China to hold celebration for contested Taiwan

China will hold a celebration of the 80th anniversary of Taiwan's "retrocession" to Chinese rule, and is scheduled for this weekend in Beijing's Great Hall of the People.



Both China and Taiwan use the term "retrocession" to refer to the island's 1945 handover by Japan, which colonised Taiwan in 1895, to the Republic of China government, a transfer whose anniversary falls on Saturday.



According to spokesperson from China, "Taiwan's retrocession stands as a significant achievement of the victory in the War of Resistance," "It was a great triumph forged through the relentless and bloody struggles of all Chinese people, including our compatriots in Taiwan, and deserves to be commemorated jointly by compatriots on both sides of the Taiwan Strait."



China would hold an anniversary celebration and invite people from Taiwan to attend, but did not state a date or say which Chinese leaders would attend.



China and democratically-governed Taiwan, which Beijing views as its own territory, have repeatedly clashed this year over their differing interpretations of the 80th anniversary of the end of World War Two.