China Guide
Fujian, Guangdong and Hainan Island
Xiuying Battery
Opening time: Daily 8am–7pm
Price: ¥10
Address: 5km west of the centre (minibus #32 from the south gate of Haikou Park)
Xiuying Battery offers a different take on the island. Built after the Chinese had apparently beaten off an attempted invasion by the French in the latter part of the nineteenth century, Xiuying was part of a string of coastal defences designed to deter foreign incursions along south China's coastline. A huge fortification, now maintained as a park, it's surrounded by basalt block walls concealing six twenty-centimetre naval cannons set in concrete bunkers, all connected by subterranean passageways. The bunkers are now camouflaged by fig trees and lit by bare bulbs, with the squat-barrelled, bezel-mounted guns pointing at high-rises to the north. It must be said that Xiuying's design and weaponry look suspiciously European – perhaps they were modernized in 1937 when the fort was dusted off to resist the Japanese.