The Illegality and Invalidity of Japan’s Colonial Rule and the Road to True East Asian Peace [Opinion]

In 2010, a joint statement from over 1,000 Korean and Japanese scholars was released to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the Japan-Korea forced annexation. This statement declared that the Eulsa Treaty and the Korea Annexation Treaty were invalid due to their illegality. This notion of Japanese colonial rule's illegality persisted through key events such as the 1919 3.1 Revolution centenary in 2019 and the 2025 Japan-Korea Basic Agreement centenary.

However, Japan's Abe administration altered historical perception to end before 1945. Consequently, Korean leaders chose to return to the San Francisco Peace Treaty as the basis for the Korea-Japan Basic Agreement. Following this, experts from countries including the US, China, Russia, Japan, Canada, and Australia held five international symposiums centered around the San Francisco Treaty for over a decade, which culminated in the publication of a monograph titled "Beyond the San Francisco System."

This book examines how the treaty underwent three stages – from its initial pursuit of a defeated Japan in 1945-1947, to a Soviet-excluded single-power approach from 1948-1950, and finally recognizing Japan as a Cold War partner in 1950-1953. Ultimately, transgressions against war crimes were largely ignored and the colonial crime issue was omitted altogether.

Canadian scholar Haruhiko Kimura criticized the US for planting "unsolved problems" in the San Francisco Treaty, which later led to the normalization of historical and territorial disputes in East Asia. Japanese scholars like Itoh Yoichi and Ryuichi Tanaka highlighted the manipulation of signatures on the treaty, suggesting its illegality under international law.

In the wake of this research, Korean scholar Kim Yongho, the former Minister, called for a reevaluation of the San Francisco Treaty's historical and international significance, viewing it as a step away from a "Bunker Pach" approach and toward a more collaborative, "Pan-Governmental Peace" framework.