General Hsu Yung-chang represented China at the 1945 Japanese surrender ceremony. He signed the Instrument of Surrender after U.S. Fleet Admiral Chester Nimitz.
China was one of the Allied powers named in the Potsdam Declaration, alongside the United States and the United Kingdom. Chinese forces had fought Japan since the beginning of the Second Sino-Japanese War in 1937, which later became part of the wider World War II conflict.
Hsu’s signature appeared among those of the Allied representatives from nine nations. The other signatories represented the United States, the United Kingdom, the Soviet Union, Australia, Canada, France, the Netherlands, and New Zealand.
The general’s name also appears as Xu Yongchang in modern pinyin romanization. Hsu is the older Wade-Giles spelling used in many English-language historical sources and on some accounts of the ceremony.