Nanjing hosted a separate Japanese surrender ceremony on September 9, 1945.
The ceremony took place in the auditorium of the Central Army Military Academy in Nanjing. General Yasuji Okamura, commander-in-chief of the Japanese Expeditionary Force in China, signed Japan’s surrender document. General He Yingqin accepted it for the Republic of China and the Allied powers, with British Major General Eric Hayes also present.
This event occurred one week after the formal international surrender ceremony aboard USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay. It covered Japanese forces in the China theater rather than serving as the main global surrender ceremony. The document was written in both Japanese and Chinese.
Nanjing had been the capital of the Nationalist Chinese government before the wartime capital moved to Chongqing. Japanese forces had captured Nanjing in December 1937, followed by mass killings and other atrocities now known as the Nanjing Massacre. The 1945 surrender ceremony therefore carried particular significance in the city.