Did Japan Steal Taiwan from China?

Susan L. Shirk in her book on China: Fragile Superpower (2007, Oxford University Press) asserts that: "Japan stole Taiwan from the Qing government in 1895. Under the CCP, China defeated Japan in World War II, and Taiwan should have been returned to China then. But the United States intervened with the Sixth Fleet during the Korea War to keep Taiwan permanently from China."

Susan Shirk--a scholar on China affairs at Stanford University--is a stereotypical pro-CCP scholar with conscending attitude in pleasing CCP's leaders. She interpreted the sovereignty right on Taiwan to suit the People Repulic of China (PRC). Her claim is false because it discards the historical evidence that the Qing government had agreed upon the permanent cession of Taiwan to Japanese government under the Treaty of Shimonoseki signed at the end of the First Sino-Japanese War in April 1895. Thus, Japan did not steal Taiwan from China.

Furthermore, it was the Republic of China (ROC)--in allying with CCP, and thus not CCP alone--that defeated Japan in World War II. ROC was later defeated by CCP in 1949, after 4 years of civil war in mainland China. Consequently, the ROC government (led by Guomingdang) occupied Taiwan. Japan accepted the Potsdam Declaration--signed by Harry S. Truman, Winston Churchill and Chiang Kai-Sek on July 26, 1945--on August 14, 1945. Since then, Japan abandoned Taiwan, and its sovereignty right has been, and still is being claimed by the ROC.