Cairo Conferences

CAIRO CONFERENCES

CAIRO CONFERENCES. On their way to the Teheran Conference, President Franklin D. Roosevelt and Prime Minister Winston Churchill met with Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek at Cairo in November 1943 to discuss the war against Japan. During the meeting at Cairo, Roosevelt hoped to provide symbolic—rather than additional material—support to Chiang's embattled regime. In contrast, Chiang hoped to use the conference as a forum to persuade Roosevelt to devote more Allied resources to the fighting on the Asian mainland, particularly in China and Burma. The three conferees issued a declaration of intent: to take from Japan all of the Pacific islands occupied by it since 1914; to restore to China all territory seized by Japan, such as Manchuria, Formosa, and the Pescadores Islands; and to give Korea its independence "in due course." Despite the broad statement of war aims, however, the main focus of the Allied military effort against Japan remained the islands of the Central and South Pacific, rather than the expulsion of Japanese forces from China.

Returning from Teheran, Roosevelt and Churchill met in December with President Ismet Inönü of Turkey at the second Cairo Conference and unsuccessfully attempted to persuade him to declare war on the Axis powers.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Dallek, Robert. Franklin D. Roosevelt and American Foreign Policy, 1932–1945. New York: Oxford University Press, 1979.

Smith, Gaddis. American Diplomacy During the Second World War, 1941–1945. New York: Wiley, 1965.

Charles S. Campbell / a. g.

See also Japan, Relations with ; Teheran Conference .