CCP Appropriates Taiwan Retrocession Day

Executive Summary:

• The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is using the 80th anniversary of Taiwan’s retrocession to push a revisionist history, formally designating it as a national holiday, and framing 1945 as the legal return of Taiwan to China to strengthen its sovereignty claims over Taiwan.
• Through its “Three 80th Anniversaries” campaign, Beijing ties Taiwan’s retrocession to China’s World War Two victory and the founding of the United Nations, repackaging these events as historical proof of rightful unification.
• Taiwan’s domestic struggles regarding its identity and different interpretations of the retrocession by the two leading parties create social cleavages that Beijing exploits.
• The People’s Republic of China (PRC) is sponsoring retrocession commemoration events in the United States, exporting misinformation and lawfare abroad, and using historical commemoration to legitimize present-day territorial claims.

On October 24, the New York chapter of the Alliance for China’s Peaceful Reunification (ACPR; 全美和平统一促进会) hosted a gala in Flushing to commemorate the “80th Anniversary of Taiwan’s Retrocession” (台湾光复 80 周年). The event, attended by the New York Consul General of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) Chen Li (陈立) and several deputies, combined a policy forum with a cultural performance. Chen called on overseas Chinese to “support national reunification and oppose ‘Taiwan independence’” (支持国家统一、反对‘台独’). Organizers hailed Beijing’s decision to designate October 25 as “Taiwan Retrocession Memorial Day” (台湾光复纪念日), describing it as a reminder of the “shared bloodline and destiny between compatriots on both sides of the Strait” (两岸同胞血脉相连、命运与共) (The Voice of Chinese, October 25). At a similar event in June, the Philadelphia ACPR declared that the victory in the anti-Japanese War belongs especially to the “Taiwan compatriots” (尤其是台湾同胞) who sacrificed their lives (ACPR, June 9). [1] The commemorations on U.S. soil highlights the PRC’s use of united front networks to export revisionist historical narratives that use the language of remembrance to advance legally dubious present-day sovereignty claims.

Throughout 2025, PRC embassies and consulates have collaborated with a network of organizations to sponsor retrocession anniversary events. This network is called the Council for the Promotion of the Peaceful Reunification of China (CPPRC; 中国和平统一促进会), and it is a primary overseas channel that Beijing uses to cultivate diaspora support for its Taiwan agenda. CPPRC branches share leadership networks with local Chinese chambers of commerce, student associations, and cultural associations (China Brief, May 9, 2019). In August, over 60 Chinese associations joined a large-scale retrocession commemoration in New York hosted by the local chapter of the CPPRC. The American Lianjiang Association (美国连江同乡会), a united front-linked organization with alleged ties to organized crime, called Taiwan’s retrocession “an important turning point in the history of the Chinese nation” (中华民族历史的重要节点) and said that Taiwan and Lianjiang are “connected by blood” (血脉相连) (The New York Times; WeiWei TV, August 25).

Taiwan Retrocession Completes the ‘Three 80 Anniversaries’

October 25, 1945, marks the surrender of Japan’s last Governor-General in Taiwan, Andō Rikichi, to Republic of China (ROC) representatives. In the PRC’s narrative, this was the day Taiwan was restored to China following fifty years of colonial rule (Taiwan Affairs Office, September 11). On October 24, 2025, the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress formally designated Taiwan Retrocession Day as a holiday. The PRC sees Taiwan’s retrocession as a key outcome of the war and one that supports its sovereignty claims over Taiwan, as it “is an important link in the historical and legal framework affirming that Taiwan is part of China” (是台湾作为中国一部分的历史事实和法理链条的重要一环) (Xinhua, October 24).

The PRC’s Taiwan Affairs Office (TAO) has published three articles in Xinhua under the pseudonym Zhong Taiwen (钟台文) since October 25 (CNA, October 27; Storm Media, October 28). One, titled “The Origins and Essence of the Taiwan Question” (台湾问题的由来和性质), lays out the historical and legal claims the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) makes regarding Taiwan. It claims that Chinese government announced the restoration of the exercise of sovereignty over Taiwan on October 25, 1945 (Xinhua, October 26).

This revisionist view of history rests on three claims. First, it portrays the 1945 handover as an act of completed national reunification rather than a provisional wartime arrangement. Second, it erases the institutional difference between the Qing, which ceded Taiwan to Japan in 1985, the ROC, which accepted Japan’s surrender in 1945, and the PRC, which was only established four years later, in 1949. Third, it conflates the Second Sino-Japanese War with the CCP’s legitimacy, implying that both Taiwan’s “recovery” and the CCP’s later victory in 1949 formed a single historical continuum. Through this framework, the CCP positions itself as the rightful inheritor of the wartime struggle and the only authority capable of defending its “fruits of victory.”

