China and Taiwan Clash Over Wartime Memory as 80th Anniversary Sharpens Sovereignty Dispute

A victory anniversary becomes a dispute over Taiwan

Japan's surrender 80 years ago has become a fresh point of conflict between Beijing and Taipei, with China's September 3 commemorations tying the end of World War II to its claim over Taiwan. Taiwan's government has challenged that account, restricted attendance by public officials and accused Beijing of claiming credit for a victory won under the Republic of China.

The anniversary dispute brings together several dates that still shape politics across the Taiwan Strait: Japan's surrender in 1945, the Republic of China's takeover of Taiwan's administration that October, and the communist victory on the mainland in 1949. Beijing presents those events as a story of national unity. Taipei stresses the wartime role of a different government and the right of Taiwan's people to decide their future.

China's September 3 program included a military parade and ceremonies marking the end of what Beijing calls the War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression. The commemorations honored wartime sacrifice while reinforcing the Chinese Communist Party's account of the conflict and China's place in the international order created after the war.

Taiwan was a Japanese colony from 1895 until 1945, a period of 50 years. Beijing describes the end of that rule as Taiwan's return to China, an outcome it says must be respected today. Taiwan's ruling Democratic Progressive Party, or DPP, argues that the Republic of China government led by the Kuomintang fought and won the war, rather than the People's Republic of China that now governs the mainland.

The competing accounts reach beyond ceremonies. They influence arguments about sovereignty, meaning who has the right to govern a territory, as well as identity, military security and the language used to describe Taiwan's past.

Beijing presents a shared national victory

China's State Council Taiwan Affairs Office described the commemorations as national events open to people from across society, including Taiwan. Its spokeswoman, Zhu Fenglian, criticized the DPP for playing down what she called the Communist Party's crucial role in resisting Japan.

Zhu's argument linked victory over Japan with Taiwan's return after colonial rule. From Beijing's perspective, people from Taiwan belong in the commemorations because the anniversary concerns a shared Chinese history.

Invitations extended to former Kuomintang figures and veterans from Taiwan served two purposes. They acknowledged the Republic of China army's place in the war while supporting Beijing's claim to speak for the Chinese nation as a whole. Participation from Taipei was limited at the comparable parade marking the 70th anniversary in 2015. This anniversary came amid greater political tension and public attention.

Chinese officials also tied the ceremonies to the agreements that shaped the end of the war. They cited the Cairo Declaration of 1943 and the Potsdam Proclamation of 1945 as evidence that Allied leaders had agreed Taiwan should return to China.

Jiang Bin, a spokesperson for China's Ministry of National Defense, connected that history to Beijing's present policy in remarks at a Beijing press conference before the anniversary:

The return of Taiwan to China is an integral part of the victory outcomes of World War II and the postwar international order... the trend toward China's reunification is unstoppable.

Chinese media and academic commentary also presented World War II as the end of arrangements that had left China partly under foreign domination and the beginning of a new international role. That account connects pride in wartime sacrifice with the country's current ambitions.

Taipei challenges the parade and limits attendance

Taiwan's Mainland Affairs Council barred public officials from traveling to the mainland to attend the September 3 parade and related events. It advised citizens against participating and warned that cooperation with organizers could bring legal penalties.

Taiwanese officials argued that Beijing was using wartime history to pressure the island and to claim a victory secured by another government. The DPP also objected to a weapons display while Chinese aircraft and ships operated around Taiwan on a near daily basis.

The DPP's China affairs department said the anniversary should encourage opposition to aggression and a commitment to peace. It condemned the military imagery in these terms:

The second world war should have taught humanity the lessons of opposing aggression and pursuing peace, yet Beijing chose instead to showcase the troops and weapons it now uses to intimidate its neighbors... militarism taken to the extreme.

Wellington Koo, Taiwan's minister of national defense, addressed the historical dispute at the legislature. He said the Republic of China received Japan's surrender and fought the bulk of the war on the Chinese front:

The war of resistance was led and won by the Republic of China, not the People's Republic of China, this is without a doubt.

Earlier in 2025, Taiwan criticized both Russia and China over their statements about World War II. The Mainland Affairs Council said Chinese communist forces made "no substantial contribution to fighting Japan" and instead used the conflict to increase their own strength.

President Lai Ching te connected the debate to Taiwan's present status. In a speech Beijing denounced as provocative, he said sovereignty rested with Taiwan's people and that the island was not part of the People's Republic of China:

Taiwan is of course a country and China has no legal or historical right to claim it.

Two armies fought Japan before civil war resumed

The wartime record includes both Nationalist and Communist resistance. In 1937, following years of internal conflict, the Kuomintang and the Chinese Communist Party formed a second united front against Japan.

The Nationalist National Revolutionary Army fought major conventional battles and suffered heavy losses. Communist forces expanded behind Japanese lines and relied on guerrilla warfare, using smaller and less direct attacks rather than the same pattern of large battles. Their cooperation broke down after Japan's defeat, and civil war resumed.

