# Beijing marks 'Taiwan Restoration Day' with a renewed push for reunification, and Taiwan rejects it > China ran a coordinated state-media and military messaging campaign for its one-year-old 'Taiwan Restoration Day,' while Taipei's Mainland Affairs Council accused Beijing of fabricating a claim over an anniversary it marks very differently. - Source: Pacific Post - Canonical URL: https://pacificpost.co.uk/article/beijing-taiwan-restoration-day-reunification - Author: Pacific Post Staff - Section: Politics - Published: 2026-10-25T13:55:00.000Z - Updated: 2026-10-25T13:55:00.000Z - Tags: China, Taiwan, cross-strait relations, reunification --- China used the anniversary of the end of Japanese colonial rule over Taiwan to mount a coordinated reunification campaign on Sunday, while Taiwan's government rejected the entire premise of the commemoration as a rewriting of its own history. October 25 marks 81 years since Japan's colonial administration in Taiwan formally surrendered in 1945, ending five decades of Japanese rule over the island. Beijing designated the date "Taiwan Restoration Day" only last year, and this year's second official observance saw Xinhua and the People's Liberation Army's Eastern Theater Command run a coordinated messaging push, recirculating past remarks by President Xi Jinping on cross-strait relations and reiterating Beijing's position that Taiwan is part of China and that reunification must ultimately take place. Wang Huning, the Communist Party's fourth-ranking official and chairman of its top political advisory body, addressed the commemoration directly, calling on both sides of the strait to work together toward national reunification and saying there should be "no room for any form of 'Taiwan independence' separatist activities." He urged deeper cross-strait exchanges and integration, framing the new holiday as proof of the party's "steadfast commitment to its historical mission." Beijing also pledged support for pro-unification "patriots" on the island as part of the campaign. Taiwan sees the date very differently. Its own Retrocession Day, long established before Beijing's version, marks October 25, 1945, when representatives of the Republic of China accepted Japan's surrender in Taiwan on behalf of the Allied powers, a full four years before the Chinese Communist Party founded the People's Republic of China in 1949. Taiwan's Mainland Affairs Council has accused Beijing of fabricating a claim that Taiwan belongs to the PRC, arguing the party had no role in the war against Japan's rule of the island and that the public "will never accept" the reframing. Taipei has gone further than statements alone, barring central and local government officials, along with school faculty and staff, from attending any events organized by Chinese authorities to mark the day. The dueling commemorations now run on parallel tracks each October 25, with the same date in 1945 serving as the anchor for two incompatible stories about what came after it, one in which the island was restored to a Chinese nation still owed unification, and one in which it simply returned to a different Chinese government than the one that exists today. --- Originally published by Pacific Post. Free to cite with attribution and a link to https://pacificpost.co.uk/article/beijing-taiwan-restoration-day-reunification.