Japanese forces signed a separate surrender in Nanjing on 9 September 1945.
The ceremony took place four days after the main surrender aboard USS Missouri. General He Yingqin accepted the surrender of Japanese forces in China on behalf of the Republic of China, while General Yasuji Okamura signed for Japan. The event covered Japanese forces operating in the China theater.
Nanjing had been the capital of the Republic of China before the government moved inland during the war. It was also the site of the 1937 Nanjing Massacre, making the city a highly symbolic location for Japan’s capitulation in China. The separate ceremony recognized the theater-specific command structure of the war.
The Nanjing surrender did not replace the worldwide formal instrument signed on 2 September. Instead, it implemented Japan’s capitulation within a particular region. Similar local surrender ceremonies occurred elsewhere across Asia and the Pacific, as Japanese commanders formally handed over their forces to Allied authorities in their respective theaters.