Japan formally surrendered to the Republic of China army in Nanjing on September 9, 1945, a week after the Allied surrender terms were signed. A separate ceremony in Taiwan on October 25 brought Japanese forces there under the surrender arrangements and placed the island's administration in Republic of China hands.

Many Taiwanese had expected better government than the incoming authorities delivered. Resentment at their harsh rule contributed to tensions that erupted in the February 28 Incident in 1947 and influenced politics for generations.

The Communists won the civil war on the mainland in 1949. The Republic of China government relocated to Taipei that same year. Those events left the two governments drawing different conclusions from the wartime record.

For many in Taiwan, the Republic of China's acceptance of Japan's surrender in both China and Taiwan places the wartime achievement with that government. Beijing treats the war as the experience of the Chinese nation, regardless of which party governed, and credits Chinese people on both sides of the strait with securing Taiwan's return after Japanese occupation.

The dates behind the competing accounts

The disagreement draws on events spread across more than half a century. The sequence matters because wartime declarations, surrender ceremonies, changes of government and peace treaties each addressed different parts of the settlement.

• 1895: Taiwan came under Japanese colonial rule.
• 1937: The Kuomintang and Chinese Communist Party formed their second united front against Japan.
• 1943: The Cairo Declaration said territories taken by Japan from China, including Taiwan and the Pescadores, would be restored to the Republic of China.
• July 1945: The Potsdam Proclamation called for Japan's surrender and implementation of the Cairo terms.
• August 1945: Japan accepted the Potsdam terms and announced its surrender.
• September 9, 1945: Japan formally surrendered to the Republic of China army in Nanjing.
• October 25, 1945: A surrender ceremony in Taiwan marked the Republic of China's takeover of administration.
• 1947: The February 28 Incident deepened divisions over the new authorities.
• 1949: The Communists won on the mainland, and the Republic of China government relocated to Taipei.
• 1951 and 1952: The San Francisco Peace Treaty and Treaty of Taipei addressed Japan's renunciation of Taiwan.
• 1971: China's United Nations seat shifted from the Republic of China to the People's Republic of China.
• September 3, 2025: Beijing's anniversary commemorations linked wartime victory with its current position on Taiwan.

Taipei and Beijing give these milestones different weight. Their arguments concern both what happened in 1945 and how the decisions of that period relate to the governments and people living on either side of the strait today.

What Cairo and Potsdam said

The Cairo Declaration was a communiqué issued in 1943 by the leaders of the United States, the United Kingdom and the Republic of China. It said territories Japan had seized from China, including Formosa and the Pescadores, would be restored to the Republic of China. Formosa was the name used for Taiwan in the document.

The Potsdam Proclamation of July 1945 called for Japan to surrender and stated that the Cairo terms would be carried out. Japan accepted those terms in August.

Beijing argues that these declarations, followed by Japan's surrender, established Taiwan's return as part of the settlement after World War II. It presents sovereignty over Taiwan as grounded in Allied agreements and surrender documents.

Taiwan's government also cites Cairo and Potsdam, but stresses that Cairo named the Republic of China. That government administered Taiwan after the war and continues to exercise effective control there.

The dispute therefore involves two connected issues: the territorial arrangements envisioned by Allied leaders and which government can claim the authority associated with them. Beijing describes itself as the successor state to the wartime Republic of China. Taipei points to the continuing existence of the Republic of China on Taiwan.

Why the peace treaties remain contested

Japan and 48 Allied countries signed the San Francisco Peace Treaty in 1951. Japan renounced sovereignty over Taiwan and the Pescadores, but the treaty named no recipient. Neither the Republic of China nor the People's Republic of China took part.

Japan and the Republic of China then concluded their own Treaty of Peace in 1952, commonly called the Treaty of Taipei. It recognized Japan's renunciation of Taiwan and dealt with practical matters between the two governments.

Beijing places its argument on the earlier Allied declarations and surrender documents, together with its claim to succeed the government that fought the war. Washington's legal language often refers to the San Francisco treaty context. The different readings reflect a wider disagreement about how authority and territorial rights emerged from the war.

The United Nations seat for China shifted from the Republic of China to the People's Republic of China in 1971. Beijing consequently represented China at the UN, while governments continued to take differing positions on Taiwan's status.

Taiwan's official historical timeline stresses that the People's Republic of China has never exercised sovereignty over the island. It says the Republic of China has governed Taiwan since 1945 and developed a separate democratic system. Beijing rejects that separation and insists that both sides belong to one China.

The legal dispute remains unresolved between the two sides. Wartime declarations, later treaties and the realities of government on Taiwan occupy different places in their arguments, helping explain why the same anniversary produces incompatible political messages.

Textbooks reflect Taiwan's changing identity

Taiwan's classrooms have been another arena for the dispute over history. During decades of martial law, textbooks presented an account centered on China and gave less attention to Taiwan's distinct past.

