Second Taiwan Strait Crisis

The Second Taiwan Strait Crisis, also called the 1958 Taiwan Strait Crisis, was a conflict between the People's Republic of China (PRC) and the Republic of China (ROC). In this conflict, the PRC shelled the islands of Kinmen (Quemoy) and the Matsu Islands along the east coast of mainland China (in the Taiwan Strait) in an attempt to take control of Taiwan from the Chinese Nationalist Party, also known as the Kuomintang (KMT), and to probe the extent of the United States' defense of Taiwan's territory. A naval battle also took place around Dongding Island when the ROC Navy repelled an attempted amphibious landing by the PRC Navy.

Then U.S. Secretary of State Christian Herter reportedly described the conflict as the "first serious nuclear crisis".^[5]

Third Taiwan Strait Crisis

List of battles over Kinmen

Chinese Civil War

Republic of China Armed Forces

Kinmen knife

Dongding Island

Mao Zedong's handling of the Taiwan Straits Crisis of 1958

Khrushchev's Nuclear Promise to Beijing During the 1958 Crisis

from the Cold War Museum

First and Second Taiwan Strait Crisis, Quemoy and Matsu Islands of Taiwan

Contemporary US government reaction