The main surrender ceremony for Japanese forces in China was held in Nanjing in 1945.
The ceremony took place on September 9, 1945, at the auditorium of the Central Army Military Academy in Nanjing. General Yasuji Okamura, commander-in-chief of the Japanese China Expeditionary Force, signed the surrender document. General He Yingqin accepted it for the Republic of China and the Allied powers.
This ceremony followed the broader Japanese surrender signed aboard USS Missouri on September 2. It addressed Japanese forces in China, where the Second Sino-Japanese War had continued since Japan’s invasion and occupation of large parts of the country. The document was written in both Japanese and Chinese.
Nanjing had been the capital of the Nationalist government during much of the war and had also suffered the Nanjing Massacre after Japanese forces captured the city in 1937. The 1945 ceremony therefore carried major political and historical significance beyond the military act of surrender.