The Treaty of San Francisco (サンフランシスコ講和条約), also called the Treaty of Peace with Japan (日本国との平和条約), re-established peaceful relations between Japan and the Allied Powers on behalf of the United Nations by ending the legal state of war and providing for redress for hostile actions up to and including World War II. It was signed by 49 nations on 8 September 1951, in San Francisco, California, at the War Memorial Opera House. Italy and China were not invited, the latter due to disagreements on whether the Republic of China or the People’s Republic of China represented the Chinese people. Korea was also not invited due to a similar disagreement on whether South Korea or North Korea represented the Korean people.
The treaty came into force on 28 April 1952. It ended Japan’s role as an imperial power, allocated compensation to Allied nations and former prisoners of war who had suffered Japanese war crimes during World War II, ended the Allied post-war occupation of Japan, and returned full sovereignty to it. This treaty relied heavily on the Charter of the United Nations and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights to enunciate the Allies’ goals. In Article 11, Japan accepted the judgments of the International Military Tribunal for the Far East and of other Allied War Crimes Courts imposed on Japan both within and outside Japan.
The 1951 treaty, along with the Security Treaty signed that same day, marks the beginning of the San Francisco System, which defines Japan’s relationship with the United States and its role in the international arena and characterizes Japan’s post-war history.
Soviet Union’s opposition to the treaty
The Soviet Union took part in the San Francisco conference, and the Soviet delegation was led by the Soviet Deputy Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko. From the start of the conference the Soviet Union expressed vigorous and vocal opposition to the draft treaty text prepared by the United States and the United Kingdom. The Soviet delegation made several unsuccessful procedural attempts to stall the proceedings.[16] The Soviet Union’s objections were detailed in a lengthy 8 September 1951, statement by Gromyko. The statement contained a number of the Soviet Union’s claims and assertions: that the treaty did not provide any guarantees against the rise of Japanese militarism; that China was not invited to participate despite being one of the main victims of the Japanese aggression; that the Soviet Union was not properly consulted when the treaty was being prepared; that the treaty sets up Japan as an American military base and draws Japan into a military coalition directed against the Soviet Union; that the treaty was in effect a separate peace treaty; that the draft treaty violated the rights of China to Taiwan and several other islands; that the draft treaty, in violation of the Yalta agreement, did not recognize the Soviet Union’s sovereignty over South Sakhalin and the Kuril Islands; and other objections. It was not until 19 October 1956, that Japan and the Soviet Union signed a Joint Declaration ending the war and reestablishing diplomatic relations.
Signatories and ratification
Of the 51 participating countries, 48 signed the treaty; Czechoslovakia, Poland and the Soviet Union refused.
The signatories to the treaty were: Argentina, Australia, Belgium, Bolivia, Brazil, Cambodia, Canada, Ceylon (currently Sri Lanka), Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Egypt, El Salvador, Ethiopia, France, Greece, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Laos, Lebanon, Liberia, Luxembourg, Mexico, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Nicaragua, Norway, Pakistan, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, the Philippines, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, South Vietnam, Syria, Turkey, the United Kingdom, the United States, Uruguay, Venezuela and Japan.
The Philippines ratified the San Francisco Treaty on July 16, 1956, after the signing of a reparations agreement between both countries in May of that year. Indonesia did not ratify the San Francisco Peace Treaty. Instead, it signed with Japan a bilateral reparations agreement and peace treaty on January 20, 1958. A separate treaty, the Treaty of Taipei, formally known as the Sino-Japanese Peace Treaty, was signed in Taipei on April 28, 1952, between Japan and the ROC, just hours before the Treaty of San Francisco also went into effect on April 28. The apparent illogical order of the two treaties is due to the difference between time zones.
Fate of Taiwan and other Japanese overseas territories
According to the treaty’s travaux préparatoires, a consensus existed among the states present at the San Francisco Peace Conference that, while the legal status of the island of Taiwan is temporarily undetermined, it would be resolved at a later time in accordance with the principles of peaceful settlement of disputes and self-determination, ideas that had been enshrined in the UN Charter.
The document officially renounces Japan’s treaty rights derived from the Boxer Protocol of 1901 and its rights to Korea, Formosa and the Pescadores, Hong Kong (then a British colony), the Kuril Islands, the Spratly Islands, Antarctica and South Sakhalin.
