US says China spreads ‘false’ World War Two narratives to pressure Taiwan

TAIPEI (Reuters) -China is intentionally mischaracterising World War Two-era documents to put pressure on and isolate Taiwan given those agreements made no determination of the island’s ultimate political status, the de facto U.S. embassy in Taipei said.

The 80th anniversary of the war’s end has been marked by a bitter dispute between Taipei and Beijing on its broader historical meaning and relevance today.

The Beijing government says documents like the Cairo Declaration and Potsdam Proclamation support its legal claims of sovereignty over the island, as the wording states Taiwan was to be “restored” to Chinese rule, Taiwan being a Japanese colony at the time.

The Chinese government at the time was the Republic of China, which then in 1949 fled to Taiwan after losing a subsequent civil