Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) told US President Donald Trump on Monday that Taiwan’s “return to China” at the end of World War II was a key part of Beijing’s vision for the world order.
Here is a timeline about Taiwan, China, World War II and its aftermath.
1895 - After being defeated in the First Sino-Japanese War, China’s Qing Dynasty signs the Treaty of Shimonoseki ceding sovereignty over Taiwan to Japan.
Photo: AFP
1911 - The Qing Dynasty is overthrown in a revolution and the following year the Republic of China is declared.
1927 - Chinese Communist Party stages an uprising against the government, viewed as the start of China’s civil war.
1931 - Japan invades northeast China’s Manchuria.
1936 - Republic of China leader Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石) is kidnapped by two of his own generals to force him into an alliance with Mao Zedong’s (毛澤東) communists to fight the Japanese and suspend China’s civil war.
1937 - Japan invades the rest of China.
1943 - Chiang, US President Franklin Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill sign the Cairo Declaration which states Taiwan would be “restored” to the Republic of China.
1945 - The Potsdam Declaration calls for Japan’s unconditional surrender and reaffirms the Cairo Declaration. Following Japan’s defeat, Taiwan is handed over to the Republic of China.
1946 - Truce between republican and communist forces collapses and the Chinese civil war resumes.
1947 - An uprising in Taiwan against the ruling Republican Chinese government follows tensions over social, cultural and political issues, and is bloodily put down.
1949 - Chiang retreats to Taiwan after Mao wins the civil war and establishes the People’s Republic of China. Mao vows to “liberate” Taiwan.
1951 - Japan signs the San Francisco Peace Treaty renouncing its claims to Taiwan, but its sovereignty is left unresolved in the document. Beijing says the treaty is “illegal and invalid” given it was not a party to it.
1952 - Treaty of Peace between the Republic of China and Japan signed reaffirming Japan’s renunciation of its claims to Taiwan, which the government in Taiwan says is confirmation of the previous transfer of sovereignty to the Republic of China.
To this day, the governments in Taipei and Beijing do not officially recognize each other.
The Republic of China remains Taiwan’s formal name.
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