Editing Potsdam Declaration (section)

==Aftermath==
{{main|Surrender of Japan}}

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|reason=This entire paragraph needed sourcing, where did this information come from?|date=December 2020}}

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."<ref>{{cite book |last1=Kase |first1=Toshikazu |title=Journey To The Missouri |date=1950 |publisher=Yale University Press |page=210 |url=https://archive.org/details/journeytothemiss011082mbp/page/n231/mode/2up?q=acceptable |access-date=7 May 2023}}</ref>

Meanwhile, the Supreme Council for the Direction of the War met the same day{{when|date=November 2020}} 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.<ref>Wainstock, Dennis (1996). ''The Decision to Drop the Atomic Bomb'', Westport, CT: Praeger. pp. 76–77, {{ISBN|978-0275954758}}, {{LCCN|9542965}}</ref>

Suzuki stated that the Japanese policy toward the declaration was one of {{nihongo||黙殺|[[mokusatsu]]|lit. "killing with silence"}}, which the United States interpreted as meaning "rejection by ignoring." That led to a decision by the White House to carry out the threat of destruction.<ref name="Kawai">"Mokusatsu, Japan's Response to the Potsdam Declaration," Kazuo Kawai, ''Pacific Historical Review'', Vol. 19, No. 4 (November 1950), pp. 409–414.</ref> After the White House decision, the [[United States Army Air Forces]] dropped the [[Little Boy|first atomic bomb]] on the Japanese city of [[Hiroshima]] on August 6, 1945 and then the [[Fat Man|second atomic bomb]] on the Japanese city of [[Nagasaki]] on August 9, 1945. Both bombings devastated the two cities, killing tens of thousands of people and destroying much of the cities' infrastructure as well as [[military bases]] and [[factory|factories]] in a matter of seconds in a radius that stretched for more than 1 mile (1.6 kilometers).

However, the word {{Transliteration|ja|mokusatsu}} can also mean "withholding comment."<ref name=Kawai /> Since then, it has been alleged that the [[bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki]] were attributable to English translations of {{Transliteration|ja|mokusatsu}} having misrepresented Suzuki as rejecting the terms of the Potsdam Declaration;<ref name=Zanettin>{{Cite journal | doi=10.1080/13556509.2016.1149754|title = 'The deadliest error': Translation, international relations and the news media| journal=The Translator| volume=22| issue=3| pages=303–318|year = 2016|last1 = Zanettin|first1 = Federico|s2cid = 148299383}}</ref><ref name=Polizzotti1>Mark Polizzotti,   [https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/28/opinion/sunday/why-mistranslation-matters.html 'Why Mistranslation Matters,'] [[New York Times]] 28 July 2018</ref> however, this claim is not universally accepted.<ref name=chalmers1980>[[Chalmers Johnson]], [https://www.jstor.org/stable/132001 'Omote (Explicit) and Ura Implicit): Translating Japanese Political Terms,'] [[The Journal of Japanese Studies]], Vol. 6, No. 1 (Winter, 1980), pp. 89–115</ref>

On August 9, 1945, [[General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union|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 [[Soviet invasion of Manchuria|invading Manchuria]] on three fronts. The previous day, 8 August, the Soviet Union had agreed to adhere to the Potsdam Declaration.<ref name="Dougall24">{{cite book |editor1-last=Dougall |editor1-first=Richardson |title=Foreign Relations of the United States: Diplomatic Papers, The Conference of Berlin (The Potsdam Conference), 1945, Volume II |date=1960 |publisher=Department of State |location=Washington |pages=1474–1476 |url=https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1945Berlinv02/d1382 |access-date=29 July 2024 |chapter=Ch 24: Final Documents}}</ref>

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."<ref>{{citation |author=United States Department of State |title=Foreign Relations of the United States: diplomatic papers: the Conference of Berlin (the Potsdam Conference)|year=1945|volume=2|pages=1376–1377 |publisher=U.S. Government Printing Office |url=http://digital.library.wisc.edu/1711.dl/FRUS.FRUS1945Berlinv02}}</ref> 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.<ref>{{cite book | first=Walter Smith |last=Scoenberger | title = Decision of Destiny | location = Columbus | publisher = Ohio University Press | year=1969 | pages =248–249|isbn= 978-0821400685}}</ref>

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.<ref name="Rhodes-1976">{{cite book |last=Rhodes |first=Anthony Richard Ewart |title=Propaganda: The Art of Persuasion: World War II |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=CuZOAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA262 |edition=2nd, illustrated |year=1976 |publisher=Chelsea House |isbn=978-0-87754-029-8 |page=262 |oclc=1500305}}</ref> After the receipt of the Potsdam Declaration, the Japanese government attempted to maintain the issue of the Emperor's administrative prerogative within the Potsdam Declaration by its surrender offer of August 10, but in the end, it had to take comfort with [[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."<ref>{{cite web|title=The Japanese Surrender Documents – WWII|url=http://www.ibiblio.org/pha/policy/1945/450729a.html|website=Ibiblio.org}}</ref> 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|BB-63|6}} on September 2, 1945. The radio announcement to the Japanese people was the first time many of them had actually [[Hirohito surrender broadcast|heard the voice]] of the Emperor.<ref>Holt, Rinehart and Winston, American Anthem textbook, 2007.{{clarify|date=October 2020}}</ref>

The Potsdam Declaration was intended from the start to serve as legal basis for handling Japan after the war.<ref name=":0" /> 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|reason=Reliable source needed for the whole sentence|date=October 2016}} for the occupation's reforms.

The [[People's Republic of China]] cites the Potsdam Declaration as one of the bases for the [[One-China Principle]] that Taiwan is part of China.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Zhao |first=Suisheng |url=http://dx.doi.org/10.1515/9781503634152 |title=The Dragon Roars Back: Transformational Leaders and Dynamics of Chinese Foreign Policy |date=2022 |publisher=[[Stanford University Press]] |isbn=978-1-5036-3415-2 |page=34|doi=10.1515/9781503634152 }}</ref>