defend the island against China’s strength of more than two million. Legislator Chen explained that having fewer troops on Kinmen makes the island less of a target.

The island also doesn’t look the way you would imagine a front line to look.

Former military bases have been turned into museums, with artillery used in tourist showcases and old tanks left outside to rust and decay.

All of this is compounded by the greatest disadvantage facing Kinmen – that it would more or less be left to fend for itself in the event of an attack.

Legislator Chen said that the “official attitude” from the ministry of national defence in Taipei is that if Kinmen were attacked, its people would have to “fight for ourselves independently”.

This sentiment was echoed by several residents across the island, including Jason Yang, who was born and raised on Kinmen, but before retiring served as one of the highest officials in the military’s combat unit on the main island.

“In the event of a possible confrontation with China, it would not be a priority for Taipei to send troops,” he said.

Mr Wang believes one of the reasons that Lai Ching-te, the Taiwan president, decided to increase the scale of the Han Kuang drills this year was to appeal to the United States and, as the “frontline”, Kinmen needed to be included.

The US has long maintained a principle of strategic ambiguity when it comes to Taiwan, refraining from asserting whether it would come to the country’s defence in the event of an attack.

The Pentagon has recently been pushing Japan and Australia to clarify what kind of role they would play if Taiwan was attacked.

One unnamed US official said that this was to ensure that “the United States and its allies have the military strength to underwrite diplomacy and guarantee peace”.

For his part, Anthony Albanese, the Australian prime minister, rebuffed the efforts, saying that his country would not join a “hypothetical” conflict with China over Taiwan.

President Donald Trump has echoed this position, while also pushing for Taiwan to do its own part to protect itself, including by increasing its defence budget.

“It is very likely Lai is trying to show off to Trump. He takes action based on loyalty. He wants people to grovel and that is what Lai is doing,” said Mr Wang.

While the threat of an invasion looms over many in Taipei, for those on Kinmen, they don’t believe China would attack “its own family”, as one resident put it.

Kinmen and Xiamen, the Chinese city closest to the island, are very close culturally and many residents on both sides have family on the other.

No one understands this better than Xi Jinping, the Chinese president, who served as vice-mayor of the coastal city during the 1980s.

The government in Beijing has been capitalising on these ties in recent years, adopting what has become known as the Kinmen Model. This refers to Chinese coast guard activities aimed at furthering legal cross-strait relations by removing Taipei’s authority over the Taiwan Strait.

China has deployed many vessels – both officially and unofficially – into the strait over the years as part of its “grey zone” efforts to intimidate and coerce Taiwan.

Given this, it came as little surprise to those gathered on the beach that the island’s largest drills to date began with the encroachment of a Chinese fishing boat.

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Sirens and evacuations as Taipei rehearses to counter China invasion threat

Volunteers rehearsed taking cover in a supermarket basement in an air raid rehearsal in Taipei earlier this month.

Taipei is due to come to a standstill as the capital of Taiwan holds one of its largest-ever civil defence exercises against a possible Chinese invasion.

Air raid sirens will ring out across the metropolitan area on Thursday, and in some areas residents must seek shelter indoors, while traffic will grind to a halt. The city will also hold mass evacuation drills and mass casualty event rehearsals.

The exercise is held in conjunction with Taiwan's largest ever war games - the annual Han Kuang exercises - as the island increasingly ramps up its defences.

China claims self-ruled Taiwan as its part of its territory and has not ruled out the use of force to "reunify" with the island.

Tensions have increased since last year when Taiwan elected its president William Lai, whom China reviles as a "separatist".

While previous Han Kuang exercises also had civil defence components, this year authorities have combined them in a single Urban Resilience exercise across the island which began on Tuesday and ends on Friday.

Each day of the exercise sees air raid sirens ringing out for half an hour in several cities across Taiwan.

Residents in designated areas in each city must shelter indoors – or risk incurring a fine - and all shops and restaurants must pause operations. Road traffic must also come to a stop, with drivers required to pull over and head indoors immediately.

In Taipei, emergency workers and volunteers will take part in evacuations of a market and temple, schools, subway stations and highways.

They will also hold a mock mass casualty event and practise their response in treating the injured, and set up distribution points for emergency supplies.

This week's Urban Resilience exercise is the latest civil defence drill Taiwan has held this year as it tries to prepare its cities for possible attacks and raise its population's defence awareness.

While US officials have warned of an imminent threat from China and that President Xi Jinping wants his military to be capable of invading Taiwan by 2027, most Taiwanese remain sceptical that an actual invasion will take place.

One poll done last October by a government-linked think tank, the Institute for National Defence and Security Research (INDSR), found that more than 60% of Taiwanese do not believe China will invade in the next five years.

"The chances of China invading are low. If they really wanted to invade us, they would have done it long ago," said Ben, a 29-year-old finance professional interviewed by the BBC in Taipei on Wednesday.

"But I do believe we need these drills, every country needs it and you need to practise your defence… I believe there is still a threat from China."

But a few were sceptical.

"There is just too big a difference in the strengths of China and Taiwan's militaries," said Mr Xue, a 48-year-old office worker. "There is no use defending ourselves against an attack."

The IDSR poll had found that only half of Taiwan's population had confidence in their armed forces' capability to defend the island.

It is a long-running sentiment that has spurred the Taiwanese government in recent years to beef up its military and expand Han Kuang.

More than 22,000 soldiers - about 50% more than last year – rehearsed defending the island from potential attacks from China in land, sea and air drills.

Newly acquired military hardware such as the US-supplied Himars mobile missile system as well as Taiwan-made rockets were tested.

This year's Han Kuang exercise also focused on combating greyzone warfare and misinformation from China, as well as rehearsing military defence in cities.

In recent days soldiers took part in urban warfare exercises in an exhibition centre and on the subway in Taipei.

On Wednesday the military rehearsed pushing back enemy troops on the streets of Taichung city, and turned a high school in Taoyuan into a battle tank repair station.