The Treaty of San Francisco, also called the Treaty of Peace with Japan, 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 49 nations on September 8, 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 April 28, 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. Unresolved issues from the treaty have included the political status of Taiwan, as it only specifies that Japan has renounced all rights, privileges, and demands regarding Taiwan and does not designate a recipient for the island. Due to the absence of China from the treaty, the People's Republic of China considers the treaty to be illegal and illegitimate. On the contrary, the United States, Japan and the Republic of China consider the treaty to be legal and binding.
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. 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. 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.
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.
On 15 August 1951, Chinese Premier and Foreign Minister Zhou Enlai said that "The PRC was excluded from its preparation, drafting and signing, and its rulings on the territory and sovereign rights of China – including the sovereignty over Taiwan – are therefore illegal and invalid.”
On 16 August 2025, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of China (Taiwan) said that "following World War II, the Treaty of San Francisco—which has the force of international law—took the place of wartime political declarations such as the Cairo Declaration and the Potsdam Proclamation. The treaty did not grant sovereignty over Taiwan to the People’s Republic of China. The PRC has never ruled Taiwan, and Taiwan is certainly not part of the PRC."
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; 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, 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 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. 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 recognised 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 in the San Francisco Peace Treaty and popular sovereignty.