WI: Japanese conditional surrender before the Potsdam convention.

What is the Japanese surrendered conditionally before the Soviets, the Americans, the British all met in Potsdam to demand the Japanese unconditional surrender. It really depends on what date, perhaps around the time of Iwo Jima or even Okinawa, Emperor Showa realizes the cost of human lives in the Pacific War and decides to back out of it. I think he might be able to keep Korea, Taiwan, and just maybe Manchuria. Japanese beggars cannot be Japanese choosers,. What are your thoughts?
 
What is the Japanese surrendered conditionally before the Soviets, the Americans, the British all met in Potsdam to demand the Japanese unconditional surrender. It really depends on what date, perhaps around the time of Iwo Jima or even Okinawa, Emperor Showa realizes the cost of human lives in the Pacific War and decides to back out of it. I think he might be able to keep Korea, Taiwan, and just maybe Manchuria. Japanese beggars cannot be Japanese choosers,. What are your thoughts?

There is no way that would be acceptable...
Allowing the Japanese to keep their conquests...
China would never accept this...
 

Geon

Donor
Unconditional Surrender

The Allies were bound and determined to have Japan surrender unconditionally period. They would not even budge on the issue of the Emperor staying in power, which the Japanese insisted on. In effect the Japanese conditions included the following.


  • The Emperor remains in power.
  • Japan gets to keep its prewar territories.
  • Japan demobilizes on its own without foreign occupation.
  • Japan will investigate the purported war crimes it committed during the wars.
None of these conditions were acceptable to the Allies. Only after the Japanese agreed to unconditional surrender did the Allies make the offer that the Emperor could stay in office.

I'm afraid the Allies were in no mood to be compromising at this point.

Geon
 
What is the Japanese surrendered conditionally before the Soviets, the Americans, the British all met in Potsdam to demand the Japanese unconditional surrender. It really depends on what date, perhaps around the time of Iwo Jima or even Okinawa, Emperor Showa realizes the cost of human lives in the Pacific War and decides to back out of it. I think he might be able to keep Korea, Taiwan, and just maybe Manchuria. Japanese beggars cannot be Japanese choosers,. What are your thoughts?
The question would be why they would want to surrender. The Japanese military board was not exactly on the side of rational at this time, or any time in particular - the goal of victory was 150% lost when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbour.
 
No. There is no way Japan could retain Formosa, Korea, or Manchuria. Remember, China was a key member of the allied coalition in the Pacific War Allied demands (they would in effect be US demands) would include:

1. Withdrawal of all Japanese forces to the Japanese home islands, with their ultimate status to be determined by the Allied powers (China, the US and UK).

2. Turning over to the allies for trial all military personnel accused of war crimes

3. Allied occupation to ensure these terms are met.

It is possible that Japan could keep some outlying territories such as south Sakhalin island, but this would be only because the USSR had not yet entered the Pacific War. Japan could probably end up keeping the emperor as a figurehead and the reconstruction Japan as a liberal constitutional monarchy might be a bit less thorough.
 

CalBear

Moderator
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The absolute BEST case the Japanese could hope for by that time was no occupation, or much more likely a short term occupation.

Too much water under the bridge, WAY too many confirmed reports of atrocities, way too much hatred, just way too much. All of the Japanese Empire was seen as ill gotten gains. Japanese war criminals were going to face Allied judges.

What they wind up with is effectively the actual OTL terms, Hirohito doesn't face the noose and the U.S. is sort of polite in ordering him around.
 

raharris1973

Gone Fishin'
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A timeline illustrating the minimum terms the Japanese military could have been made to accept at any given time could be helpful here.

For example, leaving aside what is acceptable for America, when is the earliest Japan could have accepted these terms: surrender of all territories taken since 1937, restoration of Manchuria and Taiwan to China per the Cairo declaration, Surrender of Korea to allied authority with the objective of independence per the Cairo declaration, American occupation of the bonins and ryukyus as a buffer against Japan and disarmament reparations a la Versailles? Any time before the soviet attack?

