Potsdam Declaration

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Vyacheslav Mikhailovich Molotov, Joseph Stalin (white uniform), William D. Leahy, Joseph E. Davies, James F. Byrnes, and Harry S. Truman
(right)

The Potsdam Declaration, or the Proclamation Defining Terms for Japanese Surrender, was a statement that called for the

Japanese armed forces during World War II. On July 26, 1945, United States President Harry S. Truman, United Kingdom Prime Minister Winston Churchill, and Chairman of China Chiang Kai-shek issued the document, which outlined the terms of surrender for the Empire of Japan, as agreed upon at the Potsdam Conference. The ultimatum stated that, if Japan did not surrender, it would face "prompt and utter destruction."[1][2]

Terms

On July 26, the United States, Britain, and China released the declaration announcing the terms for Japan's surrender, with the warning as an ultimatum: "We will not deviate from them. There are no alternatives. We shall brook no delay." For Japan, the terms of the declaration specified:[1]

  • The elimination "for all time of the authority and influence of those who have deceived and misled the people of Japan into embarking on world conquest"
  • The occupation of "points in Japanese territory to be designated by the Allies"
  • That the "Japanese sovereignty shall be limited to the islands of Honshu, Hokkaido, Kyushu, Shikoku, and such minor islands as we determine," as had been announced in the Cairo Declaration in 1943[3]
  • That "the Japanese
    military forces
    , after being completely disarmed, shall be permitted to return to their homes with the opportunity to lead peaceful and productive lives"
  • That "we do not intend that the Japanese shall be enslaved as a race or destroyed as a nation, but stern justice shall be meted out to all
    war criminals
    , including those who have visited cruelties upon our prisoners"

On the other hand, the declaration offered:

  • "The Japanese Government shall remove all obstacles to the revival and strengthening of democratic tendencies among the Japanese people. Freedom of speech, of religion, and of thought, as well as respect for the fundamental human rights shall be established."
  • "Japan shall be permitted to maintain such industries as will sustain her economy and permit the exaction of just reparations in kind, but not those which would enable her to rearm for war. To this end, access to, as distinguished from control of, raw materials shall be permitted. Eventual Japanese participation in world trade relations shall be permitted."
  • "The occupying forces of the Allies shall be withdrawn from Japan as soon as these objectives have been accomplished and there has been established, in accordance with the freely expressed will of the Japanese people, a peacefully inclined and responsible government."

The mention of "unconditional surrender" came at the end of the declaration:[1]

  • "We call upon the government of Japan to proclaim now the unconditional surrender of all Japanese armed forces, and to provide proper and adequate assurances of their good faith in such action. The alternative for Japan is prompt and utter destruction."[1]

Contrary to what had been intended at its conception, which was to disenfranchise the Japanese leadership so that the people would accept a mediated transition, the declaration made no direct mention of the

blank check for the Allies.[5]

The "prompt and utter destruction" clause has been interpreted as a veiled warning about American possession of the

atomic bomb, which had been successfully tested in New Mexico on July 16, 1945, the day before the opening of the conference. Although the document warned of further destruction like the Operation Meetinghouse raid on Tokyo and other carpetbombing of Japanese cities
, it did not mention anything about the atomic bomb.

The Potsdam Declaration had terms unclearly stated. It is not clear from the document itself whether a Japanese government would remain under Allied occupation or the occupation would be run by a foreign military government. In the same manner, it was not clear whether after the end of the occupation, Japan was to include any territory other than the four main Japanese islands. However, State Department policy showed an intent to obtain a free hand in running the affairs of Japan afterwards.[6]

Intentions of the Allied Powers

Each of the Allies who signed the Declaration had their own intentions for doing so, and all parties desired to receive reparations for war damages from the Japanese.[7]

Republic of China

The Republic of China - under the Nationalist rule of Chiang Kai-shek - desired immediate withdrawal of the Imperial Japanese Army and its subsidiary force the Kwantung Army from all Chinese territory, including Manchuria. Until the very end of the war the Japanese Army had been campaigning in China to assert the rule of the Japanese colonial state there, and the Chinese Nationalists and Communists had been fighting in tandem to expel them from the country.[8] The Potsdam Declaration was issued in part to make clear the Chinese expectation of complete Japanese withdrawal from China.[9]

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom had lost control of its possessions in Southeast Asia and China to the Japanese advance in 1941-42. These included Singapore, Malaya, North Borneo, Hong Kong, and others. A key motivation of the British government was a restoration of control in its prewar possessions, along with a prompt end to the Japanese war effort, especially on the Indian front in Burma.[10]

United States

The United States desired to keep maximum strategic latitude for itself upon the defeat of Japan. The American government had demanded in the past the unconditional surrender of Japan as the precondition to peace, and the text of the Declaration reiterated this demand. In the remainder of Asia, the American government had the goals of total rollback of the Empire of Japan's overseas possessions, as well as the additional goal of preventing the communists - with the support and patronage of the Soviet Union - from expanding influence in East Asia and Southeast Asia.[11]

Leaflets and radio broadcasts

The declaration was released to the press in Potsdam on the evening of July 26 and simultaneously transmitted to the

State Department did not want the United States to be seen as suing for peace. The Japanese ambassador to Moscow reacted to the news by calling the declaration "a big scare-bomb directed against us".[12] American bombers dropped over 3 million leaflets describing the declaration over Japan,[13]
despite the fact that picking up enemy propaganda leaflets and listening to foreign radio broadcasts was illegal in Japan.

