COMMENTARY / Japan

For the U.S., Japan was the foe and China the prize

The struggle between Japan and the U.S. for control of China led to the Pacific War

Chinese leader Gen. Chiang Kai-shek, U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt and British Winston Churchill in November 1943 at the Cairo Conference, which outlined the Allied wartime policy against Japan and the shape of postwar Asia | U.S. NATIONAL ARCHIVES

By Paul de Vries
Special To The Japan Times

Aug 14, 2017

KAWAGUCHI, SAITAMA –

"Everyone was scared of the Americans." Their attitude, formerly altruistic, had changed into one that threatened "domination" of China.

— Madame Chiang Kai-shek on the immediate postwar years

The Pacific War concluded with the unconditional surrender of Japan on Aug. 15, 1945, and was officially brought to an end on Sept. 2 of that same year. The true exchange of suzerainty, however, could more accurately be said to have occurred a little over two weeks later on Sept. 19. On that non-remembered date, the USS Rocky Mount, the flagship of the armada of American naval ships that steamed up the Huangpu River to reclaim the port of Shanghai, moored itself at the No. 1 buoy, the berth that had historically been reserved for the flagship of the British Royal Navy.