Tokyo wants to make friends with Moscow
ECONOMY - IN PRIORITY
Japanese authorities intend to develop economic cooperation with Russia, despite the lack of progress in resolving the territorial dispute over the Kuril Islands, writes Japan Times, citing sources.
It is reported that this is the "new approach" to bilateral relations, which became known after the May meeting of the leaders of Japan and Russia, Shinzo Abe and Vladimir Putin in Sochi. According to sources, specific areas of cooperation were discussed at the meeting between Abe and Putin at the Eastern Economic Forum in Vladivostok. "We see that our previous policy has not brought progress in territorial negotiations, so we must change our way of thinking," said a source in the Japanese government.
Among eight points of bilateral cooperation in the development of the Far East, the publication calls for technical assistance to Russia in increasing production capacities in the oil and gas sector, as well as the development of medical centers with the introduction of advanced technologies. It is assumed that part of the program will be implemented in the second half of 2016. Tokyo hopes to gain Moscow’s confidence in this way, however, according to some experts, economic cooperation does not guarantee progress in resolving a territorial dispute. Earlier, Abe announced his intention to meet with Putin in his native Yamaguchi Prefecture, in the south-west of the main Japanese island of Honshu.
HISTORY QUESTION
The territorial dispute is connected with Japan’s claim to the southern Kuril Islands, Iturup, Kunashir, Shikotan and Habomai. Previously, the two countries were hampered by the Russian-American confrontation in the bipolar world and the unresolved issue with part of the islands on the Kuril ridge. But in order to occupy a worthy place in a multipolar world, Japan must develop and strengthen relations especially with neighboring Russia. In September, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe held talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Vladivostok, 2016. The meeting resulted in a brief but succinct phrase by a Japanese politician: “With President Putin, we were able to fully discuss the peace treaty. I felt a response. ”
In the political center of Tokyo - Nagatyo began to actively discuss the possibility of the early return of the four islands. Now everyone is waiting for the November Russian-Japanese meeting to be held during the APEC summit in Peru, after which Vladimir Putin will visit the prefecture of Yamaguchi, the small homeland of the Japanese prime minister. On the eve of these meetings, Japanese media reported that Russia could return the two islands of the ridge. But these rumors are more likely to harm the negotiations of the parties, because a return without any problems is hardly possible.
Experts find the following way out: Russia has to confirm in writing that the four islands belong to Japan on the basis of the Simodsk Treaty, but will still own them. In this case, Japanese diplomacy can save face.
In a situation of confrontation with the West, Russia has great chances to gain a foothold in the Asia-Pacific region through Siberia and the Far East, where 12 priority development zones have already been created. China is actively working in this region, creating the New Silk Road through Central Asia and the Middle East to Europe and the waterway from the South China Sea, the Indian Ocean, the Arabian Sea through the Suez Canal to the Mediterranean Sea.
Russia wants to make Siberia the main link between the Pacific Ocean and Europe. In addition, Russia is actively developing the Northern Sea Route, and a program of free “Far Eastern hectares” for Russian citizens has been launched in the Far East.
The Japanese side offered Moscow a plan for economic cooperation from the 8 points, while Moscow has a plan in place for the 49 points. Among them are energy projects, the development of agriculture. Russian business is awaiting the arrival of Japanese enterprises in the Russian market.
Regarding the extension of the Trans-Siberian Railway, Japan has extensive experience in the development of Hokkaido and Manchuria in a short time. To continue the Trans-Siberian Railway, you only need to build a tunnel under the Tatar Strait (about 7 km) and a bridge between Sakhalin and Wakkanai (about 42 km). For Russia, this is the central project of cooperation with Japan, the implementation of which will significantly change the entire region.
DISCUSSION OF SOVIET DIPLOMACY
The refusal of the Soviet delegation to sign a peace treaty with Japan at a conference in San Francisco, along with representatives of other allied states, showed, as the further course of events showed, a political miscalculation that was very annoying for the Soviet Union. The absence of a peace treaty between the Soviet Union and Japan has come to contradict the national interests of both parties. That is why four years after the events at the San Francisco conference, the governments of both sides expressed a desire and readiness to come into contact with each other to find ways of formally settling their relations and concluding a bilateral peace treaty. This goal was pursued, as initially seemed, by both sides at the Soviet-Japanese talks in London in June 1955 of the year, held at the level of ambassadors.
