Retrocession Day
Based on Wikipedia: Retrocession Day
The Day That Never Settled
On October 25, 1945, a Japanese general named Rikichi Andō signed a piece of paper in Taipei and handed it to a Chinese official named Chen Yi. That single act—which took place in what is now called Zhongshan Hall—set off a debate that continues to roil international politics eighty years later.
Was Taiwan "returned" to China that day? Or was it merely placed under temporary military occupation? The answer depends on whom you ask, and that ambiguity has proven remarkably durable.
The day itself has gone by many names. In Taiwan, it was once called "Recovery Day" or "Retrocession Day." The People's Republic of China, which has never controlled Taiwan, now calls it the "Commemoration Day of Taiwan's Restoration." These aren't just semantic differences. They're competing claims to history itself.
How Taiwan Became Japanese
To understand why October 25, 1945 matters so much, you have to go back fifty years earlier.
In 1894, the Qing dynasty—the last imperial dynasty to rule China—went to war with Japan. The conflict is known as the First Sino-Japanese War, and it was a catastrophe for China. Japan's rapidly modernizing military crushed the Qing forces, and the peace treaty signed at Shimonoseki in 1895 forced China to hand over several territories.
Among them was the island of Formosa.
Formosa was the name Western powers used for Taiwan. The word comes from Portuguese—"Ilha Formosa" means "beautiful island"—and European sailors had been using it since the sixteenth century. When Japan took control, the island became a colony of the Empire of Japan, and it would remain so for the next fifty years.
Japanese rule transformed Taiwan in ways that still shape the island today. The colonizers built railways, established schools, developed agriculture, and imposed their language and customs. It was modernization at the point of a bayonet. By the time World War II reached its climax, an entire generation of Taiwanese had grown up speaking Japanese and knowing no other government.
The Cairo Conference and the Promise of Return
In November 1943, with the war still raging, three leaders met in Cairo, Egypt. Franklin Roosevelt represented the United States. Winston Churchill spoke for the United Kingdom. And Chiang Kai-shek came as the leader of the Republic of China—the government that had been fighting Japan since 1937.
These three men made a declaration. Japan, they agreed, would be stripped of all the territories it had seized through aggression. Taiwan and the Penghu Islands—a small archipelago off Taiwan's western coast, also known by their Portuguese name, the Pescadores—would be returned to China.
Two years later, as Japan faced imminent defeat, the Potsdam Declaration reiterated this promise. Article 8 stated explicitly that the terms of the Cairo Declaration would be "thoroughly carried out." When Japan finally surrendered in August 1945, its instrument of surrender acknowledged acceptance of the Potsdam terms.
The stage was set.
The Ceremony in Taipei
General Douglas MacArthur, the Supreme Commander of Allied Forces in the Pacific, issued what became known as General Order Number One. This document specified which Allied commanders would accept Japanese surrenders in which territories. For Taiwan, the honor fell to Chiang Kai-shek's forces.
Chen Yi arrived in Taiwan as the Chief Executive of Taiwan Province. An American Foreign Service officer named George Kerr escorted him to the ceremony. On October 25, 1945, General Andō signed the receipt confirming Japan's surrender of the island. Chen Yi declared it "Retrocession Day" and promptly organized Taiwan into a province of the Republic of China.
But there was a problem.
Neither the United States nor the United Kingdom formally agreed that sovereignty had transferred. Both governments considered Taiwan to be under military occupation pending a proper peace treaty. The occupation was real. The sovereignty was uncertain.
This legal ambiguity would have enormous consequences.
The Tragedy of 228 and Its Aftermath
Chen Yi's administration quickly became notorious for corruption and brutality. The Taiwanese, who had expected liberation, found themselves under a regime that treated them as colonial subjects. Tensions exploded on February 28, 1947—a date now commemorated as "228"—when protests against government monopolies and misrule triggered a violent crackdown.
The massacres that followed killed thousands of Taiwanese civilians. The exact number remains disputed, with estimates ranging from ten thousand to thirty thousand dead. Martial law descended on the island and would not lift for nearly four decades.
Two years after the 228 Incident, Chiang Kai-shek's government lost the Chinese Civil War to Mao Zedong's Communist forces. The Republic of China relocated to Taiwan, establishing Taipei as its temporary capital. The island that Chen Yi had claimed for China became the last refuge of the government that claimed to be China.
