Peace Treaty and Reparations

As your Jan. 10 news report (“Pursuit of WWII Redress Hits Japanese Boardrooms”) has alluded to, Japanese government officials and right-wingers, even some moderates, insist that all claims resulting from Japanese World War II transgressions have been settled by the 1952 San Francisco Peace Treaty, citing the provision in Article 16 in which the Allied nations agreed to waive all reparations in light of the postwar financial hardship Japan was experiencing. They also claim that Japan has paid $27 billion to 27 nations, but nobody seems to know who Japan has paid.

However, they purposely ignore the provision in Article 26 of the treaty: “Japan will be prepared to conclude with any State which signed or adhered to the United Nations Declaration of January 1, 1942 . . . which is not a signatory of the present Treaty . . . Should Japan make a peace settlement or war claims settlement with any State granting that State greater advantage than those provided by the present Treaty [which was zero dollars], those same advantages shall be extended to the parties to the present Treaty.”

Japan subsequently signed peace treaties with other states, including war claims settlements, without honoring the above provision of Article 26 and continues to deny its bound responsibility to compensate its wartime victims, including tens of thousands of American civilian and military POWs and millions of other Allied nationals.

IGNATIUS Y. DING

Cupertino, Calif.