Chinese have a “sacred mission” to ensure Taiwan is always considered part of China, a top Chinese leader said yesterday ahead of the 70th anniversary of Japan giving up control of Taiwan at the end of World War II.
Taiwan was a Japanese colony between 1895 and 1945 and the then-Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) government took over the rule of the nation after Japan lost World War II. Japan had gained control from imperial China.
The KMT fled to Taiwan in 1949 after losing the Chinese Civil War with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), which insists Taiwan is an integral part of China and has never renounced the use of forces to bring it under Beijing’s control.
Speaking at an event in Beijing to mark the anniversary, National Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference Chairman Yu Zhengsheng (俞正聲), the party’s fourth-ranked leader, said Taiwan’s “recovery” had “washed away the national shame” of repeated foreign invasions of China.
Since 1949, the reality that the People’s Republic of China and Taiwan were part of one China had never changed, Yu said, in comments carried by the Xinhua news agency.
“Maintaining the country’s sovereignty and territorial integrity, and maintaining no changes to the position that Taiwan is part of China is a sacred mission for all the sons and daughters of China,” he added.
Taiwan marks Retrocession Day tomorrow at an event overseen by President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九). Retrocession Day celebrates the end of the Japanese colonial period in Taiwan on Oct. 25, 1945, as well as the conclusion of the Sino-Japanese War (1937-1945) and is observed by Chinese worldwide.
Yu made no direct reference to January’s legislative and presidential elections in the speech, but said that both Taiwanese and Chinese must oppose any move to upset ties and damage rapidly improving relations.
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