Retrocession Day

What the day marks

On 25 October 1945 the Japanese governor-general of Taiwan, Rikichi Andō, gave Chen Yi a signed receipt for Order No. 1 at the Taipei City Public Auditorium, the building now known as Zhongshan Hall. Chen Yi, chief executive of Taiwan Province, had come to accept the surrender on China's behalf. He then named the date Retrocession Day and set the island up as a province of the Republic of China. The ceremony followed wartime Allied statements: the Cairo Declaration of 1943 and Article 8 of the Potsdam Declaration in July 1945, which said Japan should give back the territories it had taken.

From colony to handover

Taiwan was a colony of the Empire of Japan from 1895, when the Qing court ceded the island under the Treaty of Shimonoseki, until the end of the Second World War. Westerners then often called it Formosa. At the Cairo Conference in November 1943, Chiang Kai-shek met Franklin D. Roosevelt and Winston Churchill, who argued that Japan must return everything it had annexed, Taiwan and the Penghu Islands included. The surrender itself was taken under Order No. 1 from the American general Douglas MacArthur. George H. Kerr travelled to the island with Chen Yi, who acted as the Chinese delegate.

Keeping the day

The island's provincial government gave the date the name Recovery Day in October 1946 and made it a day off, and it joined the list of legal holidays. Debate about its meaning grew once martial law ended. In December 2000 the government issued revised rules on memorial days and holidays and dropped this one along with several others. A law passed by the Legislative Yuan in May 2025, when the Kuomintang held the majority, restored the holiday and joined the date to the Kinmen Guningtou victory of 1949, so that two events are remembered together. Some Democratic Progressive Party figures, among them Hsu Kuo-yung, objected. The government said the day would be a public holiday in 2026.

A second observance

In October 2025 the National People's Congress Standing Committee in Beijing created a memorial day of its own, the Commemoration Day of Taiwan's Restoration, and said the country would hold commemorative activities. Song Tao, who heads the Taiwan Affairs Office, said Xi Jinping had made the decision himself. Wang Huning, who chairs the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, spoke at a gathering on the following day. He said the two sides should work together for national reunification and leave no space for separatist activity. Mainland sources and friendly research groups have called the day a chance for legal and narrative campaigning in support of unification.

Disagreement and reaction

Taiwan's Mainland Affairs Council rejected Beijing's decision, describing it as an effort to belittle Taiwan and to assert a claim of ownership that the council calls invented. Taiwan also told its officials and students not to join celebrations on the mainland. The Democratic Progressive Party, independence campaigners and some commentators read the mainland's version as an attempt to rewrite the past and to leave Taiwan's political status unclear so that pro-unification views gain ground. Some large cities in the United States have seen their own gatherings, organised by overseas Chinese hometown associations and groups that work for cross-strait reunification. In 1945, for their part, the United States and the United Kingdom did not accept Chen Yi's unilateral declaration: both held that a peace treaty was still needed.

How Retrocession Day is kept

In Taiwan, the government said in 2025 that the day would again be a public holiday, with 2026 the first year people get it off, after it had been dropped from the holiday list in 2000. Commemorations look back to the 1945 handover and to the 1949 fighting at Guningtou. On the mainland, where a memorial day was created in 2025, the state organises commemorative activities and senior figures appear at them. Taiwan has told its officials and students not to attend mainland events. Overseas Chinese groups in some large American cities hold gatherings of their own.

When and where

The day falls on 25 October each year, the date of the 1945 handover. Taiwan first marked it in 1946. It was left off the holiday list from 2000 and restored by a law passed in May 2025, with a public holiday announced for 2026. Beijing's memorial day dates from October 2025.

The observance belongs to Taiwan, where the 1945 turnover happened in Taipei at what is now Zhongshan Hall, and to mainland China, which added its own memorial day in 2025. The 1949 battle remembered alongside it was fought at Guningtou in Kinmen. Some large cities in the United States have also seen celebrations run by overseas Chinese groups.

What Retrocession Day means

For people in Taiwan, the date marks the close of Japanese colonial rule and the island's return to Chinese administration. For Beijing, it asserts that Taiwan is part of China and provides a setting for arguing for reunification. Critics in Taiwan read the mainland's version as a political claim rather than a settled fact, and the 1945 transfer was disputed at the time: the United States and the United Kingdom held that a peace treaty was still outstanding.

Questions people ask about Retrocession Day

See also

Arbor DayAn annual secular observance dedicated to planting and caring for trees around the worldProgrammer's DayA professional day for programmers, fixed to the 256th day of the yearNational DayChina's national day on 1 October, marking the republic's founding in 1949Double Ten DayThe national holiday of Taiwan marking the start of the 1911 revolution.

Good reading and sources

• Retrocession Day on WikipediaEncyclopedia
• Wikidata recordOpen data

It may contain mistakes. Traditions differ from one family, village and community to the next, and the people who keep them know them best. If something is wrong, tell us. Last refreshed 2026-10-05.