Abstract

Abstract:

Fifty years have elapsed since the signing of the Treaty of Peace with Japan on September 8, 1951 in San Francisco. The treaty remains in effect and signatories to the treaty, particularly the governments of the United States and Japan, continue to refer to it as a means of denying war claims of former victims of Japanese imperial atrocities in the Asia-Pacific war (1931–1945). This article examines the intense resistance to the treaty terms on the part of Asian countries, particularly in the year or two prior to the actual convening of the peace conference. It suggests that the U.S. government manipulated the treaty process and that the outcomes were extremely disadvantageous to the countries that were victimized by Japan. As part of the treaty negotiation process, the U.S. government signed major military treaties not only with Japan, but also with Australia, New Zealand, and the Philippines. The treaty led not only to a severe disruption in normalizing postwar international relations, but also to the militarization of the region. In the past decade, a burgeoning democratic movement in Asian countries, often led by women, is challenging the premises of the treaty and revealing it as a cold-war relic.

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