Kinmen 4.23

Kinmen or Quemoy, officially Kinmen County, is a group of islands, governed by the Republic of China (ROC), which is located just off the southeastern coast of mainland China, including Great Kinmen, Lesser Kinmen, Wuqiu and several surrounding islets. It is one of two counties under the streamlined Fujian Province of the Republic of China. Only about 2km east of the mainland city of Xiamen, its strategic position has reflected the significant change of Cross-Strait relations from a battlefront to a trading point between China and Taiwan. Due to the ongoing issue of the political status of Taiwan, the People's Republic of China (PRC) has continuously claimed Kinmen as part of its own Fujian Province's Quanzhou prefecture-level city.NamesKinmen was given its name in 1387 when the Hongwu Emperor of China's Ming dynasty appointed a military officer to administer the island and protect it from wokou (pirate) attacks. The name is pronounced Jīnmén in the official Standard Chinese but some of the various names used in English for the islands derive from other Chinese varieties.