Legally, the argument is tenuous. The Japanese Instrument of Surrender of 1945 and the subsequent General Order No. 1 issued by Supreme Allied Commander General Douglas MacArthur authorized Allied forces, including the ROC, to accept Japan’s capitulation and to occupy Taiwan provisionally. No treaties explicitly transferred sovereignty (U.S. Department of State, August 1945). Both the 1951 San Francisco Treaty and the 1952 Treaty of Taipei similarly confirmed Japan’s renunciation of Taiwan without naming a successor state (United Nations; Taiwan Law Database, 1952). The American Institute in Taiwan (AIT) recently endorsed this narrative of the “undetermined status of Taiwan,” and the U.S. Department of State confirmed it in September 2025 (CNA, September 13; UDN, September 16). When the PRC was established in 1949, it neither participated in these instruments nor governed Taiwan. Nevertheless, Beijing’s propaganda now speaks of inheriting both the ROC’s wartime role and the authority conferred by Allied decisions. The CCP’s objective is to muddy the perception that Taiwan’s status was settled 80 years ago and any contrary position constitutes historical nihilism (China Brief, March 28).

This narrative is integral to the CCP’s “Three 80 Anniversaries” (三个八十年) campaign, which frames 2025 as a pivotal year for asserting the PRC’s claims over Taiwan. The campaign revolves around the 80th anniversaries of the end of World War II, the founding of the United Nations, and Taiwan’s retrocession. Official PRC sources and government-aligned think tanks have described these anniversaries as opportunities to conduct “lawfare” (法律战) and “historical narrative warfare” (历史论述战) to reinforce the position that Taiwan is an inseparable part of China. In June 2025, the China Review Think Tank Foundation (中评智库基金会) and Renmin University’s Cross-Strait Relations Research Center hosted a forum in Beijing titled “The Thinkers’ Forum: The Three 80th Anniversaries and the Taiwan Question” (思想者论坛：三个80周年纪念与台湾问题). At the forum, Wu Yongping (巫永平), head of Tsinghua University’s Institute for Taiwan Studies, said the three anniversaries are interconnected and mark the beginning of the post-war order. Wu further argued that this post-war order is now collapsing, and that China must take advantage of the emerging new order to “shape the inevitable trend of national unification” (发挥好新秩序的作用，是我们塑造国家必然统一大势的内在组成部分) (CRNTT, June 23; CNA, July 1).

The CCP actively courts Taiwanese participation in its attempts to rewrite history. At a Taiwan retrocession commemoration event in Shaanxi, descendants of prominent Taiwanese anti-Japan military leaders endorsed the CCP’s historiography and said that “if we want to save Taiwan, we must first save the motherland” (欲救台湾、先救祖国) (Shaanxi Government, September 24). In Beijing, Taiwanese conglomerate Want Want Group (旺旺集團) co-hosted a calligraphy show to celebrate Taiwan’s retrocession. Its representative, Lin Tianliang (林天良), originally from Taiwan, proclaimed that the retrocession “welcomed Taiwanese compatriots back into the embrace of the motherland, and rediscovered our ethnic dignity” (讓台灣同胞重新回到祖國的懷抱，也重新獲得民族的尊嚴). The TAO announced plans to invite “Taiwanese compatriots” to retrocession celebrations, promoting reunification as part of the CCP’s broader goal of national rejuvenation (CTEE, October 17; TAO, October 22).

Divergent Views of October 25 in Taiwan

The meaning of Taiwan Retrocession Day has itself become a subject of intense debate within Taiwan. During the period in which the country was under martial law, the Kuomintang (KMT) established the day as an official holiday to commemorate the 1945 transfer of Japanese authority on Taiwan to the ROC. The KMT regime used the holiday to affirm its legitimacy as the government that had “recovered” Taiwan and to emphasize continuity with prewar China. For many Taiwanese, however, especially after democratization, the term guangfu (光復; restoration) came to symbolize the replacement of one colonial authority with another, rather than liberation (Taiwan Presidential Office, October 25, 2005).

In May 2025, the KMT-majority Legislative Yuan passed a bill designating October 25 as an official national holiday once again. Supporters framed the move as a reaffirmation of ROC sovereignty. At a KMT-hosted retrocession commemoration at Taipei’s Zhongshan Hall, KMT outgoing party chair Eric Chu (朱立倫) said that “Taiwan has been retrocessed, this is a historical fact” (台灣光復了，這是歷史的事實). He argued that commemorating Taiwan Retrocession Day honors those who fought in the war and symbolizes the end of Japanese colonial rule on Taiwan (UDN, October 25).

