Caught Between China and Taiwan, Leaning Toward China

choi

傅才德, 烈屿乡，处在海峡两岸复杂互动的十字路口. 纽约时报, June 8, 2016
http://cn.nytimes.com/china/20160608/china-taiwan-kinmen-lieyu/

, which is translated from

Michael Forsythe, Caught Between China and Taiwan, Leaning Toward China, New York Times, June 8, 2016.

Note:
(a) "Lieyu Township, encompassing what is known as Lesser Kinmen Island, is not controlled by the People’s Republic of China, nor is the much larger Kinmen Island nearby, even though both sit on the approaches to one of the mainland’s busiest ports."
(i) Lieyu 烈嶼鄉, Kinmen  
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lieyu,_Kinmen
(ii) approach (n): "a means of access : AVENUE"
www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/approach

(b) "Chiang, who died in 1975, still watches over the island. A statue of him, doffing his peaked cap, towers over an overgrown athletic field where cows graze. The basketball court and chin-up bars once used by front-line soldiers are slowly surrendering to the lush subtropical vegetation."
(i) peaked cap
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peaked_cap
(derives its name from its short visor (American English, known as a peak in British English))
(ii) peak (n): ""chiefly British A stiff brim at the front of a cap"www.oxforddictionaries.com/us/definition/american_english/peak

(c) "The population here [Kinmen] boomed, surging to more than 133,000 this year from fewer than 80,000 a decade ago.  Tourists from the mainland arrive by boat in Kinmen's port, and a much larger port is being built adjacent to it. A six-story shopping complex, catering to mainlanders and billed as Asia's largest duty-free mall, opened in 2014."
(d) Mr "Tsai Shu-ta, 59 * * * who has lived his whole life on Lieyu [as opposed to an immigrant from mainland China], says he was put off by the Democratic Progressive Party's failure to include Kinmen on its flag — which depicts a green island of Taiwan on a white cross."