However, as it turned out during these negotiations, the main task of the then Japanese government was to use the interest of the Soviet Union in normalizing relations with Japan to bargain for territorial concessions from Moscow. It is noteworthy that by the beginning of the talks in London in the Japanese parliament 26 in May 1955, the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the country Shigemitsu Memori made a statement and unexpectedly announced that Japan intends to seek further return of southern Sakhalin and all the Kuril Islands to it.
In 1956, intensive bilateral negotiations took place between the two countries. The Soviet side agreed to cede the two islands of Shikotan and Habomai to Japan and at the same time offered to sign a peace treaty with Japan. The Japanese side was inclined to accept such a Soviet proposal. However, in September 1956, the United States sent a sharp note to the Japanese government, stating that if Japan abandons its claims to Kunashir and Iturup and is satisfied with only two islands, the United States will not give Ryukyu Island to Japan, where the main island is Okinawa. Thus, American intervention in the negotiation process and the signing of agreements played a fatal role: Japan refused to sign a peace treaty on our terms. A subsequent 1960 security agreement between the United States and Japan made the transfer of the islands of Shikotan and Habomai to Japan impossible. It’s clear that our country couldn’t give the islands under the American bases, just as it could not be bound by any obligations to Japan on the issue of the Kuriles.
One of the reasons that prompted Japanese diplomacy to demand the return of the South Kuriles to their control was the Japanese’s understanding of the exceptional strategic importance of the Kuril Islands: the one who owns the islands actually holds the keys to the gates leading from the Pacific Ocean to the Sea of Okhotsk. The prospect of further finding these keys in the possession of the Soviet Union or now Russia was clearly not pleased with the Japanese ruling circles.
By putting forward territorial demands on the Soviet Union, as well as on Russia now, the Japanese ruling circles were thus hoping to revive nationalist sentiments that had been extinct after Japan’s military defeat and surrender to Japan. Tokyo sought to use national revanchist slogans to rally these sections of the population under its ideological control, thereby weakening the ranks of opponents of the government in the face of anti-war democratic organizations.
Platform for aggression
The role of the Kuril Islands and their importance manifested themselves during the Second World War. It was on Iturup Island that the Japanese formed a strike carrier formation to attack the United States and defeat the American fleet at Pearl Harbor December 7, 1941. It was in Hitokappu Bay (now Kasatka Bay) where six Japanese aircraft carriers underwent the last training for several weeks. The naval base at Iturup was well covered from the air, and there was a huge airfield there. He later received the name "Petrel". Subsequently, until the year 1993, our 387th fighter aviation regiment was based at this airfield.
The North Kuril Islands were used by the Japanese in 1942 – 1944 as a base for attacking the Aleutian Islands. However, the Americans with great effort managed to oust the Japanese from the Aleutian Islands captured by them. It is characteristic that for the first time the plan to capture the Kuril Islands was considered by the US government in August 1942 of the year. However, after the release of the island of Attu from Japan in May 1943, both the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the American press began a heated debate on the seizure of the Kuril Islands and further movement from them to the South to Japan itself.
“Camping in Tokyo on the Steps of the Kuril Islands” has become a brand among American journalists. The phrase "from Paramushir to Tokyo is only 2 thousand km" hypnotized the American layman. The commander of the Western Group of Forces, Lieutenant General John L. Devitt, presented to the Chief of the KNS his plan of operation. DeWitt proposed attacking the Kuril Islands in the spring of 1944 with the aim of creating a base for further advancement in the direction of Hokkaido and Honshu. The plan of attack on the Japanese islands did not remain on paper. Since the spring of 1943, the American aviation launched a massive bombardment of the Kuril Islands. The most powerful attacks were carried out on the northern islands of Shumshu and Paramushir. It was reported that in just one day of the bombing of Paramushir, seven American bombers landed on the Kamchatka Peninsula. All American planes landed on the territory of the USSR (in the Far East) were interned, due to which, in 1946, in our country, A.N. Tupolev created their "flying fortress" Tu-4.
During the war, the Japanese seriously feared the American invasion of the Kuriles. As a result, the number of Japanese troops on the islands increased from 5 thousand people at the beginning of 1943 year to 27 thousand at the end of the year, and by the summer of 1944 year it was brought to 60 thousand. Only on Shumshu island the number of Japanese garrison was more than 15 thousand people. All this, despite the greater complexity of the delivery of troops and supplies - a storm, American aircraft and submarines.