The initial English radio transmission was received in Japan by the Foreign Ministry, Dōmei News Agency, the Imperial Army, and the Imperial Navy.[14] It was translated into Japanese by Takeso Shimoda of the Treaty Division of the Foreign Ministry. An internal discussion in the Foreign Ministry concluded that acceptance was unavoidable, but there was still room for negotiation. "Remaining silent is prudent; the news media should be instructed to print it without any comments."[15]

Aftermath

The Potsdam Declaration and consideration of adopting it occurred before nuclear weapons were used. The terms of the declaration were hotly debated within the Japanese government. Upon receiving the declaration, Foreign Minister Shigenori Tōgō hurriedly met with Prime Minister Kantarō Suzuki and Cabinet Secretary Hisatsune Sakomizu. Sakomizu recalled that all felt the declaration must be accepted. Despite being sympathetic to accepting the terms, Tōgō felt it was vague about the eventual form of government for Japan, disarmament, and the fate of accused war criminals. He also still had hope that the Soviet Union would agree to mediate negotiations with the Western Allies to obtain clarifications and revisions of the declaration's terms.[citation needed]

Shortly afterwards, Tōgō met with Emperor Hirohito and advised him to treat the declaration with the utmost circumspection, but that a reply should be postponed until the Japanese received a response from the Soviets to mediate peace. According to Foreign Ministry official Toshikazu Kase, Hirohito "said without hesitation that he deemed it [the declaration] acceptable in principle."[16]

Meanwhile, the Supreme Council for the Direction of the War met the same day[when?] to discuss the declaration. War Minister Korechika Anami, General Yoshijirō Umezu, and Admiral Soemu Toyoda opposed accepting the declaration, argued that the terms were "too dishonorable," and advised for the Japanese government to reject it openly. Suzuki, Tōgō, and Admiral Mitsumasa Yonai leaned towards accepting it but agreed that clarification was needed over the status of the Emperor. Tōgō's suggestion for the government not to respond until it received the Soviet response was accepted.[17]

Suzuki stated that the Japanese policy toward the declaration was one of

military bases and factories
in a matter of seconds in a radius that stretched for more than 1 mile (1.6 kilometers).

On August 9, 1945, Soviet general secretary Joseph Stalin, based on a secret agreement at the Yalta Conference in February, unilaterally abrogated the 1941 Soviet–Japanese Neutrality Pact and declared war on Japan. Thus began the Soviet–Japanese War, with the Soviets invading Manchuria on three fronts.

However, the word mokusatsu can also mean "withholding comment."

bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were attributable to English translations of mokusatsu having misrepresented Suzuki as rejecting the terms of the Potsdam Declaration;[19][20] however, this claim is not universally accepted.[21]

In a widely broadcast speech after the bombing of Hiroshima, which was picked up by Japanese news agencies, Truman warned that if Japan failed to accept the terms of the Potsdam Declaration, it could "expect a rain of ruin from the air, the like of which has never been seen on this earth."[22] As a result, Suzuki felt compelled to meet the Japanese press, and he reiterated his government's commitment to ignore the Allies' demands and fight on.[23]

However, soon after that statement, it became clear to many that surrender was a realistic option. The thoroughness of the Allies' demands and the fact they were made public forced the Japanese leaders and populace to realize the success that Japan's enemies had achieved in the war.

US Secretary of State James F. Byrnes' reply: "From the moment of surrender the authority of the Emperor and the Japanese Government to rule the state shall be subject to the Supreme Commander of the Allied powers who will take such steps as he deems proper to effectuate the surrender terms."[25] Thus, at 1200 JST on August 15, 1945, the Emperor announced his acceptance of the Potsdam Declaration, which culminated in the surrender documents signature on board the USS Missouri on September 2, 1945. The radio announcement to the Japanese people was the first time many of them had actually heard the voice of the Emperor.[26]

The Potsdam Declaration was intended from the start to serve as legal basis for handling Japan after the war.[6] After the surrender of the Japanese government and the landing of General MacArthur in Japan in September 1945, the Potsdam Declaration served as the legal basis[citation needed] for the occupation's reforms.

