Retrocession Day is the annual observance and former public holiday in Taiwan commemorating the end of Japanese rule of Taiwan and Penghu and the claimed return of Taiwan to the Republic of China on 25 October 1945. However, the idea of "Taiwan retrocession" remains in dispute.

Historical background

Taiwan, then more commonly known to the Western world as "Formosa", became a colony of the Empire of Japan after the Qing dynasty lost the First Sino-Japanese War in 1894 and ceded the island with the 1895 Treaty of Shimonoseki. Japanese rule in Taiwan lasted until the end of World War II. In November 1943, Chiang Kai-shek took part in the Cairo Conference with Franklin D. Roosevelt and Winston Churchill, who firmly advocated that Japan be required to return all of the territory it had annexed into its empire, including Taiwan and the Penghu (Pescadores) Islands. Article 8 of the Potsdam Declaration, drafted by the United States, United Kingdom, and China in July 1945, reiterated that the provisions of the Cairo Declaration be thoroughly carried out, and the Japanese Instrument of Surrender stated Japan's agreement to the terms of the Potsdam Proclamation. Under the authorization of American General Douglas MacArthur's General Order No. 1, Chen Yi (Chief Executive of Taiwan Province) was escorted by George H. Kerr to Taiwan to accept the Japanese government's surrender as the Chinese delegate. When the Japanese surrendered at the end of World War II, General Rikichi Andō, governor-general of Taiwan and commander-in-chief of all Japanese forces on the island, signed a receipt of Order No. 1 and handed it over to Governor-General of Taiwan Chen Yi, representing the Republic of China Armed Forces to complete the official turnover in Taipei (known during occupation as Taihoku) on 25 October 1945, at Taipei City Public Auditorium (now Zhongshan Hall). Chen Yi proclaimed that day to be "Retrocession Day" and organized the island into the Taiwan Province of the Republic of China. Chen Yi's unilateral act, however, did not gain agreement from the US and the UK, for both considered Taiwan still under military occupation pending a peace treaty, though the US accepted Chinese authority over Taiwan at the time and viewed the Republic of China as the legal government of China. Taiwan has since been governed by the Government of the Republic of China.

Interpretations and disputes

Governmental positions

The official position of both the People's Republic of China (PRC) and the Republic of China (ROC) is that Taiwan and Penghu were returned to the Republic of China according to the terms of the 1945 Japanese Instrument of Surrender, which stipulated Japan's compliance with the terms of the Potsdam Declaration. The Potsdam Declaration in turn included the terms of the Cairo Declaration, which required Japan to return all conquered territories to China, including Taiwan and the Pescadores. The ROC clarified its understanding of the Cairo Declaration in 2014 as a legally binding instrument. Among other things, the clarification listed later treaties and documents that "reaffirmed" aspects of the Cairo Declaration as legally binding, including the Potsdam Proclamation, the Japanese Instrument of Surrender, the Treaty of San Francisco, and the Treaty of Taipei: "The post-war status and jurisdiction over Taiwan and its appertaining islands, including Penghu, was resolved through a series of legal instruments—the Cairo Declaration, the Potsdam Proclamation, the Japanese Instrument of Surrender, the San Francisco Peace Treaty, and the Treaty of Peace between the Republic of China and Japan of 1952. The implementation of the legal obligation to return Taiwan and its appertaining islands (including the Diaoyutai Islands) to the ROC was first stipulated in the Cairo Declaration, and later reaffirmed in the Potsdam Proclamation, the Japanese Instrument of Surrender, the San Francisco Peace Treaty, and the Treaty of Peace between the Republic of China and Japan. The Cairo Declaration is therefore a legally binding instrument with treaty status." In November 1950, the United States Department of State announced that no formal act restoring sovereignty over Formosa and the Pescadores to China had yet occurred; British officials reiterated this viewpoint in 1955, saying that "The Chinese Nationalists began a military occupation of Formosa and the Pescadores in 1945. However, these areas were under Japanese sovereignty until 1952" and that "[Cairo Declaration] was couched in the form of a statement of intention, and as it was merely a statement of intention, it is merely binding in so far as it states the intent at that time, and therefore it cannot by itself transfer sovereignty." In March 1961, in a meeting of the House of Councillors of Japan, a councillor of the Japanese Communist Party brought up the notion that Taiwan had been returned to China according to the Cairo Declaration, Potsdam Proclamation, and Japanese Instrument of Surrender. The then-Japanese Minister for Foreign Affairs responded that: "It was specified in Potsdam Proclamation that the articles in Cairo Declaration shall be carried out, and in accordance with Japanese Instrument of Surrender we announced that we would comply with Potsdam Proclamation. However, the so-called Japanese Instrument of Surrender possesses the nature of armistice and does not possess the nature of territorial disposition." In April 1971, the U.S. Department of State spokesman stated in a press release that the US government regarded the status of Taiwan as unsettled, and that Cairo Declaration was a statement of purpose of the Allies and was never formally implemented or executed. As late as December 2014, the US government still considered Taiwan's status an unsettled issue.

Other positions