Chinese officials will join the public at a big celebration ceremony in Beijing today to commemorate the 60th anniversary of Taiwan's return to China from Japanese occupation at the end of World War II.

"The day marks the time when Taiwan returned to the motherland," said Wang Hsiao-po, a professor from the National Taiwan University. "The day tells us we are always Chinese."

Wang made his remarks at a commemoration conference in Beijing yesterday, attended by mainland officials and visiting Taiwan scholars and war veterans.

"The Taiwan people had a deep feeling of patriotism while fighting against the Japanese colonialists," Wang said.

A photo album was published in Beijing yesterday to mark the anniversary.

The album — "Taiwan, treasured island of China" — boasts 650 photos taken by 146 photographers from the Chinese mainland, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macao over more than a century.

The photos showcase the history of Taiwan, its economic development and cultural progress, and the cross-Straits relations.

Taiwan was ceded to Japan under the Treaty of Shimonoseki, signed by the Qing Dynasty government after it was defeated in the Sino-Japanese war (1894-95). On Oct. 25, 1945, the Japanese colonialists surrendered to the Chinese Government, ending its 50-year occupation of Taiwan.

(Xinhua News Agency October 25, 2005)