1951 The 2nd Conversation between Yu Chan Yang and John F. Dulles

History of San Francisco Peace Treaty : Part Nine

Just 10 days after the conversation on July 9th, Korean Ambassador Yu Chna Yang visited John Foster Dulles again. Yu Chan Yong, who had claimed Tsushima and had told about the so-called MacArthur Line, brought a note that mentioned "Dokdo and Parangdo" this time. Please read the following conversation: (From: "Foreign Relations of the United States" 1951, Asia and the Pacific, Volume VI, Part 1, pp. 1202 - 1206)

Memorandum of Coversation, by the Officer in Charge of Korean
Affairs in the Office of Northeast Asian Affairs (Emmons)

SECRET

[Washington,] July 19, 1951

Subject: Japanese Peace Treaty

Participants: Dr. Yu Chan Yang, Korean
Ambassador

Mr. Pyo Wook Han, First Secretary, Korean Embassy

Ambassador John Foster Dulles

Mr. Arthur B. Emmons, 3^rd, Officer in Charge, Korean Affairs

The Korean Ambassador called upon Mr. Dulles at 2 o’clock this
afternoon by prior appointment. In opening the conversation Dr. Yang presented
Mr. Dulles with a note addressed to the Secretary (copy attached) raising
certain points which the Korean Government wished to have considered for
incorporation in the Japanese peace treaty.

After reading the Ambassador’s
communication, Mr. Dulles discussed the three points contained therein. With
regard to the first point, Mr. Dulles was in doubt that the formula confirming Japan’s renunciation of certain
territorial claims to Korea, could be included in the treaty
in the form suggested by the ROK. He explained that the terms of the Japanese
surrender instrument of August 9, 1945 did not, of themselves, technically
consititute a formal and final determination of this question. He added,
however, that the Department would consider including in the treaty a clause
giving retroactive effect to the Japanese renunciation of territorial claims to
August 9, 1945. The Korean Ambassador replied that if this were done he believed
that the point raised by his Government would be met
satisfactorily.

Mr. Dulles noted that paragraph 1 of the Korean Ambassador’s
communication made no reference to the Island of Tsushima and the Korean Ambassador
agreed that this had been omitted. Mr. Dulles then inquired
as to the location of the two islands, Dokdo and Parangdo. Mr. Han stated that
these were two small islands lying in the Sea of Japan, he believed in the general vicinity of Ullungdo. Mr. Dulles asked whether these islands had been Korean before the Japanese annexation, to which the Ambassador replied in the affirmative. If that were the case, Mr. Dulles saw no particular problem in including these islands in the pertinent part of the treaty which related to the renunciation of Japanese territorial claims to Korean territory.

In regard to paragraph 2 of the Ambassador’s communication, Mr.
Dulles assured the Ambassador that it was the intention of the United States to extend
protection to the Republic of Korea with respect to any Japanese claims
concerning vested properties in Korea. He said that the Department
would study this question but that at the moment he could not forsee that this
would involve any particular difficulty.

With reference to paragraph 3 of the communication, Mr. Dulles
stated that he could say right off that it would be impossible to meet the
Korean request for inclusion in the treaty of a delimitation of high-seas
fishing areas pointing out that the United States had been under great pressure
from many countries and also from American fishing interests to make the treaty,
in effect, a fishing convention for the Pacific. He went on to explain that to
do so would open up a whole area of conflicting interests and claims which would
greatly complicate the writing of the treaty. He pointed out, however, that this
did not preclude negotiation of a series of bilateral or multilateral agreements
on fisheries with Japan following the conclusion of the
treaty.

Mr. Dulles remarked that very frankly the Department was surprised
and greatly disturbed at the strong language which the Korean Ambassador had
used in a press statement on July 18 in which warnings were uttered against
accepting the Japanese into association with the peace-loving nations of the
world in full faith and confidence. Mr. Dulles pointed out the difficulty and
delicacy of the position of the United States in its efforts to obtain a
reasonable and satisfactory treaty with Japan, a matter of great significance to
all Pacific nations, and stressed the importance, in this matter, of Korean
understanding and cooperation; while the United States understood and
sympathized with the Koreans in their difficult relationship with Japan and
while the Ambassador undoubtedly was acting under instructions from his
Government, Mr. Dulles pointed out that such statement did not help
matters.

The Korean Ambassador stated that there were some 800 thousand
Koreans in Japan who were being very much
discriminated against by the Japanese Government. The reason for this, he
believed, was that Japan still
rankled over the loss of Korea and was determined to take it out
on such Koreans as might still be under Japanese control. Mr. Dulles suggested
that many of these Koreans were undesirables, being in many cases from North Korea and constituting a
center for Communist agitation in Japan. He believed, therefore, that
probably a legitimate Japanese fear of certain of these Koreans was involved in
any action taken against them by the Japanese authorities.

Mr. Dulles asked the Ambassador what, in his opinion, was the
reason why the United States is advocating a liberal and non-restrictive treaty with Japan, knowing that we had only recently fought Japan at great cost and that we were
most concerned with the future structure of peace in the Pacific.

