ABSTRACT
When Japan surrendered to the Allied Powers on September 2, 1945, it unconditionally accepted the new world leaders’ conception of a postwar order framed in terms of restoring justice rather than peace. The Allies claimed for themselves the mandate to sit in judgement over the criminal acts of war perpetrated by the defeated Axis while building a just postwar world commensurate with their own now undisputed power status. The implementation of this reorganized world necessitated broad territorial and geopolitical change. In Asia, it meant dismantling the Japanese empire, which at its height incorporated large portions of China, Northeast, and Southeast Asia, and much of the Pacifi c as well.
