摘要
Through a detailed analysis and documentation of relevant U.S.foreign relations and other official documents of the period around the Korean War,this paper aims to prove that in the early negotiation process of the 1951 San Francisco peace treaty,the United States maintained that South Korea should participate in signing the treaty and that the U.S.changed its position because of the resilient British opposition to South Korean participation,which in turn was motivated strongly by the British concern over its strategic interests in East Asia and its diplomatic relations with the newly communized China.In particular,the Chinese intervention in the Korean War and the communist recapture of Seoul provided the impetus for this shift in the U.S.position that led to the exclusion of South Korea from the treaty.Because the substance of the San Francisco peace treaty was dictated by the exigencies under the Korean War and the Cold War and lacks the“Grotian spirit of international law”underlying the founding of the League of Nations and the United Nations,the San Francisco peace treaty does not contain sufficient merit to be worthy of permanent compliance,which leaves open the possibility of modification in the future.
