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After eight years' heroic struggle, the Chinese, together with the anti-fascists of other countries, triumphed over the Japanese. All international protocols henceforth made clear that Taiwan was the territory of China and that it should be returned to China. This accorded with the facts of history, and with the strong wish of the Chinese people.
At the Cairo Conference attended by China, the United States and Great Britain on November 21, 1943, to consider military operations against Japan in the Far East, China's demand that it recover all its lost lands including Taiwan was approved by both the United States and Great Britain. On November 23, the Chinese and American leaders published a summary of their conversations, which confirmed that the two sides agreed the territories Japan had seized from China-the four provinces in the Northeast, Taiwan and the Penghu islands-must be returned to China.
The Cairo Declaration signed by China, the United States and Great Britain at the end of the Conference on December 1, 1943 stipulated that "The Three Great Allies are fighting this war to restrain and punish the aggression of Japan.... It is their purpose that Japan shall be stripped of all the islands in the Pacific which she has seized or occupied since the beginning of the first World War in 1914, and that all the territories Japan has stolen from the Chinese, such as Manchuria, Formosa (Taiwan), and the Pescadores (Penghu islands), shall be restored to the Republic of China."
The Proclamation Defining Terms for the Japanese Surrender, signed at Potsdam on July 26, 1945 by China, the United States and Great Britain, and later joined by the Soviet Union, reiterated: "The terms of the Cairo Declaration shall be carried out and Japanese sovereignty shall be limited to the islands of Honshu, Hokkaido,Kyushu, Shikoku and such minor islands as we determine."
On August 15 the same year, Japan surrendered and declared that it would accept the Potsdam Proclamation.
On October 25, 1945, the Chinese government held a ceremony to accept the surrender of Japan in Taibei, at which it declared that from that day on, the territory of Taiwan and the Penghu islands, and the people and civilian affairs in their area, were under the sovereignty of China. Great rejoicing prevailed in Taiwan. People decorated their houses, held memorial ceremonies for their ancestors, and spent the whole night at parties with relatives and friends. In Taibei hundreds and thousands of people paraded in the streets to celebrate victory in the Anti-Japanese War. The 50-year colonial rule had ended and Taiwan had rejoined the motherland. |
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