RETURN YOURSELF
It is curious that even 18 in November 1940 of the year by the Commissar for Foreign Affairs Vyacheslav Molotov suggested that the Japanese hand over to the USSR all the Kuril Islands in exchange for signing a non-aggression pact. In turn, 29 in November 1943, the US President Franklin Roosevelt, during the Tehran Conference, expressed his readiness to seize the Northern Kuriles to improve communications with Vladivostok. Therefore, he invited Stalin to take part in this action, acting together with the American armed forces. Stalin left the direct answer, but later hinted to Roosevelt that South Sakhalin and the Kuriles should become Russian territory, as this would give the Soviet Union access to the Pacific Ocean and the possibility of a more reliable defense of the Soviet Far East.
During 1944, Stalin repeated the Soviet political conditions twice, on which the USSR would agree to go to war against Japan - 14 of October in an interview with General John Dean, the head of the US military mission in Moscow, and December 13 at a meeting with the envoy of President Averell Harriman. Stalin told Harriman that all the Kuril Islands should be returned to Russia, justifying this claim by the fact that they belonged to Russia before. Finally, the fate of the Kurils decided in two minutes in Yalta at a closed session of February 8 1945. Stalin began the conversation by combining the Kurils and South Sakhalin into one whole: "I just want to return to Russia what the Japanese took from her." Roosevelt readily agreed with this: “A very reasonable proposal of our ally. Russians only want to return what was taken from them. ” After that, the conference participants proceeded to discuss other issues.
Tokyo remained completely unaware of the Soviet-American negotiations. The Japanese were frantically searching for diplomatic moves in order to at least secure the neutrality of the USSR and, at the most, to persuade Stalin to become an arbiter in the peace negotiations with the United States and Britain. As early as September 1944, the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Sigemitsu Mamoru, prepared a draft, on which, in particular, it was planned to cede the Central and Northern Kurile Islands to the Soviet Union. In August – September 1945, the Soviet paratroopers occupied all the Kuril Islands.
2 September 1945, Stalin addressed the citizens of the USSR: “The defeat of the Russian troops in 1904, during the Russo-Japanese War, left heavy memories in the minds of the people. It lay on our country a black spot. Our people believed and waited for the day when Japan would be broken and the stain would be eliminated. For forty years we, the people of the older generation, have been waiting for this day. And this day has come. Japan today declared itself defeated and signed an act of unconditional surrender. This means that South Sakhalin and the Kuril Islands will withdraw to the Soviet Union, and from now on they will serve not as a means of separating the Soviet Union from the ocean and the base of the Japanese attack on our Far East, but as a means of direct communication of the Soviet Union with the Japanese aggression. In September 1945, President Harry Truman proposed to Stalin to create an American aviation and naval base on one of the Kuril Islands. Stalin agreed, but on the condition of creating a similar Soviet base on one of the Aleutian Islands. Further, the White House did not raise this topic.
STRATEGIC IMPORTANCE FOR RUSSIA
For the consideration of the issue of the Kuril Islands, an important moment is the fact of the existence of a bilateral treaty between the United States and Japan on military cooperation and partnership in the Asia-Pacific region. According to the Russian military-political leadership, the presence of the Kuril Ridge islands in our country, and first of all the four southern islands of the Kuril archipelago, is extremely important for permanent control over the entry and exit of Russian warships into the Sea of Okhotsk. As well as control over the release of Russian surface and submarine ships into the Pacific. The straits between these islands are located on the shortest routes from the Sea of Okhotsk to the Pacific Ocean in the air and the sea. In our reasoning, it should also be borne in mind that in Soviet times in the Far East we had about 900 combat aircraft, up to 60 large ships and 90 multi-purpose submarines (of which more than 40 are nuclear). Another 800 combat aircraft located in areas bordering with China. There were up to half a million troops, over 20 thousand units of armored vehicles and about 15 thousand artillery guns and mortars. If this is not enough for some reason, then one division and an air regiment on the Kuril Islands will not help either.
Essential importance should also be given to the economic argumentation of the presence of the Kuril Ridge and the southern islands of the archipelago in our country. The overall assessment of mineral resources at world prices here is at least about 44,05 billion dollars. There are gold, silver, zinc, copper, lead, iron, titanium, vanadium, agates, sulfur. According to Russian estimates, the area between the Malaya Kuril Ridge and Shikotan and Kunashir gives 10% of the total fish catch. 1,2 mln. Tons of fish are harvested here annually, while all Baltic countries catch 340 thousand tons. According to other estimates, these figures are respectively equal to 1,5 million and 350 thousand tons. For Russia, the transfer of the four islands of Japan will result in a decrease of more than a third in the amount of fishing in the entire Far East. In monetary terms, this amount is not less than 2 billion dollars.
