China, Taiwan, And The ‘Island In Between’: Perilous Outpost Explored In Oscar-Nominated Short
At their nearest point, Taiwan and mainland China are less than a hundred miles apart. But historically and politically – for over 70 years – a broad gulf has separated them. In the case of the Kinmen Islands, part of Taiwan, the paradox between geography and history is even more stark: the islands sit but a few miles from the mainland city of Xiamen, in the increasingly fraught waters of the Taiwan Strait.
The opening frames of the Oscar-nominated short film Island in Between, directed by S. Leo Chiang, show an old tank moored on a sandy beach of Kinmen, its rusted barrel aimed out to sea. The image makes for a startling reminder of the uneasy co-existence between the two countries — independent countries, that is, from Taiwan’s point of view; the Chinese government considers Taiwan simply another province of the People’s Republic.
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“Growing up in Taiwan, I heard a lot about Kinmen,” Chiang says in voiceover. “I knew that Kinmen had been the frontline for Taiwan during the Chinese Civil War. But it was still a shock to see that China is literally right there.”
Chiang and producer Jean Tsien were both raised in Taiwan but have spent much of their professional careers in the U.S. Chiang relocated to Taiwan during the pandemic, affording him more time to spend with his parents. In remarkable archive within Island in Between, the voices of schoolkids are heard cheerfully singing a patriotic if militaristic anthem: “Take down the Soviet Union and fight communism! Destroy Mao and kill traitors of the Chinese race!”
“I sang this song all the time as a kid,” Chiang reveals in voiceover. “We were taught that we Taiwanese were Chinese in exile. And, one day, with help from the U.S., we would retake China, freeing the mainland from the evil Communists. And Kinmen would be the launching pad.”
That Cold War-era dream of Taiwan taking over China, versus the other way around, sounds quaint from a contemporary vantage point.
“That’s the propaganda in the film,” Chiang tells Deadline. “We used to say, ‘We’re coming to take back that government!’ Right now, it seems absurd that a little, teeny island is going to overtake the 1.8 billion people. That’s no longer the desire of [Taiwan].”
Rather, he says, “People want to have the power of self-determination. Taiwanese people want to be able to live our lives without living in fear. And I hope that the rest of the world sees this [film], and I hope that at some point that those few people — whoever it is that is making these decisions in the Chinese government — sees this.”
Far from taking a dovish approach, however, the Chinese government has been ramping up military maneuvers around its neighbor in recent years — perhaps probing vulnerabilities in Taiwan’s defenses and testing U.S. resolve toward its ally.
In an Op-Ed piece published by the New York Times on Monday, independent defense analyst Ben Lewis drilled into China’s increasingly aggressive stance toward Taiwan. Lewis wrote that before 2020, China’s People’s Liberation Army rarely crossed into Taiwan’s airspace, but beginning that year, “P.L.A. aircraft breached it nearly 400 times. Last year, that number exceeded 1,700. Beijing has steadily pushed the envelope… Alarms should be ringing, but neither Taiwan nor the United States has taken meaningful action to deter China, and Taiwan’s response has been inconsistent and lacks transparency, which may further embolden Beijing. A more robust approach is needed to deter China from escalating the situation.”
Chiang’s purpose in Island in Between isn’t to argue military strategy or the political dynamics per se, but to explore the personal dimension of what it means to live in the shadow of potential armed conflict.
“At dinner recently,” he says in the film, “my mother casually reminded me that I should have a plan if China invades.”
In Island in Between Chiang recounts that his father served compulsory military service in Kinmen in 1968. He says when his grandmother learned her son would be sent there, she cried, fearing for his safety. Tsien, the producer, could closely identify with that story.
“I was born in Taiwan and in 1969 I was eight years old, and I remember this moment looking at my grandma,” she tells Deadline. “She was playing Mahjong with her friends, and she received a phone call from my uncle who just got enlisted to serve for the military, and he got picked to serve in Kinmen. I watched my grandma sob just uncontrollably. She lost three kids in China, and so my uncle was the first born in Taiwan and she just thought he may go and die. That was my first time hearing the word Kinmen, as an 8-year-old.”
The documentary, as is true for almost every nonfiction film, went through various iterations. Part of the evolution of Island in Between was to make the director a more overt presence in the film.
“I would say even six months ago, Leo’s voice was not in the film,” Tsien notes. “At one point we realized his voice is so authentic, it’s needed to guide the international audience.”
Island in Between is part of the New York Time Op-Docs franchise, which has earned six Oscar nominations since it was founded in 2011. It won the Oscar in 2022 for The Queen of Basketball, directed by Ben Proudfoot (Proudfoot is nominated this year along with co-director Kris Bowers for The Last Repair Shop, released by Searchlight Pictures and L.A. Times Studios).
“We really enjoy working with the Op-Docs team,” Chiang says. “I think they’re super smart, super supportive, and they genuinely are interested and invested in our story and wanted to reach the audience, and it’s been really incredible to have that platform.”
He adds wryly, “I fully accept that this is definitely the film that’s going to have the most eyeballs of all my films combined, and this would be the one film that I would want that to happen to because it feels like it is the right time to do that, that people are paying attention to that part of the world and paying attention to what’s happening there.”
Asked how he thinks the tensions between China and Taiwan can be resolved peacefully, he says, “I don’t think we have the answer. I think that this is such a complicated situation and none of us feel like we’re necessarily qualified to offer.”
“I don’t think either of us want to give the perception that the Taiwanese people feel victimized,” Chiang continues. “I think that Taiwan is a thriving society, even under this kind of ongoing pressure, really for the last 70 years. It’s one version of another of this particular pressure. It just so happens that right now it’s more heightened than before, but people are building families, building careers and enjoying life and thriving.
“But at the same time, we’re constantly living with this fear, this ghost that’s kind of haunting us that, okay, well something might happen.”
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