The Fragile Stability in the Asia-Pacific: Four Future Histories

Abstract

For nearly a half-century after World War II, security in the Asia-Pacific region was underwritten by the San Francisco System, the strategic framework that emerged after the peace treaty with Japan. The Asia-Pacific security framework entailed bilateral treaties between the United States and Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand, and the Philippines and two regional multinational pacts to ensure the security of Australasia and Southeast Asia. Like the more integrated North Atlantic Treaty Organization in Europe, the San Francisco System aimed to contain and contest communist expansionism in Asia. The security framework began to unravel in the wake of the 1972 Shanghai communiqué and the Carter administration’s transfer of diplomatic recognition from Taipei to Beijing in 1979. A decade later, following the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War, the San Francisco System ceased to exist.