At noon, on 15 August 1945, the Japanese people listened to Emperor Hirohito's voice over the radio announcing Japan's acceptance of the Potsdam Proclamation. Japan's military defeat was complete. Nevertheless, Tokyo's decision to surrender in mid-August fixed the timing of peace and the balance of military power in East Asia under which peace would unfold. For policymakers in Washington and Chongqing, Japan's surrender came either too late or too soon: Japan stumbled too long in the Pacific war to prevent the Soviet Red Army from pouring into Manchuria and Korea, yet its resistance against the Russians in these areas collapsed too rapidly to allow the American and Chinese military forces to play a role.

On Victory in Japan day in East Asia, while most people were intoxicated by the coming of peace, Harry Truman and Chiang Kai-shek were filled with anxieties about the future. On 14 August, after receiving the news that Emperor Hirohito had decided to surrender, President Truman talked to a cheering crowd through a loudspeaker on the north portico of the White House. Aside from hailing the triumph of the United Nations coalition over the Axis powers, the president exhorted his audience to complete the task of implementing free government in the world, referring to an “emergency … as great as it was on December 7, 1941.” Across the Pacific, Chiang Kai-shek's “victory broadcast” to the Chinese people was no more optimistic.