The act of cession is the assignment of property to another entity. In international law it commonly refers to land transferred by treaty. Ballentine's Law Dictionary defines cession as "a surrender; a giving up; a relinquishment of jurisdiction by a board in favor of another agency." In contrast with annexation, where property is forcibly seized, cession is voluntary or at least apparently so.
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👉 Retrocession in the context of District of Columbia retrocession
The District of Columbia retrocession was the act of returning to Virginia some of the land from the District of Columbia that Virginia had previously ceded to the federal government of the United States. The land was originally ceded to the federal government by Virginia and Maryland in 1790 for the purpose of creating a federal district for the new national capital; the capital was moved from Philadelphia to what was then called the City of Washington in 1800. After moving through various stages of federal and state approval, the Virginia portion was retroceded in March 1847.
Retrocession is the act of returning some or all of a portion of land that had previously been ceded.
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Retrocession in the context of Retrocession of Taiwan
On 25 October 1945, Japan handed over Taiwan and Penghu to the Republic of China, as a result of World War II. This marked the end of Japanese rule and the beginning of post-war era of Taiwan. This event was referred to by the Republic of China as the retrocession of Taiwan (臺灣光復). The Republic of China government viewed this as the restoration of Chinese sovereignty over Taiwan, following its cession to Japan in 1895 after the Qing dynasty's defeat in the First Sino-Japanese War. Therefore, the event was named "retrocession", a notion that has been controversial since the democratisation of Taiwan in the 1990s. The date of the handover is annually celebrated as the Retrocession Day, which was a public holiday in Taiwan from 1946 to 2000, and again from 2025. The day has also been marked as a memorial day in mainland China since 2025.
On 15 August 1945, Japan announced its surrender following its defeat in World War II. On 2 September, Douglas MacArthur, Supreme Commander of the Allied Powers, issued General Order No. 1, instructing Japanese forces in various locations to surrender to the Allies. The order specified that Japanese troops in Taiwan were to surrender to the Chinese leader Chiang Kai-shek. Chiang delegated He Yingqin as his plenipotentiary for the surrender process, who further appointed Chen Yi to oversee the surrender in Taiwan. The Governor-General of Taiwan and Commander of the Japanese 10th Area Army, Rikichi Andō, on behalf of Japan, surrendered to Chen Yi at the Taipei Public Hall on 25 October, signing the documents to formalise the transfer.