The president and chairman of the ruling right-wing Chinese Nationalist Party (Kuomintang) made the promise during a speech in the Jitian Bunker on the past fortress island Sunday morning during a meeting to commemorate the bloody battle with veterans of the conflict and numerous government and military officials present.

The successful defence of the redoubt of Kinmen island by KMT troops occurred after the Nationalist forces under Chiang Kai-shek had been routed across China and shortly after the victorious Chinese Communist Party under CCP Chairman Mao Zedong established the People`s Republic of China on October 1 and forced Chiang`s Republic of China government to flee from Nanjing to Chengtu and finally to Taipei.

Ma related that 10,000 People`s Liberation Army troops made a night attack on Kinmen and fought bitterly with defending Nationalist troops for three days during which over 7,000 PLA troops were captured and about 3,000 killed while 1,200 KMT troops died in the battle on the northwestern corner of Kinmen.

At that time, the KMT government under Chiang Kai-shek had just lost control over Xiamen on October 17, leaving Kinmen and Matsu as the only places in Fujian Province in KMT hands.

Ma stated that the Guningtou battle is often overlooked against the background of nearly continuous warfare on the China mainland including the eight-year War of Resistance against Japan and the KMT-CCP civil war in the first half of the 20th century which cost the lives of tens of millions of persons.

However, the president stated that from the standpoint of the 21st century, the Guningtou battle changed modern Chinese history and the fate of the two sides of the Taiwan Strait.

Ma said the victory `turned around the situation`` in the Chinese civil war and raised morale on the KMT side and inititated the six decades of ``divided rule across the Taiwan Strait and allowed two diametrically different ideological and political and economic systems to engage separately in a great experiment under the atmospher of the global Cold War.``

The president stated that the Guningtou battle successfully ``defended Taiwan`` and provided the ``most precious necessary conditions for the `construction of Taiwan.``

Ma stated that the Guningtou battle had allowed the Taiwan people to ``rise from poverty and backwardness to develop social equity and economic take-off, universal education and freedom of thought and finally to achieve social pluralism and political democracy.``

The president stated that the ``Taiwan experience`` had successfully melded ``the sophisticated Chinese tradition and the openness of an ocean civilization``

Ma declared that ``without the resolution and sacrifice`` of those who died at Guningtou, ``there would not have been the successful Taiwan experience.``

Ma related that during the same 60 years mainland China had experienced two dramatically different 30 year periods.

During its first three decades, Ma said the PRC had used ``external Marxism-Leninism shock treatment`` in order to allow China to shake off the influence of thousands of years of feudalism, hundreds of years of backwardness and decades of destruction`` but added that this transformation came at a `` horrendous price in terms of tens of millions of lives`` and ``the destruction of national core values.``

Ma said the past 30 years of ``pragmatic and gradual reform and openness`` had allowed the PRC to ``leave behind Marxist-Leninist dogma and return to traditional values`` and allowed the mainland to ``advanced toward modernization and embrace the world`` and rise to become a decisive force in East Asia.

The president stated that the KMT government`s resolution to ``build the military and defend Taiwan, Penghu, Kinmen and Matsu has absolutely not changed.``

But Ma declared that standing near the battleground 60 years later, his KMT government wanted to console the fallen with the promise to promote the cross-strait ``reconciliation`` with the PRC ``from interaction and negotiations to ease hatred and antagonism and let the battleground pass into history and allow peace to become eternal.``

After his speech, the president joined with Kinmen County officials in a ribbon - cutting ceremony for the ``Guningtou Peace Plaza`` near the battleground and led in official remembrance ceremonies at the Martyrs Shine and the adjacent mass graveyard for the Nationalist soldiers killed during the battle.