Through the lens of the Chinese Mission in Japan, this dissertation explores how the Chinese Nationalists (Kuomintang) under Chiang Kai-shek adjusted to the post-war international order between 1945 and 1952. The history the governmental delegation representing the Republic of China (ROC) in Tokyo during the allied occupation of Japan reveals a hitherto overlooked aspect of post-war China and East Asia’s Cold War history, one coinciding with the seven-year period that witnessed the military defeat of the Kuomintang. As the Kuomintang fought to retain control of the Chinese mainland between 1945 and 1949, the Chinese Mission vied for influence in Japan with the three leading Allied powers—the United States, the United Kingdom and the Soviet Union—and participated in trying war criminals, obtaining reparations, and concluding the Sino-Japanese Peace Treaty. The Chinese Mission thus endeavoured to be an active member of the “Big Four” as envisaged by President Franklin Roosevelt in the final years of World War II.

However, the standing and eminence of the Chinese Mission in Japan ebbed away as the Kuomintang lost ground in the Chinese Civil War and eventually retreated to the island of Taiwan in 1949. Following the establishment of the People’s Republic of China in October of that year, the fundamental legitimacy of the Chinese Mission came under threat as the Chinese Communists and the Soviet Union continuously challenged its position in Japan. Despite the signing of the Sino-Japanese Peace Treaty in 1952, which officially ended the war between China and Japan and recognized the ROC as the legitimate Chinese government in the eyes of Japan, the perception of the ROC in the minds of most Japanese, in comparison to the new regime in Beijing, was little different to that of any other defeated power. The title of this dissertation “From Victory to Defeat” not only characterises the history of the Chinese Mission in Japan, but also alludes to the fate of the Kuomintang and ROC during those seven years.