The also called the re-established peaceful relations between Japan and the Allies on behalf of the United Nations by ending the legal state of war, military occupation and providing for redress for hostile actions up to and including World War II. It was signed by 49nations on September8, 1951, in San Francisco, United States, 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 April28, 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 WarII, ended the Allied post-war occupation of Japan, and returned full sovereignty to it. This treaty relied heavily on the Charter of the United NationsPreamble and Article 5 and the Universal Declaration of Human RightsPreamble 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.
Attendance Present Argentina, Australia, Belgium, Bolivia, Brazil, Cambodia, Canada, Ceylon (currently Sri Lanka), Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Czechoslovakia, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Egypt, El Salvador, Ethiopia, France, Greece, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, India, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Japan, Laos, Lebanon, Liberia, Luxembourg, Mexico, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Nicaragua, Norway, Pakistan, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, the Philippines, Poland, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Vietnam, the Soviet Union, Syria, Turkey, the United Kingdom, the United States, Uruguay, and Venezuela attended the Conference.
Absent
China was not invited due to disagreements between the United States and the United Kingdom on whether the established but defeated Republic of China (in Taiwan) or the newly-formed People's Republic of China (in mainland China) represented the Chinese people. The United States recognized the ROC government while Britain had recognized the PRC in 1950. Additionally, an internal US political debate had seen the Republican Party and US military supporting the Kuomintang and accusing President Truman of having abandoned the anti-communist cause.
Afghanistan, Burma, India, Nepal, Yemen and Yugoslavia were invited, but did not participate.Social Studies: History for Middle School. 7–2. Japan's Path and World Events p. 2, Teikoku Shoin India considered certain provisions of the treaty to constitute limitations on Japanese sovereignty and national independence. India signed a separate peace treaty, the Treaty of Peace Between Japan and India, for the purpose of giving Japan a proper position of honor and equality among the community of free nations, on June 9, 1952. Italy was not invited, despite its government having issued a formal declaration of war on Japan on July 14, 1945, a few weeks before the end of the war. Portugal was not invited, even though, despite its status as a neutral country during the war, its colony of East Timor had been invaded by Japan (the colony of Macau was not occupied but rather assigned Japanese 'advisors' to its government).
Pakistan, which only gained independence from the British Empire in 1947 after the end of the war, was invited because it was seen as a successor state to British India, a major combatant against Japan; and hundreds of thousands of now-Pakistani citizens fought the Axis powers under the British Empire in the Second World War, in both Asia (against Japan) and Europe (against Germany and Italy).
Stances 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.GROMYKO BIDS FAIL; A DRAMATIC MOMENT AT CONFERENCE SOVIET BLOC LOSES ALL PARLEY VOTES. New York Times, page 1, September 6, 1951 The Soviet Union's objections were detailed in a lengthy 8 September 1951 statement by Gromyko.Text of Gromyko's Statement on the Peace Treaty. Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs website 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.
Exclusion of the ROC and PRC The ongoing Chinese Civil War and thus the question of which Chinese government was legitimate presented a dilemma to conference organizers. The United States wanted to invite the Republic of China (ROC) on the island of Formosa to represent China, while the United Kingdom and Soviet Union wished to invite the People's Republic of China (PRC) on mainland China as China's representative. As a compromise, neither government was invited.
Sri Lanka's defense of Japan A major player in providing support for a post-war free Japan was the delegation from Ceylon (now known as Sri Lanka). While many were reluctant to allow a free Japan capable of aggressive action and insisted that the terms of surrender should be rigidly enforced in an attempt to break the spirit of the Japanese nation, the Ceylonese Finance Minister J. R. Jayewardene spoke in defense of a free Japan and informed the conference of Ceylon's refusal to accept the payment of reparations that would harm Japan's economy. His reason was "We in Ceylon were fortunate that we were not invaded, but the damage caused by air raids, by the stationing of enormous armies under the South-East Asia Command, and by the slaughter-tapping of one of our main commodities, rubber, when we were the only producer of natural rubber for the Allies, entitles us to ask that the damage so caused should be repaired. We do not intend to do so for we believe in the words of the Great Teacher [Buddha] whose message has ennobled the lives of countless millions in Asia, that 'hatred ceases not by hatred but by love'." He ended the same speech by saying:This treaty is as magnanimous as it is just to a defeated foe. We extend to Japan the hand of friendship and trust that with the closing of this chapter in the history of man, the last page of which we write today, and with the beginning of the new one, the first page of which we dictate tomorrow, her people and ours may march together to enjoy the full dignity of human life in peace and prosperity.
Minister Jayewardene's speech was received with resounding applause. Afterwards, The New York Times stated, "The voice of free Asia, eloquent, melancholy and still strong with the lilt of an Oxford accent, dominated the Japanese peace treaty conference today."
Signatories and ratification
Of the 51 participating countries, 48 signed the treaty;Peace Treaties after World War II: Peace treaty signed in San Francisco, September 8, 1951. The History Channel Czechoslovakia, Poland and the Soviet Union refused.Foreign Office Files for Japan and the Far East 1951: September, Adam Matthew Publications
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.Indai Lourdes Sajor, "Military Sexual Slavery: Crimes against humanity", in Gurcharan Singh Bhatia (ed), Peace, justice and freedom: human rights challenges for the new millennium Alberta University Press, 2000, p.177 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.Ken'ichi Goto, Paul H. Kratoska, Tensions of empire: Japan and Southeast Asia in the colonial and postcolonial world, NUS Press, 2003, p.260 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, 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.Agreement between Japan and the United States of America Concerning Nanpo Shoto and Other Islands, 5 April 1968 In 1969 U.S.-Japan negotiations authorized the transfer of authority over the Ryūkyūs to Japan to be implemented in 1972. In 1972, the United States' "reversion" of the Ryūkyūs occurred along with the ceding of control over the nearby Senkaku Islands.Agreement between Japan and the United States of America Concerning the Ryukyu Islands and the Daito Islands, 17 June 1971 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.