The political revival of the holiday magnified existing cleavages in Taiwan’s identity politics. It also created new opportunities for Beijing to exploit the symbolic overlap between its own retrocession narrative and the KMT’s historical framing, even though the two come from fundamentally different political premises. For the KMT, the holiday also commemorates the Battle of Kuningtou, which began on October 25, 1949, when ROC forces on the island of Kinmen (Quemoy) repelled a PLA amphibious assault. At the time, the ROC’s presence on Mainland China was quickly collapsing, and the PLA under Mao was preparing an amphibious assault on Taiwan. The victory halted the PLA and laid the foundation for the status quo of the Taiwan Strait (Kinmen National Park, October 21, 2024; Taiwan Law Database, May 28).

The ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) and pro-Taiwan independence voices viewed the legislation differently. DPP legislators criticized the revival of the holiday as a reminder of human rights abuses that took place during the KMT-imposed martial law period (Facebook/Lin Yi-chin, May 9). On October 25, Taiwan President Lai Ching-te (賴清德) commemorated the victory at Kuningtou without mentioning Taiwan retrocession. He said that the ROC military “halted the PLA invasion, and created peace across many decades” (擋下中共的入侵，塑造了數十年的和平) (YouTube/0612ray, October 25; Facebook/Lai Ching-te, October 25). The DPP’s Secretary-General, Hsu Kuo-yung (徐國勇), went further, declaring that there is “no retrocession day in Taiwan” (沒有什麼台灣光復節) because Chiang Kai-shek had merely acted according to MacArthur’s order as a representative of the Allied nations (U.S. Department of State, August 1945; YouTube/DPP; DPP, September 16).

In October 2025, Taiwan’s Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) banned government officials from participating in PRC-organized retrocession commemorations, describing them as attempts to “shape the united front narrative that ‘both sides of the Taiwan Strait belong to one China’” (形塑‘兩岸同屬一中’的統戰訴求). The statement reframed October 25 as a commemoration of the ROC’s victory in the Second Sino-Japanese War and its victory at Kuningtou in 1949, rather than a symbol of submission to Beijing. MAC also believes that the CCP’s manufactured narrative of Taiwan retrocession is a stepping stone to eventual “forcible reunification” (強制性統一) (CNA; LTN, October 17).

Retrocession Narratives Reinforce CCP Worldview

The PRC’s insistence on retrocession narratives seeks to consolidate historical legitimacy, shape international discourse, and prepare the cognitive environment for future coercive action. Beijing pursues historical legitimacy as the first objective of its historical revisionism. The CCP grounds its authority in the idea that it is responsible for liberating China from foreign domination, and by incorporating Taiwan’s 1945 “return” into its discourse, it transforms a legal ambiguity into a moral triumph. In this retelling, the CCP, not the wartime ROC, emerges as the ultimate beneficiary of the victory over Japan. Now, the Party that supposedly expelled the imperialists must complete national reunification.

By embedding the retrocession narrative into global diplomatic language and practice, Beijing seeks to make its interpretation the default frame through which foreign audiences understand Taiwan’s history. When journalists or officials abroad adopt this phrasing, they reinforce the notion that unification represents restoration rather than change. This rhetorical campaign runs in tandem with efforts to cite UN General Assembly Resolution 2758 as a final settlement of Taiwan’s status (TAO, May 14). [2]

The narrative of restoration prepares the cognitive battlespace for future coercion. According to the CCP’s “Three Warfares” (三战) doctrine, which includes narrative, psychological, and legal warfare, the Party is reinforcing the belief that Taiwan’s retrocession was a fait accompli established eight decades ago. The PRC uses this narrative to undermine resistance to any future Taiwan annexation and present potential aggression against Taiwan as a rectification of the existing order.

Conclusion

The Party faces a dilemma. As time goes on, its claims of the inevitability of unification become increasingly untenable, as Taiwan grows more linguistically, politically, and generationally distinct from the PRC. Designating October 25 as a PRC holiday and reasserting 1945 as the “beginning of Taiwanese history” allows the Party to freeze time symbolically, portraying separation as an aberration rather than a new normal. The struggle over 1945 is a struggle over legitimacy. If Beijing’s narrative dominates international discourse, the space for viewing Taiwan as a sovereign entity narrows. Conversely, recognizing the 1945 retrocession as a military handover rather than a sovereignty transfer sustains the current equilibrium of Taiwan’s sovereign yet undetermined status.

Notes

[1] In Taiwan and the PRC, the Second Sino-Japanese War is commonly referred to as the “anti-Japanese War” (抗日战争), or the “war of resistance” (抗战).

[2] UN General Assembly Resolution 2758 recognized the PRC as China’s representative at the UN, but did not address the issue of Taiwanese sovereignty (United Nations, 1971).