Strait talking

For almost 40 years, a succession of rival "frontier broadcasters" fought for dominance of the airways across the Taiwan Straits. Later, some of the main players became firm friends. Peng Yining reports from Xiamen, Fujian province.

Facing out across the ocean, the ruined hulks of huge loudspeakers dominate the eastern shore of Dadeng, a leafy island of 20,000 residents that lies off the coast of Xiamen, Fujian province.

These sentinels, battered by the wind and rain, have long been silent, but once they blared across the Taiwan Straits that separate the mainland and Taiwan as an integral element of a long-running war of words.