Quemoy

English

國立金門大學
NATIONAL QUEMOY UNIVERSITY

Etymology

From Zhangzhou Hokkien 金門 (Kim-mûi).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˌkiˈmɔɪ/
• enPR: kĭ-moiʹ, kwĭ-moiʹ, kē-moiʹ

Proper noun

Quemoy

1. Synonym of Kinmen
   • 1684, Edm. Halley, “A Theory of the Tides at the Bar of Tunking”, in Philosophical Transactions‎^[1], volume XIV, Oxford, →OCLC, page 687:

     It would be however a very acceptable thing if ſome curious Navigators would inform us, what tides or Currents are found at Macao, Quemoy, and other places on the Coast of China and on Formoſa ; it being moſt probable that this flood cometh out of the North Eaſt, alongſt the Coaſt of China, for that the Northerly Moonsoon is found to occaſion the higheſt ſpring-tides.

   • 1701, Joan Luyts, Herman Moll, A System of Geography, Part the Second‎^[2], London, →OCLC, page 49:

     On the South-Eaſt Coaſt, off of the Bay of Camcheu, lies the Iſland Quemoy, or as le Compte names it Emoui, which makes a very good Haven for Shipping.

   • 1759, The Modern Part of an Univerſal Hiſtory‎^[3], volume X, London, page 366:

     On the aſſurances, therefore, given them by Mr. Borel, their embaſſador to the emperor, they fitted out a great fleet of ſeventeen ſail of large ſhips, under the command of Balthaſar Borth, with orders to join the Tartars, and to act with the utmoſt vigour againſt Coxenga. On his arrival on the coaſt of China he found that conqueror in poſſeſſion of the iſland of Quemoy, which the Tartars, with all their force, were not able to take from him.

   • 1837 May, “Coast of China: the division of it into four portions ; brief description of the principal places on the southeastern, eastern, and northeastern portions.”, in The Chinese Repository‎^[4], volume VI, number 1, Canton, →OCLC, page 12‎^[5]:

     The smaller of the two principal islands in this extensive bay, called Quemoy, is situated in lat. 24° 20' 30" north, lon. 118° 16' 30" east. It is to the eastward of Amoy, and forms the southwestern side of another harbor, (having the mainland to the north and northeast of it,) which is called the bay or harbor of Kinmun, Kimmoon, or Quemoy. The bay of Leaoulo, a small bay on the eastern side of Quemoy island, affords shelter from southwest winds.
     Chimmo, Yungning, or Engleng bay is separated from Quemoy by a peninsula of from four to seven miles in breadth.

   • 1908, M. Kennelly, transl., Comprehensive Geography of the Chinese Empire and Dependencies‎^[6], Shanghai: T'usewei Press, pages 277-278:

     Islands. - Rocky and bare, they are nearly all inhabited by fishermen whose boats go far out to sea. The most important is the island of Amoy, though it is not the largest. The Samsa or Sansha 三沙 group, including the upper 上三都 (shangsantu) and lower 下三部 (hsiasantu) islets, Hait'an 海壇 island, Quemoy or Kinmên 金門 (golden harbour) island, T'ungshan 銅山, and White dog island, are largest.

   • 1958, President Dwight Eisenhower, 0:49 from the start, in President Eisenhower Speaks On The Formosa Situation (1958)‎^[7], British Pathé:

     It is as certain as can be that the shooting which the Chinese Communists started on August 23, had as its purpose not just the taking of the island of Quemoy. It is part of what is intended, is indeed, an ambitious plan of armed conquest.

   • 1960, 54:09 from the start, in OCTOBER 7, 1960 Presidential Candidates Debate‎^[8], US Vice President Richard M. Nixon (actor), C-SPAN:

     Now I think as far as Quemoy and Matsu are concerned, that the question is not these two little pieces of real estate- they are unimportant. It isn't the few people who live on them- they are not too important. It's the principle involved. These two islands are in the area of freedom. The Nationalists have these two islands. We should not force our Nationalist allies to get off of them and give them to the Communists. If we do that, we start a chain reaction, because the Communists aren't after Quemoy and Matsu, they're after Formosa. In my opinion, this is the same kind of woolly thinking that lead to disaster for America in Korea, I'm against it, I would never tolerate it as President of the United States, and I will hope that Senator Kennedy will change his mind if he should be elected.

   • 1963, Dwight Eisenhower, Mandate for Change 1953-1956‎^[9], Garden City, New York: Doubleday & Company, →LCCN, →OCLC, page 463:

     By Sunday, September 12, the Chinese Communists still had not attacked, they had been confining themselves for the moment to sporadic artillery fire against Quemoy.