Democratization in the late 1980s and 1990s brought teaching materials that placed greater weight on the island's experience under different rulers and the diversity of its population. The changes were contentious. In 2015, students protested an education ministry effort to move textbook language back toward a narrative centered on China. Their protests helped reverse the changes.

Taiwan's population includes families that arrived from Fujian and Guangdong centuries ago, people who came with the Republic of China government after 1949, Indigenous communities with deep Pacific roots and a large Hakka community. Those different histories shape how citizens understand the island's relationship with China.

Memorials, museums and a transitional justice process have brought greater public attention to the February 28 Incident and the White Terror that followed. Transitional justice involves addressing abuses committed under earlier governments. For many Taiwanese, the experience of democracy and pluralism, in which different political views can compete, now sits at the center of their identity.

Language reflects that change. Beijing favors terms such as victory in the War of Resistance and Taiwan's recovery, stressing the continuity of Chinese territory. Politicians in Taipei who lean toward independence increasingly describe 1945 as the end of Japanese rule, avoiding the suggestion that Taiwan returned to a government based in Beijing.

The term retrocession, meaning the return of territory, still appears in some museums and commemorations. End of Japanese rule is more common in everyday conversation and carries fewer political assumptions. Both sides have used museums, exhibitions, media and invitations to allies to promote their accounts during the anniversary period.

Taiwan as an actor in its own history

Commentary favoring a broader account of Taiwan's past points to European and Japanese colonizers as well as periods of control by Chinese governments. Its central argument is that Taiwan's people should appear as participants shaping their history, rather than simply as a territory inside a larger Chinese story.

Advocates of that approach note that the Chinese Communist Party has never governed Taiwan, that Qing rule did not extend across the entire island, and that people in Taiwan resisted outside domination over centuries.

Those arguments recognize cultural links with the Chinese mainland while rejecting culture as the deciding factor in present sovereignty. They help explain why agreement about some wartime events can coexist with sharp disagreement over what those events mean today.

Beijing's narrative places national unity at the center. Taiwan's more varied historical debate gives greater space to colonial experience, repression under the incoming Republic of China authorities and the later development of democratic government. The anniversary has brought those differences into the same public argument.

Military spectacle meets public anxiety

Chinese military parades have attracted large audiences in Taiwan, and major Taiwanese outlets have carried live coverage in the past. Viewers have expressed contrasting reactions: some admire improvements in Chinese military equipment, while others see a display intended to pressure Taiwan and claim wartime credit.

The DPP's criticism drew on the connection between weapons on parade and the People's Liberation Army's operations around the island. The spectacle arrived in a year that included several rounds of Chinese military exercises, including war games in April.

Scholars have described a wider pattern in which China and Russia use major parades to honor the dead, stress their roles in defeating fascism and support current foreign policy goals. Beijing's references to wartime documents and a unified Chinese nation fit that effort to shape international views of continuing sovereignty disputes.

A popular streaming drama about a possible future conflict also drew attention in Taiwan in 2025. Its reception reflected public anxiety about war and interest in practical defense, alongside the political arguments surrounding anniversary ceremonies.

Taiwan's defense ministry reports daily flights by Chinese aircraft approaching the island's air defense identification zone, along with frequent naval activity. An air defense identification zone is an area where authorities seek to identify approaching aircraft for security purposes.

Security positions remain far apart

Beijing describes military operations around Taiwan as internal matters. At a briefing, Taiwan Affairs Office spokeswoman Zhu Fenglian was asked whether the operations were preparing the ground for an invasion. She rejected the premise:

Taiwan is a part of China; there is no invasion to speak of.

Taiwan's leaders say only the island's citizens can decide their future. They point to the Republic of China's democratic government, army, currency and laws as the concrete institutions under which people live.

Most countries do not recognize Taiwan as a separate state, although many maintain relations under different names. Many also warn that using force across the strait would destabilize the region.

Beijing seeks to connect the national unity it describes in 1945 with its current claim to Taiwan. Taipei stresses the Republic of China's wartime role, the reality of self rule since 1949 and the choices of Taiwan's people. The commemorations have made those opposing positions more visible without producing agreement.

Key Points

• China's September 3 commemorations linked victory over Japan with its claim that Taiwan's return in 1945 confirms Chinese sovereignty today.
• Taiwan barred public officials from attending and argued that the Republic of China led the war effort against Japan.
• Nationalist and Communist forces resisted Japan through different forms of warfare before civil war resumed.
• Japan surrendered to the Republic of China army in Nanjing on September 9, 1945. Taiwan's surrender ceremony followed on October 25.
• Cairo, Potsdam and the later peace treaties remain central to competing legal and political arguments.
• Taiwan's changing textbooks, democratic experience and diverse population shape how the anniversary is understood.
• Chinese military activity around Taiwan gives the dispute over wartime memory an immediate security dimension.