A photo album was published in Beijing Monday to mark the 60th anniversary of Taiwan's return to China from Japanese occupation at the end of World War II.

The album -- "Taiwan, treasured island of China" -- boasts 650 photos taken by 146 photographers from the Chinese mainland, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macao during more than a century, along with Chinese-English bilingual expositions.

The photos enliven the history of Taiwan, its economic development and cultural progress, and the cross-Strait relations, Tian Henian, chief planner of the album, said at the grand ceremony held Monday in the Great Hall of People.

The photo collection serves as convincing proof to the fact that as a inseparable part of China, Taiwan has, since the ancient times, been related to the Chinese nation as closely as flesh to blood, and that a kinship has always bound the Chinese on both sides of the Taiwan Strait, said Tian, also the chairman of the Taiwan Guild Hall.

The album, co-compiled by Taiwan Guild Hall of United Front Work Department of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and the Department of Photography of Xinhua News Agency, was vpublished by the Sino-Culture Press.

On Oct. 25, 1945, the Japanese colonialists surrendered to the Chinese government, ending its 50-year occupation of Taiwan.

Chinese people of all walks of life are holding various activities recently, including seminars, exhibitions and evening shows, to commemorate the 60th anniversary that falls on Tuesday.

(CRI.com October 24, 2005)