Beyond the San Francisco System

This book, a eight-year interdisciplinary collaboration involving experts in international politics, law, economics, and history from six countries, meticulously analyzes the San Francisco Peace Treaty System and its profound implications. It critically examines how this system reflected the victim-centric approach of the United Nations while offering a crucial counter perspective from colonial and semi-colonial nations such as Korea and China, notably excluded from its initial formulation. The study specifically re-evaluates the treaty's impact through the crucial lens of human rights, addressing issues such as Japanese military sexual slavery and the Okinawa problem. In addition, the book meticulously tracks the subsequent 72-year evolution of this system in direct relation to the significant economic development and dynamic growth of civil society across East Asian regions. It compellingly argues that the ongoing Indo-Pacific collective security regime, strategically encircling China, represents a contemporary iteration, referred to as San Francisco System 2.0, drawing a clear distinction from its predecessor, San Francisco System 1.0. Ultimately, the focus is on an extensive exploration of the essential conditions required for establishing a truly genuine and lasting system of peace in the region.

Young-Ho Kim(金泳鎬) was born in 1940 in Hap-chun, Korea. After graduating from Kyungpook National University and the University of Tokyo, he received his Ph.D. at Osaka City University. He has served as a professor in the Department of Economics at Kyungpook National University, Dean of the College of Business Administration at Kyungpook National University, and professor at the University of Tokyo in Japan. Additionally, has served as public offices including Minister of Industry and Resources of the South Korean government and President of Yuhan University. Among his major publications are East Asian Industrialization and World Capitalism(東アジア工業化と世界資本主義)(Tokyo: Toyo Keizai Inc. 東京: 東洋経済新報社, 1988) and Dasan Studies in the World History(세계사 속의 다산학)(Seoul: Knowledge Industry Co., Ltd. 서울: 지식산업사, 2021). He has received multiple awards, including the Award of Dasan Economics.

Yi Tae-jin (李泰鎭, b.1943) is Professor Emeritus of Seoul National University where he had taught since 1973 who was retired in 2009. He is the author of over three hundred articles and over twenty books including Han’guk sahoe saron, Studies on the Social History of Korea(1986), Chosun yugyo sahoe saron, The Social History of Confucianism in Chosun (1989) and Kojong sid’ae ui chaejomyong, Reexamination of the History of the King Kojong Era 1864~1907 (2000). In 2022 he published two books on the Japanese Empire historians’ founding of the ‘Toyoshi’ (東洋史) and ‘Tohogaku’ (東方學) in the purpose of the establishment of the East Asian world ruled by the emperor of Japan. He was in charge of Chairman of National Institute of Korean History 2010~2013. In 2007 he was nominated as a member of the National Academy of Sciences Republic of Korea. He was honorably elected as the Bureau member of the Union Académique Internationale(UAI) in 2015. He has also received multiple awards, including the prestigious 3·1 Cultural Award.

Haruki Wada (和田春樹) was born in 1938 in Osaka, Japan. After graduating from the University of Tokyo and receiving his Ph.D. there, he served as a professor at the University of Tokyo and was the director of its Institute of Social Sciences. He has published over ten books including A Complete History of the Korean War(朝鮮戦争全史)(Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten Publishers東京: 株式会社岩波書店, 2002) and Origins and Outbreak of the Japanese-Russo War (日露戦争 起源と開戦(上・下))(Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten Publishers東京: 株式会社岩波書店, 2009-2010). He is also a recipient of awards such as the Kim Dae-jung Academic Award.

Hu Dekun(胡德坤), born in 1946 in Suizhou, Hubei Province, graduated from the Department of History at Wuhan University in 1969 and remained at the university to teach. He was a visiting scholar at Kyoto University, Japan, in 1980, and at Soka University, Japan, in 1991. He was promoted to professor in 1988 and was appointed Senior Professor of Humanities and Social Sciences at Wuhan University in 2010. He previously served as Vice President of Wuhan University, Dean of the School of History, and Director of the Institute of China’s Borders and Oceans, among other academic positions. He also served as President of the Chinese Society for the Study of the History of World War II. He has published 15 books and 160 academic papers, including Research on China and the World during the Anti-Fascist War Period(反法西斯战争时期的中国与世界研究(九卷本, 主编))(Wuhan: Wuhan University Press 武汉: 武汉大学出版社, 2010) and The Historical Status of China’s War of Resistance in the World Anti-Fascist War(中国抗战在世界反法西斯战争中的历史地位)(Beijing: Economic Science Press 北京: 经济科学出版社, 2013).

Alexis Dudden is a professor in the Department of History at the University of Connecticut. She is currently on leave and is also serving as a visiting professor in the Department of Japanese Studies at the National University of Singapore from 2024 to 2026. She graduated from Columbia University (B.A.) and the University of Chicago (M.A.), and then completed her Ph.D. at the University of Chicago. Her research focuses on modern Japan, Korea, and East Asian history, with an emphasis on empire, nationalism, and reconciliation. Among her major publications are The Opening and Closing of Japan, 1850-2020 (under contract with Oxford University Press) and Troubled Apologies Among Japan, Korea, and the United States (Columbia University Press, 2008). She has received multiple awards, including the Manhae International Peace Prize.