Article 3 of the treaty left the Bonin Islands, Volcano Islands (including Iwo Jima), and the Ryukyu Islands, which included Okinawa and the Amami, Miyako and Yaeyama Islands groups, under a potential U.N. trusteeship. While the treaty provision implied that these territories would become a United Nations trusteeship, in the end that option was not pursued. The Amami Islands were eventually restored to Japan on 25 December 1953, with the Bonin and Volcano Islands restored on 5 April 1968. In 1969 U.S.-Japan negotiations authorized the transfer of authority over the Ryukyus to Japan to be implemented in 1972. In 1972, the United States’ “reversion” of the Ryukyus occurred along with the ceding of control over the nearby Senkaku Islands. Both the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and the Republic of China (ROC) argue that this agreement did not determine the ultimate sovereignty of the Senkaku Islands.
The Treaty of Taipei between Japan and the ROC stated that all residents of Taiwan and the Pescadores were deemed as nationals of the ROC. Additionally, in Article 2 it specified that – It is recognized that under Article 2 of the Treaty of Peace which Japan signed at the city of San Francisco on 8 September 1951 (hereinafter referred to as the San Francisco Treaty), Japan has renounced all right, title, and claim to Taiwan (Formosa) and Penghu (the Pescadores) as well as the Spratley Islands and the Paracel Islands. However, this treaty does not include any wording saying that Japan recognizes that the territorial sovereignty of Taiwan was transferred to the Republic of China.
Some supporters of Taiwan independence refer to the San Francisco Peace Treaty to argue that Taiwan is not a part of the Republic of China, for it does not explicitly state the sovereignty status of Taiwan after Japan’s renunciation. In 1955, U.S. Secretary of State John Foster Dulles, co-author of the San Francisco Peace Treaty, affirmed that the treaty ceded Taiwan to no one; that Japan “merely renounced sovereignty over Taiwan”. Dulles said that America “cannot, therefore, admit that the disposition of Taiwan is merely an internal problem of China.” However, the ROC Ministry of Foreign Affairs rejected this justification, arguing that the Instrument of Surrender of Japan accepts the Potsdam Declaration and the Cairo Declaration, which intends Taiwan and Penghu to be restored to the ROC. Supporters of Taiwan independence point out that the Potsdam Declaration and the Cairo Declaration were not treaties, but President Ma expressed that the Treaty of Taipei has voided the Treaty of Shimonoseki and recognizes that people of Taiwan and Penghu as Chinese nationality. In more recent years supporters of Taiwan independence have more often relied on arguments based on self-determination as implied[failed verification] in the San Francisco Peace Treaty and popular sovereignty, but the United Nations has consistently rejected such arguments.
By Article 11 Japan accepted the judgments of the International Military Tribunal for the Far East and of other Allied War Crimes Courts both within and outside Japan and agreed to carry out the sentences imposed thereby upon Japanese nationals imprisoned in Japan.
The document further set guidelines for repatriation of Allied prisoners of war and renounces future military aggression under the guidelines set by the United Nations Charter. The document nullifies prior treaties and lays down the framework for Japan’s current status of retaining a military that is purely defensive in nature.
There is also some ambiguity as to over which islands Japan has renounced sovereignty. This has led to both the Kuril Islands dispute and the Senkaku Islands dispute.
Allied territories occupied by Japan
Article 14 of the treaty stated that
- It is recognized that Japan should pay reparations to the Allied Powers for the damage and suffering caused by it during the war. Nevertheless it is also recognized that the resources of Japan are not presently sufficient, if it is to maintain a viable economy, to make complete reparation for all such damage and suffering and at the same time meet its other obligations.
Therefore,
- Japan will promptly enter into negotiations with Allied Powers so desiring, whose present territories were occupied by Japanese forces and damaged by Japan, with a view to assisting to compensate those countries for the cost of repairing the damage done, by making available the services of the Japanese people in production, salvaging and other work for the Allied Powers in question.
Accordingly, the Philippines and South Vietnam received compensation in 1956 and 1959, respectively. Burma and Indonesia were not original signatories, but they later signed bilateral treaties in accordance with Article 14 of the San Francisco Treaty.
Japanese military yen issued by force in Hong Kong, Papua New Guinea, the Philippines, Taiwan, and other places for the economic advantage of Japan were not honoured by them after the war. This caused much suffering, but the claims of the Hong Kong Reparation Association in 1993, in a Tokyo district court, failed in 1999. The court acknowledged the suffering of the Hong Kong people, but reasoned that the Government of Japan did not have specific laws concerning military yen compensation and that the United Kingdom was a signatory to the Treaty of San Francisco.
Regarding China, on September 29, 1972, the Government of the People’s Republic of China declared “that in the interest of the friendship between the Chinese and the Japanese peoples, it renounces its demand for war reparation from Japan” in article 5 of the Joint Communique of the Government of Japan and the Government of the People’s Republic of China.