Taiwan Counters China’s Commemoration of 1945 “Restoration”

What changed

China marked the 81st anniversary of Japan’s 1945 handover of Taiwan with satellite images of Taipei and a military poster showing the island beneath fighter jets and warships. Taiwan Defence Minister Wellington Koo called the campaign “cognitive warfare,” while Taiwan highlighted the People’s Liberation Army’s failed October 1949 invasion attempt of Kinmen instead.

Why it matters

The dispute is not only about history. Beijing is using the anniversary to reinforce its claim that Taiwan belongs under Chinese rule, while Taipei is using a different wartime memory to underline that the People’s Republic of China was founded in 1949 and has never governed the island.

The imagery makes that argument unusually concrete. China’s pictures showed Taipei’s train station and the National Palace Museum, which holds treasures brought to Taiwan when the Republic of China government fled there in 1949. The Eastern Theatre Command’s poster then placed Taiwan beside the machinery of war.

Taiwan’s answer was equally pointed: the Kinmen invasion attempt remains a reminder that Beijing has not renounced force. The anniversary therefore became a contest over which past should define the present, with both sides tying history to competing claims of sovereignty. Whether the messaging leads to new military activity or policy changes remains unclear.