   • 1978, Richard Nixon, RN: The Memoirs of Richard Nixon‎^[10], Simon & Schuster, →ISBN, page 271:

     I also hammered hard on Kennedy's shortsighted unwillingness to defend the offshore islands of Quemoy and Matsu, occupied by Chiang Kai-shek's forces.

   • 1979 May 27, President Chiang Ching-kuo, “Anti-Communist actions escalate”, in Free China Weekly‎^[11], volume XX, number 20, Taipei, page 2:

     If they dare to start any military action against the Republic of China, it would start a new political crisis on the mainland. You may recall what happened in 1958 at the time of the Chinese Communist bombardment of the offshore island of Quemoy. They never even tried to invade the island, but it still caused some internal political trouble on the mainland. Peng Teh-huai was removed from office because of some differing policy assessments.

   • 1995 October 16, William McGurn, “A Cool Hot Spot”, in The Weekly Standard‎^[12], volume 1, number 5, pages 22–23:

     Quemoy, Taiwan
     IN A CRAMPED WORKSHIP just a few miles off the coast of China, Wu Zen-tung takes an old bomb fragment and within minutes has hammered it into a sleek kitchen knife. The bomb dates from 1958, when Chiang Kai-shek's Nationalist forces managed to hold onto Quemoy, the little Taiwanese outpost that would become an issue in the 1960 presidential election....Chinese Communist forces dropped some 474,910 bombs over those 44 days, and they would continue to shell Quemoy every other day for the next 20 years, right up until the U.S. recognized Beijing on New Year's Day 1979.
     . . .
     The lack of anxiety in Quemoy illustrates the dramatic shift in Taiwan's strengths and vulnerabilities. In the bad old days, with Chiang and Mao duking it out for control, the defense of Quemoy became a focal point of the "who's tougher on Communism" debates of the Nixon-Kennedy presidential race.

   • 2003 May 30, “Chinmen Willing to Accept Donations From Chinese Motherland”, in Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the People's Republic of China‎^[13], archived from the original on 24 September 2022:

     In view of the sum-up report from the e-media in the island, during the meeting convened by the county "congress" on May 28 some "congress members" put forward a provisional motion concerning the prevention and protection against the SARS. It suggested to make efforts for getting hold of the negative pressure isolation ambulance donated by the Chinese motherland to Chinmen (Quemoy), which won the support from the majority of the "congress members".

   • 2009 August 15, Lawrence Chung, “Historic swim heralds warming strait relations”, in South China Morning Post‎^[14], →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 02 August 2021‎^[15]:

     'Swimming across the sea to Quemoy was not difficult at all,' said Li Yenhan, 22, from Tianjin , who was the first mainlander ashore. 'There were some sea currents near Binlang islet [held by Taiwan], but after that it was an easy swim.'

   • 2012, 42:09 from the start, in Listening In: JFK's Secret Tapes‎^[16], Thomas Oliphant (actor), John F. Kennedy Library Foundation:

     I should add a story, you know in the South at that time, Governor Barnett was sort of known as a bit of a dim bulb. And two years before, during the presidential campaign, one of the flashpoints in the debates that fall involved two Nationalist Chinese islands just off the coast of China: Quemoy and Matsu. And right after this argument erupted in the campaign, Ross Barnett was out politicking one day and the reporters asked him, "Governor, what about Quemoy and Matsu?" And he looked around sort of lost and said to one of his aides, "Them those two fellers I put on the Fishing and Game Commission last year?"

   • 2018, Choi Chi-yuk, “Where China’s top leaders go in summer and in secret: a brief history of Beidaihe”, in South China Morning Post‎^[17]:

     In August 1958, party elites headed by Mao made two key decisions during an expanded meeting of the party’s Politburo held in the resort: building people’s communes in rural areas across the nation and the cannon bombardment of Quemoy, the Taiwan-controlled offshore island, also called Kinmen.

   • 2022 February 11, Minnie Chen, “Was it Beijing testing Taiwan’s defences with unidentified Matsu island flyover?”, in South China Morning Post‎^[18], archived from the original on 11 February 2022, China Military:

     “In 1996, Beijing included Tungyin as one of its 49 territorial island bases, and Taipei announced its territorial sea base points in 1999 to exclude the Quemoy and Matsu islands for the first time,” Lu explained.

   • For more quotations using this term, see Citations:Quemoy.

Further reading

• Leon E. Seltzer, editor (1952), “Quemoy”, in The Columbia Lippincott Gazetteer of the World‎^[19], Morningside Heights, NY: Columbia University Press, →OCLC, page 1542, column 2
• “Quemoy”, in Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster, 1996–present.
• “Quemoy” in TheFreeDictionary.com, Huntingdon Valley, Pa.: Farlex, Inc., 2003–2024.