Japanese forces in Taiwan made their major postwar surrender to Chiang Kai-shek’s government on 25 October 1945.
Japan had ruled Taiwan since the Treaty of Shimonoseki transferred the island from Qing China to Japan in 1895. After Japan’s defeat in World War II, Japanese forces on Taiwan surrendered to representatives of the Republic of China.
The Taiwan ceremony occurred after the central surrender aboard USS Missouri on 2 September. The Missouri ceremony ended Japan’s war with the principal Allied powers, but military units scattered across Asia and the Pacific still had to surrender locally to the commanders responsible for those areas.
Taiwan’s surrender is often remembered as a major later surrender in Asia, not as the date Japan first announced or formally signed its national surrender. The Republic of China then administered Taiwan under the postwar arrangements that followed Japan’s defeat.