Editing Second Sino-Japanese War (section)

===End of the Pacific War and the surrender of Japanese troops in China===
{{Main|Atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki|Soviet invasion of Manchuria|Japanese Instrument of Surrender}}

During the Second Sino-Japanese War, the Japanese had consistent tactical successes but failed to achieve strategic results.<ref name="Crean" />{{Rp|page=|pages=70}} Although it seized the majority of China's industrial capacity, occupied most major cities, and rarely lost a battle, Japan's occupation of China was costly.<ref name="Crean" />{{Rp|page=70}} Japan had approximately 50,000 military fatalities each year and 200,000 wounded per year.<ref name="Crean" />{{Rp|page=70}}[[File:3 September 1945 - Chungking Victory Parade.jpg|thumb|WWII victory parade at Chongqing on 3 September 1945]]

In less than two weeks the [[Kwantung Army]], which was the primary Japanese fighting force,<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www-cgsc.army.mil/carl/resources/csi/glantz3/glantz3.asp |title=Leavenworth Papers No. 7 (August Storm: The Soviet 1945 Strategic Offensive in Manchuria) |access-date=2013-07-15 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080302130751/http://www-cgsc.army.mil/carl/resources/csi/glantz3/glantz3.asp |archive-date=2 March 2008 }}</ref><ref>Robert A. Pape. Why Japan Surrendered. ''International Security'', Vol. 18, No. 2 (Autumn, 1993), pp. 154–201</ref> consisting of over a million men but lacking in adequate armour, artillery, or air support, had been destroyed by the Soviets. Japanese Emperor [[Hirohito]] officially [[Surrender of Japan|capitulated]] to the Allies on 15 August 1945. The official surrender was signed aboard the battleship {{USS|Missouri|BB-63|6}} on 2 September 1945, in a ceremony where several Allied commanders including Chinese general [[Hsu Yung-chang]] were present.

After the Allied victory in the Pacific, General [[Douglas MacArthur]] ordered all Japanese forces within China (excluding [[Manchuria]]), Taiwan and French Indochina north of 16° north latitude to surrender to Chiang Kai-shek, and the Japanese troops in China formally surrendered on 9 September 1945, at 9:00.<ref name="surrender">[http://www.taiwandocuments.org/surrender02.htm Act of Surrender, 9 September 1945] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230402122255/http://www.taiwandocuments.org/surrender02.htm |date=2 April 2023 }} (page visited on 3 September 2015).</ref> The ninth hour of the ninth day of the ninth month was chosen in echo of the [[Armistice of 11 November 1918]] (on the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month) and because "nine" is a [[Numbers in Chinese culture#Nine|homophone of the word for "long lasting"]] in Chinese (to suggest that the peace won would last forever).<ref>Hans Van De Ven, "A call to not lead humanity into another war", ''[[China Daily]]'', 31 August 2015.</ref>

Chiang relied on American help in transporting Nationalist troops to regain control of formerly Japanese-occupied areas.<ref name=":02" />{{Rp|page=3}} Non-Chinese generally viewed the behavior of these troops as undercutting Nationalist legitimacy, and these troops engaged in corruption and looting, leading to widespread views of a "botched liberation".<ref name=":02" />{{Rp|page=3}}

The Nationalist government seized Japanese-held businesses at the time of the Japanese surrender.<ref name=":02" />{{Rp|page=92}} The Nationalist government made little effort to return these businesses to their original Chinese owners.<ref name=":02" />{{Rp|pages=92–93}} A mechanism existed through which Chinese and foreign owners could petition for the return of their former property.<ref name=":02" />{{Rp|page=92}} In practice, the Nationalist government and its officials retained a great deal of the seized property and embezzling property, particularly from warehouses, was common.<ref name=":02" />{{Rp|page=93}} Nationalist officials sometimes extorted money from individuals in liberated territories under threat of labeling them as Japanese collaborators.<ref name=":02" />{{Rp|page=93}}

Chiang's focus on his communist opponents prompted him to leave Japanese troops or troops of the Japanese puppet regimes to remain on duty in occupied areas so as to avoid their surrender to Communist forces.<ref name=":02" />{{Rp|page=3}}