The foundation of peace after the Second World War had been laid partly during a number of wartime Allied summit conferences. Among them, the Cairo Conference of 1943 has a far-reaching impact on postwar East Asia. The Cairo Conference was a tripartite summit among Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek of the Republic of China, President Franklin D. Roosevelt of the United States of America, and Prime Minister Winston Churchill of Great Britain. At Cairo, the three leaders met to discuss strategic planning and postwar security.The Cairo Conference was a diplomatic watershed. For the first time in World War II, the Chinese were invited to an international summit, which marked the apex of Sino-American good will in the war. The Cairo Conference has been remembered for three demands: the complete return to Nationalist rule of Chinese territories lost to Japan, the restoration of the independence of Korea, and the unconditional surrender of Japan. What is not known to many, however, is the background of the summit and Nationalist Chinese diplomatic efforts at Cairo. Drawing on Chinese and Western records, this article gives a full account of the Cairo summit.