Experts from across the Taiwan Straits and Hong Kong praised the role that Chinese compatriots in Taiwan played in the fight against Japanese invaders during the island's half-century as a Japanese colony, during a seminar commemorating the 70th anniversary of victory in the Chinese People's War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression (1937-45) and the recovery of Taiwan.

Some 130 officials and scholars from Canada, Japan, South Korea and China－including the Chinese mainland, Taiwan and Hong Kong－attended the seminar, which opened in Guangzhou on Sunday.

Zhang Haipeng, head of the Association of Chinese Historians, said that Taiwan compatriots never ceased fighting.

"Taiwan has never been an independent country. Taiwan's fight against Japanese invaders has always been an integral part of the Chinese war against Japanese aggression," Zhang said.

He urged some political leaders in Taiwan to give up their concept of Taiwan independence and contribute to the peaceful development of cross-Straits relations.

Wang Hsiaopo, a professor at Taiwan's Shih Hsin University, said Taiwan people never gave up, even though the island was governed by Japan for five decades. "Taiwan residents carried out many battles of resistance against Japanese invaders," Wang said.

The First Sino-Japanese War (1894-95) was fought between the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911) and Japan. The Qing government was defeated and signed the Treaty of Shimonoseki, or Maguan Treaty, under which Taiwan was ceded to Japan.

The island was recovered 70 years ago, after the defeat of Japan in World War II.