Meanwhile, the peace treaty that might have clarified Taiwan's status never materialized in the way international lawyers would have preferred. The 1951 Treaty of San Francisco, which formally ended the war with Japan, saw Japan renounce its claim to Taiwan—but the treaty didn't specify to whom the island was transferred. The Republic of China wasn't even invited to the conference. Neither was the People's Republic of China. Both claimed to be the legitimate government of all China, and the Western powers couldn't agree on which to recognize.
A Holiday's Rise and Fall
Despite these complications, Retrocession Day became an official holiday in Taiwan. In October 1946, barely a year after the surrender ceremony, the Taiwan Provincial Government declared October 25 a day off. It entered the calendar as "Taiwan Recovery Day," and for decades, Taiwanese schoolchildren learned that this was the day their island returned to the embrace of the motherland.
The holiday carried a specific political message. It reinforced the Kuomintang's narrative that Taiwan was, and had always been, an integral part of China. The Republic of China on Taiwan was merely waiting to reclaim the mainland from the Communist usurpers. Retrocession Day celebrated the first step in that inevitable reunification.
But as martial law lifted in 1987 and Taiwan democratized, this narrative began to fracture. A growing movement questioned whether "retrocession" was even the right word. If Taiwan had been a Japanese colony, why should its transfer to Chinese rule be celebrated? Hadn't that transfer led directly to the 228 massacres and decades of authoritarian rule?
In December 2000, Taiwan's government revised its regulations on holidays and memorial days. Retrocession Day was struck from the calendar. It hadn't been abolished so much as quietly retired, a relic of an older political era that no longer commanded consensus.
The Revival of 2025
For a quarter century, October 25 passed without official fanfare in Taiwan. Then, in May 2025, the Legislative Yuan—Taiwan's parliament—brought it back.
The Kuomintang, often referred to by its initials KMT, had regained control of the legislature. The party passed new regulations establishing what it called the "Taiwan Retrocession Day and the Anniversary of the Battle of Guningtou." This merged two historical commemorations into one. The first was the 1945 surrender. The second was a battle that began on October 25, 1949.
The Battle of Guningtou—also known as the Battle of Kinmen or the Battle of Kuningtou—was a decisive engagement in which Nationalist forces repelled a Communist amphibious assault on Kinmen Island, a small territory just off the coast of mainland China. The victory prevented what might have been a stepping stone invasion of Taiwan itself. For the KMT, linking these two dates created a narrative of Chinese resistance: first against Japanese imperialism, then against Communist aggression.
The Democratic Progressive Party, commonly known as the DPP, opposed the revival. The DPP draws much of its support from Taiwanese who identify primarily as Taiwanese rather than Chinese, and many of its members view the "retrocession" narrative as historical distortion. Prominent DPP figures like Hsu Kuo-yung spoke out against reestablishing the holiday. Nevertheless, the KMT had the votes. Starting in 2026, October 25 would once again be a public holiday in Taiwan.
Beijing's Parallel Move
The People's Republic of China was watching.
On October 24, 2025—one day before the anniversary—the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress, which functions as China's top legislative body, announced its own commemorative day. They called it the "Commemoration Day of Taiwan's Restoration."
The timing was pointed. The nomenclature was even more so. "Restoration" implied that Taiwan had been restored to China—a China that, in Beijing's view, is now rightfully represented by the People's Republic. The holiday's establishment was reportedly directed personally by Xi Jinping, the General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party and China's paramount leader.
Wang Huning, chairman of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference and one of China's most influential political theorists, attended an event the following day. His remarks left no ambiguity about the holiday's purpose. Mainland China and Taiwan, he declared, should "work together to advance the cause of national reunification." There must be "no room for any form of 'Taiwan independence' separatist activities."
Chinese government sources and aligned think tanks were explicit about the strategy. This was "lawfare"—the use of legal frameworks and official pronouncements to advance political goals. Some called it "historical narrative warfare." By establishing October 25 as a day of national commemoration, Beijing was asserting its version of history as official fact.
Taiwan's Response
Taiwan's Mainland Affairs Council—the cabinet-level agency responsible for relations with the mainland—issued a sharp rebuke. The PRC's designation of the holiday, the council said, was an attempt to "belittle our country and fabricate the claim that Taiwan belongs to the PRC."
The government went further. It barred Taiwanese officials and students from attending celebratory events for the day in mainland China. The DPP, along with Taiwanese independence groups and sympathetic commentators, argued that Beijing's holiday was a deliberate attempt to revise history. By casting the 1945 transfer as a "restoration" to a China that the PRC now represents, Beijing was creating deliberate confusion about Taiwan's political status.
