Taiwan's Kinmen Islands are just a few kilometres, at their closest point, from the city of Xiamen in mainland China. That makes some residents nervous about a possible military attack.

For a place squeezed up against a hostile adversary and that’s often referred to as the “front line of democracy,” the mood in Kinmen is notably chill.

Tourists from mainland China are the top visitors to this outpost of Taiwan, usually arriving by ferry from the Fujian city of Xiamen, just a few kilometres across the bay.

The top attractions here are former war sites and relics that collectively tell the history of these islands — located more than 300 kilometres west of the Taiwanese capital Taipei — which have been the site of conflict several times since the 1949 Chinese civil war between nationalist and communist forces.

“What you see from those military attractions are meant to let people remember the cruelty of war,” said Jerry Wu, a taxi driver and tour guide, who said the conditions on Kinmen's beaches during the battles of 1949 were similar to those of the Normandy landings five years earlier.

To this day Beijing claims Kinmen, and the rest of democratically governed Taiwan, as its own territory, and the communist leadership has not renounced using force in its quest to bring them under its control.

With U.S. President Donald Trump expected to meet Chinese leader Xi Jinping on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation ( APEC) Summit in Gyeongju , Sou