On 10 of August, 1945, the Japanese government announced the decision to accept the terms of unconditional surrender, as the Protocol of the Potsdam Conference, effectively ending World War II.
Before this surrender the Imperial Japanese Navy was without resources and an Allied invasion of the islands was imminent.
While people was saying that the people should fight until the end, the leaders of the War Council of Japan were trying to establish bilateral negotiations for a surrender to the Soviet Union, in order to make the government of Stalin responsible for the peace mediation with the other Allies.
However, the Russians reneged the Soviet-Japanese Neutrality pact on April 5, 1945 to then in July break the diplomatic relations with Japan, starting the preparation of the invasion of Japan, according to the joint planning of the Allies established with Winston Churchill and Franklin D. Roosevelt at the Yalta Conference.
On 6 and 9 of August, the United States launched nuclear attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, respectively. However, on August 8, the Soviet Union declared war on Japan and launched an invasion of Manchuria (Manchukuo as called by the Japanese), quickly defeating the Japanese Imperial Army that was occupying Manchuria and Korea.
After the nuclear attacks and the defeat of the Imperial Army in the continental Asia, Emperor Hirohito ordered the War Council to try to negotiate a minimally honorable peace with the Allies.
Given the poor prospects of the war, all the various military defeats and the failed coup attempt, Emperor Hirohito finally accepted the unconditional surrender of Japan.
Although the Allies had agreed to only negotiate peace together, the Soviets showed more resistance in accepting the conditions of peace, very favorable to the U.S., since their armies were rapidly advancing in China occupied by Japan.
The Soviet advance in China and north of Korea as well as the American advance in south of Korea were only interrupted on 1st of September. At that time, Soviet troops were already on the 38th parallel but their advance was stopped as soon as the U.S. troops landed in Incheon.
The August 28, the occupation of Japan by the Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces formally began. The official surrender ceremony took place on September 2, when officials representing the Emperor of Japan signed the surrender of Japan to the U.S. General Richard K. Sutherland, aboard the USS Missouri. It was then celebrated in the various Allied countries the V-J Day (Victory in Japan).
There are many controversies regarding the negotiations that led to the Japanese surrender, because the United States came to declare that it had been an "unconditional surrender". However, the Japanese surrender was different from the German surrender, a surrender but this truly "unconditional".
In the case of Japan, the Japanese government, including the Emperor, was kept in power, and only a portion of this elite was convicted for causing the war. Peace negotiations have resulted in an quite different occupation from the one that occurred in Germany, which was occupied by the victorious powers.
In the case of Japan, the occupation occurred only by the U.S. troops, while the Soviets remained only in the territories it had occupied, such as northern China, and for a longer period in the northern part of Korea.
The division of Korea intensified then eventually leading to a final division of the country maintained until nowadays.
Japan occupied by U.S. troops, was demilitarized after the war. Although it has been prevented from owning offensive forces, part of its armed forces were kept under U.S. command, who used to maintain control over South Korea and Taiwan. A considerable part of these forces also took part in the Korean War (1950-1953), under the orders of U.S. Army.
In China and northern part of Korea, the USSR liberated areas, the support for the communists grew considerably to the point of these regions adhere to socialism before the end of the 1940s.
With the victory of the Communists in the Chinese Revolution in 1949, the island of Taiwan, which had been transformed into colonial territory during the Japanese occupation, was kept as a capitalist country with the support of the United States and in accordance with Japanese interests.
The Sakhalinas and Kurile islands ended definitively annexed by the USSR, and even today are part of Russian territory.