The

One-China Principle that Taiwan is part of China.[27]

Historical controversy

The Imperial Japanese Government, under the direction of prime minister Suzuki Kantarō, did not publicly entertain the possibility of surrender to the Allies.[28] The historical controversy lies in whether or not the demand for an unconditional surrender by Japan stalled possible peace negotiations. If the demand for unconditional surrender had not been made, so the argument goes, there could be no argument for the necessity of the use of firebombing and nuclear weapons against Japan. This is the flashpoint around which much of historiographical controversy surrounding the Declaration revolves.

According to American historian Tsuyoshi Hasegawa, the Japanese Cabinet was not particularly inclined to surrender at all, and records of the events immediately after the dropping of the Hiroshima Bomb do not indicate an effect on the government towards surrender on the terms of the Potsdam Declaration immediately after the dropping of the bomb.[29]

Hasegawa also notes that Stalin told Truman at the Potsdam Conference that the Soviet Union would begin war with Japan within the beginning of August, but that American estimates placed the estimated time at the end of the month.[30]

See also

References

  1. ^ a b c d "Potsdam Declaration: Proclamation Defining Terms for Japanese Surrender Issued, at Potsdam, July 26, 1945". National Science Digital Library.
  2. ^ "Milestones: 1937–1945 / The Potsdam Conference, 1945". United States Department of State, Office of the Historian.
  3. ^ "Potsdam Declaration – Birth of the Constitution of Japan". ndl.go.jp. Retrieved January 25, 2015.
  4. ^ "Potsdam Declaration". Birth of the Constitution of Japan. National Diet Library.
  5. ^ "Potsdam Declaration". Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan. 2. 1966.
  6. ^ a b Department of State Memorandum, undated, but certainly from late July 1945, FRUS, Conference of Berlin, vol. 2, doc. 1254
  7. ^ "Potsdam Declaration | Birth of the Constitution of Japan". ndl.go.jp. Retrieved October 4, 2022.
  8. ^ Ienaga, Saburo (1978). The Pacific War 1931-1945. Pantheon Books. pp. 229–240.
  9. ^ "Potsdam Declaration". National Diet Library. 2003.
  10. ^ "Britain and Decolonisation in South East and South Asia, 1945-1948". Imperial War Museums. Retrieved October 4, 2022.
  11. ^ Hasegawa, Tsuyoshi (2006). Racing the Enemy: Stalin, Truman, and the Surrender of Japan. Harvard University Press. pp. 183–186.
  12. OCLC 47238424
    .
  13. ^ Williams, Josette H. "The Information War in the Pacific, 1945: Paths to Peace". Central Intelligence Agency. Archived from the original on June 13, 2007.
  14. ^ Yomiuri Shimbun Company, ed. (2012). 昭和史の天皇 3 本土決戦とポツダム宣言 [Emperor of Showa History, Vol. 3: Decisive Battle for the Home Islands and the Potsdam Declaration] (in Japanese). Tokyo: Chuo Bunko. pp. 348–349.
  15. ^ 山下, 祐志 (1998). "アジア・太平洋戦争と戦後教育改革(12) : ポツダム宣言の受諾" [Asia, the Pacific War, and Post-War Reforms in Education (Part 12): Acceptance of the Potsdam Declaration]. 宇部工業高等専門学校研究報告. 44: 2.
  16. ^ Kase, Toshikazu (1950). Journey To The Missouri. Yale University Press. p. 210. Retrieved May 7, 2023.
  17. LCCN 95-42965
  18. ^ a b "Mokusatsu, Japan's Response to the Potsdam Declaration," Kazuo Kawai, Pacific Historical Review, Vol. 19, No. 4 (November 1950), pp. 409–414.
  19. S2CID 148299383
    .
  20. New York Times
    28 July 2018
  21. The Journal of Japanese Studies
    , Vol. 6, No. 1 (Winter, 1980), pp. 89–115
  22. ^ United States Department of State (1945), Foreign Relations of the United States: diplomatic papers: the Conference of Berlin (the Potsdam Conference), vol. 2, U.S. Government Printing Office, pp. 1376–1377
  23. .
  24. .
  25. ^ "The Japanese Surrender Documents – WWII". Ibiblio.org.
  26. ^ Holt, Rinehart and Winston, American Anthem textbook, 2007.[clarification needed]
  27. .
  28. ^ Hasegawa, Tsuyoshi (2006). Racing the Enemy: Stalin, Truman, and the Surrender of Japan. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. pp. 184–186.
  29. ^ Hasegawa, Tsuyoshi (2006). Racing the Enemy: Stalin, Truman, and the Surrender of Japan. Harvard University Press. pp. 183–186.
  30. ^ Hasegawa, Tsuyoshi (2006). Racing the Enemy: Stalin, Truman, and the Surrender of Japan. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. p. 177.

Further reading

  • Ehrman, John (1956). Grand Strategy Volume VI, October 1944–August 1945. London: HMSO (British official history). pp. 304–306.

External links