부산대학교 도서관

It is difficult to find any negative acknowledgment of colonialism at the time the San Francisco Peace Treaty was signed. Examining domestic historical records and data, and the reports by a reporter from the colonial empire of the United Kingdom evidences signs of resistance to the colonial empire by the Korean people from the beginning of the annexation. However, despite the resistance, it seems that the victorious nations of the United States and the United Kingdom, who led the signing of the peace treaty, and the defeated country, Japan, had shared at least one common perception about colonialism as colonial empires. The fact that John Foster Dulles, the representative of the United States, who had the most active role in concluding the treaty, was an anti-communist with closer ties with Japan than Korea; the documents from the U.S. State Department and the general perception of American scholars that treated the independence of Korea as nothing more than a separation from Japanese sovereignty; and Japan’s perception of the Korean independence movement as mere rebellion, goes to show both the U.S. and Japan had represented the rationale for colonialism and thus also served as crucial underlying reasons for Korea’s exclusion in the peace conference and its status as a signatory. Although the peace treaty is based on an agreement aimed to end the state of war and restore peaceful relations, the influence of the victorious Allied Powers and a defeated nation in the process of making a treaty makes its political nature an indispensable factor. In light of this, considering that the San Francisco Peace Treaty greatly reflects the intentions of the victorious nations of the United States and United Kingdom, unlike the Peace Treaty of World War I, it should not be criticized solely for the reasons of favorable treatment to Japan, a defeated country. However, the fact worth noting is that the San Francisco Peace Treaty contains remnants of colonialism and is a product of the Cold War. The trend of the international community is gradually changing in the direction of acknowledging responsibility for not only the illegality of colonial rule but also colonization itself. Considering this international shift, it is necessary to question whether discussing the settlement of colonial issues based on the old, multilateral system of the San Francisco system alone would bear favorable results. In other words, there is a need for another perspective to examine the proposition that San Francisco Peace Treaty be regarded as the only international legal premise for postwar Korea-Japan relations.