Who signed the 1945 surrender instrument for China aboard USS Missouri?

General Hsu Yung-chang signed the 1945 surrender instrument for China aboard USS Missouri.

Hsu represented the Republic of China at the Tokyo Bay ceremony and signed at 9:13 a.m., after Fleet Admiral Chester Nimitz signed for the United States. His signature followed General Douglas MacArthur’s acceptance of the surrender on behalf of the Allied powers.

The Republic of China had fought Japan since the start of the Second Sino-Japanese War in 1937, making its participation especially significant. Chinese forces had battled Japanese armies across a vast theater for years, and the surrender document formally ended Japan’s wartime authority in Chinese territories under Allied arrangements.

Hsu’s name may appear in different romanizations, including Xu Yongchang. The form “Hsu Yung-chang” is the spelling used in the English-language surrender ceremony account. He was a senior Chinese naval and military officer, not China’s political leader Chiang Kai-shek, who did not attend the shipboard signing.