As for any concessions to the Japanese claims on the part of the Russian leadership, under the balance of political forces prevailing in the Kremlin and outside its walls, they become even less likely than in previous years (Mikhail Gorbachev and then Boris Yeltsin were in power). The further the Japanese side persisted in its territorial harassment, the colder the atmosphere at the Japanese-Russian negotiations became and the positions of both sides deteriorated and became more severe. This period was also marked by the increasing frequency of conflicts in the sea waters washing the Southern Kuriles, conflicts during which for more than five years (from 1994) there were repeated unceremonious invasions of the Japanese poachers into the Russian territorial waters, where they met with armed resistance from border guards discovering fire on trespassers.
As the events of the last decade have shown, the territorial dispute between the two parties has almost reached a deep impasse and no one can see the way out of this impasse. The Japanese side did not intend to abandon their unreasonable territorial claims. Since the onset of this problem, the demand for the return of the Kuril Islands and South Sakhalin to Japan has practically become a state policy and an unchanged foreign policy course in the programs of any government headed by any representative from any ruling party. Therefore, none of the Japanese government or political figures was able to take such a step, which is fraught for any Japanese politician with an immediate political death. In this regard, it would be unjustified naivety to search among Japanese politicians or Japanese diplomats for such a brave man who would decide to confront with Japanese society and give up at least one position in the general list of Japan’s territorial claims to Russia. The very system of education and training of Japanese politicians or diplomats is inflexible, firm and passive in execution and slow in implementation. It traditionally has an anti-Russian orientation and a “hard” confidence that any demands of the Japanese towards its northern neighbor may sooner or later find a positive solution for the Japanese side. Negotiations and the subsequent conclusion of peace treaties with Russia in 1855 and 1875 and 1905, as well as the conclusion of agreements at the end of hostilities with Japan in Mongolia in 1937 – 1938 show evidence of such political diplomacy of Japan’s persistence.
DO NOT RELAX
The erroneous approach of some Russian political figures is their euphoric confidence that in order to improve Japanese-Russian relations and obtain Japan’s consent to go the way of investing huge financial resources in Russian business in the Far East, Japan needs to make territorial concessions. In their opinion, such a move by Russia will allegedly open up access to Japanese technologies in the electronic and manufacturing industries and in a number of other areas of advanced Japanese science for Russian businesses. Therefore, some Russian politicians believe that negotiations with Japan should be conducted not from a position of strength and perseverance of upholding Russian territorial integrity, but from positions of concessions and consistently putting forward at the talks the next proposals of a political and economic nature that will soften Japanese territorial demands and speed up the resolution of the issue of peace agreement with Japan. Among a number of Russian politicians one can also find such politicians who believe that after concluding a peace treaty with Japan and after giving up the South Kuriles to them the abundant money rains will start to spill and that the Japanese side immediately favors our country with large investments and soft loans , and scientific and technical information. Such mistakes were mainly committed by our diplomacy in Gorbachev and especially in the Yeltsin period. At the same time, it was forgotten (and some people are still forgetting) that the economic policy of the Japanese government is actually determined not so much by the willful decisions of ministers and diplomats, but by the wishes of all-powerful business leaders.
A characteristic moment of recent times is that the world community does not show significant interest in the systematic negotiations between Russia and Japan on the issue of the territorial dispute over the Kuril Islands and South Sakhalin. For example, assessing the theoretical possibilities of Japan to receive at least two islands from Russia, representatives of the G20 summit, held in Toronto (Canada) in July 2010, concluded that in order to obtain at least two southern islands from Russia The Kuril ridge Japan has rather shaky legal positions. Because there are many reasons to assert that no distinction was made between the Northern and Southern Tishima (Kuriles). If Japan applies to the International Court of Justice or a similar international legal body, then it is likely that it may be awarded the rights to Shikotan and Habomai, which Russia, under certain circumstances, was ready to give. Moreover, the potential political and economic benefits that Russia will receive from resolving the dispute are minimal. There are many other reasons why Russia does not want to fulfill the requirements of Japan and give up all the islands. Therefore, the main obstacle to resolving the dispute is Japan’s unwillingness to compromise on how vast the territories Russia must return. But the current Japanese government is weak and has to cope with more pressing issues, such as the problem of relations with the United States and China. Consequently, a change of course in the territorial dispute between Japan and Russia is unlikely.
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