The legal reality, as these critics see it, is that Taiwan has never been governed by the People's Republic of China. Not for a single day. The Republic of China—the government that retreated to Taiwan in 1949—has governed the island continuously since 1945. Whatever one thinks about the original transfer, Taiwan's subsequent history has been entirely separate from mainland China's.
The Theory of Undetermined Status
This brings us to one of the most intellectually interesting aspects of the Taiwan question: the theory that Taiwan's status was never legally determined at all.
The argument goes like this. Japan formally renounced sovereignty over Taiwan in the 1951 Treaty of San Francisco. But that treaty didn't transfer Taiwan to any other state. It simply said Japan was giving it up. The Republic of China, which was already occupying Taiwan, wasn't a party to the treaty. Neither was the People's Republic of China.
So who owns Taiwan?
Some international lawyers argue that Taiwan's sovereignty remains technically undetermined under international law. The island is governed by the Republic of China, which functions as an independent state in every practical sense—it has its own military, issues its own passports, holds democratic elections, and maintains diplomatic relations with a handful of countries. But most nations, including the United States, don't formally recognize it as a sovereign state. They maintain a studied ambiguity.
This theory infuriates both Beijing and traditional Kuomintang supporters, albeit for different reasons. Beijing insists that Taiwan is an inalienable part of China, temporarily separated by civil war. Traditional KMT ideology holds that the Republic of China is the legitimate government of all China, Taiwan included. The idea that Taiwan's status is somehow undetermined undermines both narratives.
Yet the theory persists because it describes something real: Taiwan exists in a legal gray zone that the international community has never fully resolved.
United Front Activities Abroad
The commemoration of October 25 has also extended beyond Asia.
In major American cities, groups associated with Beijing's "united front" operations have organized celebrations of the day. The Council for the Promotion of the Peaceful Reunification of China—an organization that advances Beijing's position on Taiwan—has been active in these efforts, along with various overseas Chinese hometown associations.
The term "united front" has a specific meaning in Chinese Communist Party terminology. It refers to efforts to build coalitions with groups outside the party's direct control—overseas Chinese communities, business associations, academic institutions, and sympathetic foreign politicians. United front work is coordinated by a high-level party organ called the United Front Work Department.
These activities in the United States represent an attempt to shape the narrative about Taiwan among Chinese diaspora communities and, potentially, among American policymakers. By celebrating "Taiwan's Restoration," these groups reinforce the idea that Taiwan's eventual unification with the mainland is both historically justified and politically inevitable.
The Significance of a Date
Retrocession Day matters because history matters. The stories nations tell about their past shape the policies they pursue in the present.
For the People's Republic of China, October 25, 1945 represents Taiwan's return to the Chinese nation—a return interrupted by civil war but destined to be completed through reunification. This narrative supports Beijing's claim that Taiwan is a breakaway province that must eventually be reintegrated, by force if necessary.
For Taiwanese independence advocates, the same date represents the beginning of another colonial occupation—one that led to decades of authoritarian rule and the suppression of Taiwanese identity. In this view, Taiwan's people have the right to determine their own future, regardless of what happened in 1945.
For the traditional Kuomintang and its supporters, the date commemorates the liberation of Taiwan from Japanese imperialism and its restoration to the Republic of China—a government that, though now limited to Taiwan and a few small islands, still maintains its claim to represent the legitimate Chinese state.
Each of these interpretations draws on genuine historical facts. The Japanese really did surrender. The Republic of China really did take control. The legal status really was ambiguous. What differs is the meaning each side assigns to these facts.
A Holiday for Our Time
The revival of Retrocession Day in 2025—simultaneously in Taiwan and mainland China, with competing names and competing meanings—captures something essential about the Taiwan Strait today.
This is a conflict fought not only with warships and missiles but with words and symbols. The question of what to call October 25 is inseparable from the question of what Taiwan is. Is it a province awaiting reunification? An occupied territory seeking liberation? A de facto independent nation trapped by diplomatic convention? Or something else entirely?
The answer is not settled. Eighty years after Rikichi Andō signed that piece of paper in Taipei, the day's meaning remains up for grabs. That uncertainty—that ongoing contest over the past—is what makes Retrocession Day, or Restoration Day, or whatever one chooses to call it, a holiday that still carries explosive significance.
What happened on October 25, 1945 may be historical fact. But what it means is very much a question for the present—and, increasingly, for the future.