This essay examines Prime Minister Yoshida Shigeru’s 1951 speech at the San Francisco Peace Conference to refute the claim that Japan renounced Kunashiri and Etorofu.
It argues that a prime minister’s direct declaration to the international community outweighs ambiguous parliamentary testimony and affirms Japan’s rightful territorial position.

It is clearly stated in Prime Minister Yoshida Shigeru’s speech delivered at the San Francisco Peace Conference on September 7, 1951.
2016-11-14
The following continues from the previous chapter.
All emphasis in the text except for headings is mine.
The Error of the “San Francisco Peace Treaty Theory”
Omitted introduction.
In Mr. Sato’s contribution, regarding the renunciation of Southern Sakhalin and the Kuril Islands under Article 2(c) of the San Francisco Peace Treaty, it is true that on October 19, 1951, Kumao Nishimura, then Director-General of the Treaties Bureau of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, stated before the House of Representatives Special Committee on the Peace Treaty and the Japan–U.S. Security Treaty that “the scope of the Kuril Islands referred to in the San Francisco Peace Treaty is understood to include both the Northern Kurils and the Southern Kurils.”
Based on this statement, some commentators in Japan have repeatedly argued that “this means Japan renounced Kunashiri and Etorofu, and therefore Japan’s claim to these two islands cannot stand.”
However, words far weightier than those of a bureau chief were delivered in Prime Minister Yoshida Shigeru’s speech at the San Francisco Peace Conference on September 7, 1951.
Before the representatives of all the treaty signatory states, Prime Minister Yoshida stated as follows.
“The Kuril Islands and the southern part of Sakhalin were unilaterally placed under Soviet control on September 20, 1945, immediately after Japan’s surrender.
Moreover, Shikotan Island and the Habomai Islands, which constitute part of Hokkaido, the Japanese mainland, remain occupied by Soviet forces because Japanese military installations happened to exist there at the end of the war.”
He was thus emphatically asserting that this constituted an ‘illegal occupation’ by Russia (the Soviet Union).
Yoshida further continued, stating that “at the time Japan opened to the world, Imperial Russia raised no objection whatsoever to the fact that the two southern Kuril Islands, Etorofu and Kunashiri, were Japanese territory.
Only the Northern Kuril Islands north of Uruppu and the southern part of Sakhalin were at that time lands of mixed settlement by Japanese and Russians.
On May 7, 1875, the governments of Japan and Russia reached an agreement through peaceful diplomatic negotiations whereby southern Sakhalin became Russian territory, and in exchange the Northern Kuril Islands became Japanese territory.”
Here, the correctness of Japan’s position that Kunashiri and Etorofu are inherent Japanese territory is made clear.
An ambiguous statement by a treaties bureau chief in a parliamentary session cannot overturn the weight of a declaration by a nation’s prime minister, made directly to the international community at the time of treaty conclusion, even if there may be one or two minor technical imperfections.
Taken together with the historical facts already discussed, I wish to clearly state here that the theory claiming “Japan renounced Kunashiri and Etorofu under the San Francisco Peace Treaty” is erroneous.
Omitted.