The position of the Japanese with regard to Manchuria at the end of the war is also confusing. Some say they were trying to keep it to the end,while other sources have them offering it to the soviets in return for mediation. Also there were attempts for a late war separate peace with nationalist China with a uncertain amount of territorial withdrawal involved.
 
Why were the terms so harsh?

I can understand Germany, they were the enemy in two world wars so far. But last time Japan was an ally.

Just anger over Pearl Harbor and racism, or were there other reasons?
 
Wrong Conference...

What is the Japanese surrendered conditionally before the Soviets, the Americans, the British all met in Potsdam to demand the Japanese unconditional surrender. It really depends on what date, perhaps around the time of Iwo Jima or even Okinawa, Emperor Showa realizes the cost of human lives in the Pacific War and decides to back out of it. I think he might be able to keep Korea, Taiwan, and just maybe Manchuria. Japanese beggars cannot be Japanese choosers,. What are your thoughts?
'Unconditional surrender of the Axis' was the demand of the Allies onwards from the Casablanca conference in January, 1943. Potsdam in 1945 simply repeated that, making clear that it hadn't changed.
Of course, if the Japanese want to surrender, conditionally, at the end of 1942, before the Casablanca conference, then the rest of the war is going to possibly look somewhat different...
 
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Why were the terms so harsh?

I can understand Germany, they were the enemy in two world wars so far. But last time Japan was an ally.

Just anger over Pearl Harbor and racism, or were there other reasons?

Treatment of POWs is a massive and very undercounted one in the modern era.
 
Why were the terms so harsh?

I can understand Germany, they were the enemy in two world wars so far. But last time Japan was an ally.

Just anger over Pearl Harbor and racism, or were there other reasons?

Treatment of POWs is a massive and very undercounted one in the modern era.

Bataan Death March, for starters. And so was PoW slave labour on the Burma Railway.

In terms of civilian atrocities, Nanjing Massacre comes to mind. Smaller incidents like in Shanghai, Hong Kong and Singapore as well. And let's not forget the issue of institutionalized military sex slavery in the form of comfort women. Japan did far too much to even be considered trustworthy to hold any of their conquests, let alone deserve to.
 
Why were the terms so harsh?

I can understand Germany, they were the enemy in two world wars so far. But last time Japan was an ally.

Just anger over Pearl Harbor and racism, or were there other reasons?

A few small reasons- the Rape of Nanjing, the institutionalized murder of POWs and Chinese civilians, the 'Kill All, Burn All, Destroy All' policy in China, the opportunistic (from the Allied POV) attacking of the colonial empires...
Before the war, Allied hostility to Japan was due to a mix of racism (considerable!) and the breakdown of relations over the overlapping spheres of interest in the Pacific between the Great Powers.
By 1944, the racism is still there but the considered disdain for a rival power has been replaced by a quite understandable fury.
 
Bataan Death March, for starters. And so was PoW slave labour on the Burma Railway.

This also influences post-WWII policies in East Asia, as many(almost all) of the "Japanese" guards of the POW camps were Koreans. Hence the sense of apathy and lack of sincereness in US troops in handling the making of a Korean state.
 
1945 would be too late a POD.

Perhaps a POD at Midway, with the IJN winning and preserving its carrier strength, which was then still on par with the USN. Midway bought the US just enough time for its industrial capacity to kick in and start churning carriers like crazy. (To use RTS game speak, the US held out long enough to "tech up" their uber weapons. )

After that POD, the IJN could then hold Hawaii hostage, only from such a position of strength can they force the Allies to a negotiated settlement (which IIRC was Yamamoto's plan all along, as he knew very well Imperial Japan cannot match the US in the long run). Not after Midway, when the Allies forced Imperial Japan on the backfoot for good.
 
Japan isn't capable of "holding Hawaii hostage" and the scale of American industry meant it was never holding the line under threat of defeat. Midway being reversed at most puts the USA back 6-12 months. Japan doesn't have the logistics to properly threaten the USA, and the American naval program is going to inevitably drown Japan in steel and fire.
 
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