Japanese forces formally surrendered in Nanjing on September 9, 1945, ending World War II fighting in China.
The ceremony took place at 9 a.m. in the auditorium of the Central Army Military Academy, one week after the signing aboard USS Missouri. General Yasuji Okamura, commander-in-chief of the Japanese China Expeditionary Army, signed the surrender document for Japan. General He Yingqin accepted it for the Chinese Allies.
The document was prepared in both Japanese and Chinese, and the ceremony lasted about 15 minutes. It covered Japanese forces in the China theater and represented the end of the eight-year Second Sino-Japanese War, which had begun with full-scale conflict in 1937.
The Nanjing ceremony should not be confused with the empire-wide surrender announcement on August 15 or the formal Allied ceremony in Tokyo Bay on September 2. Separate surrender ceremonies followed across Asia and the Pacific because Japanese forces were scattered over a vast occupied region.