Dr. Yang replied that he assumed that our motivation in writing
such a treaty was because of the inherent friendship of the American people for
the rest of the world. The Ambassador wished to stress, however, the Koreans had
suffered tremendously over a period of many years at the hands of the Japanese,
that while the Koreans wished to live in peace with Japan and demanded no
reparations, they felt that once a treaty was signed, Korea would be at the
mercy of a resurgence of Japanese economic strength which would make the future
security of Korea a most serious problem; unless the United States were willing
to exercise its powerful influence to control Japan, Korea would inevitably
lapse into a poor bargaining position in its future relations with Japanese
because of the preponderance of power which would rest with the
latter.

Mr. Dulles explained that, far from being afraid of the future
economic and military strength of Japan, American experts were now worried about
the problem of even establishing viability in Japanese economic life, that the
grave danger, both to Korea and to the other nations of the Pacific, was that
Japan, because of weakness, might ultimately fall under Communist domination and
that it was with this in mind that the United States believed it essential to
leave Japan free to rebuild its peace time economy. He pointed out that since
the Japanese would be dependent to a very great degree on imports of raw
material from abroad, this fact in itself would constitute an effective form of
control over Japan’s
resurgence.

The Ambassador then referred to the great moral and psychological
disadvantage to the Korean people in not being considered a member of the Allied
Powers which had fought Japan and which would sign the treaty.
He emphasized that under the so-called Korean Provisional Government the Koreans
had been fighting the Japanese for many years even prior to World War II and
that they felt they had won for themselves the right to a place at the peace
table. Mr. Dulles replied that some qualifying test obviously had to be
established for those who would sign the treaty in order to provide a reasonable
formula under which the treaty could be written, and that many Allied Nations
besides the United States had also
believed that only those countries which had signed the 1942 Declaration of the
United Nations should be signatories to the treaty. To include Korea, whose
government had been established only in 1948, would be to open up a considerable
area of possible disagreement which would complicate getting the treaty through
and would bring into the picture several other nations which considered their
claims to be signatories to be as valid as those of the ROK, He wished to assure
the Ambassador that this limitation did not in any sense reflect a lack of
United States interest or complete sympathy with Korea or any intent derogatory
to the ROK, but emphasized rather that we regarded Korea with great solicitude
and sympathy.

The Korean Ambassador again expressed the fear that the net result
of a lenient treaty with Japan, in which Korea did not participate, would be to
expose her to great difficulties in the future; despite American assurance of
our interest in the maintenance of good Korean-Japanese relations, the United
States at some point might well relax this interest and Korea would then be
exposed to undue pressure from Japan unless a stricter treaty were put into
effect to which Korea would be a signatory. To illustrate his point, he referred
to the fact that Japanese fishing vessels were crossing the so-called MacArthur
Line into Korean waters even while SCAP was still in authority in Japan, and that the Koreans wondered
what would happen when SCAP’s control over the Japanese had been removed. Dr.
Yang suggested that the Koreans might feel differently if the United States would assume
responsibility for the future defence of Korea, and he wondered whether such a
treaty of defence could not be worked out.

In concluding the conversation the Korean Ambassador jocularly
suggested that if Korea were accorded the full status of
a signatory to the treaty,, he thought that the ROK could perhaps drop its
insistence upon having the points raised in paragraph 2 and 3 of his
communication included therein. Mr. Dulles replied that he could not undertake
to agree that any such arrangement could be made but that he would give
sympathetic consideration to all of the points raised by the Korean
Ambassador.

To follow is the note Yu Chan Yang brought with him:

The Korean Ambassador to the Secretary of State

　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　 Washington, Jury 19, 1951.

Your Excellency, I have the honor to present to Your Excellency, at the instruction
of my Government, the following requests for the consideration of the Department
of State with regard to the recent revised draft of the Japanese Peace
Treaty.

1.My Government requests that the word “renounces” in
Paragraph a, Article Number 2, should be replaced by “confirms
that it renounced on August 9,1945, all right, title and claim to Korea and the
islands which were part of Korea prior to its annexation by Japan, including the
island Quelpart, Port Hamilton, Dagelet, Dokdo and Parangdo.”
2.As to Paragraph a, Article Number 4, in the proposed Japanese Peace Treaty, my
Government wishes to point out that the provision in Paragraph a, Article 4,
does not affect the legal transfer of vested properties in Korea to the Republic
of Korea and the United States Military Government in Korea, of September 11,
1948.
3.With reference to Article 9, my Government wishes to insert the
following at the end of Article 9 of the proposed Peace Treaty, “Pending the
conclusion of such agreements existing realities such as the MacArthur Line will
remain in effect.”

Please Accept

　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　You Chan Yang

Interestingly enough, after being rejected the claim to acquire Tsushima 10 days before, they brought new claim concerning Dokdo and Prangdo. It seems that not only John F. Dulles but also the officer in charge of Korean Affairs, Arthur B. Emmons didn't know about these islands. First Secretary of Korean Embassy Pyo Wook Han explained that these two islands are located near to Ulleungdo (although this is not true), but strangely enough he didn't explain that Dokdo is Liancourt Rocks with a Japanese name of Takeshima. I wonder whether this was their planned strategy or not, but anyway their claim was not rejected on the spot this time. Korea had in meantime withdrawn the claim to Parangdo.

More interestingly, they brought a wish that the MacArthur Line would be remained. This is important because after they knew that their wish was not fulfilled they drew the line (Rhee Syngman Line) themselves 6 months after this meeting in January 1952 and after that they captured or shot Japanese fishing vessles. So this Rhee Syngman Line may have been the reason why Dokdo should be their territory - Dokdo may have been their excuse to draw the line.