The positions of Moscow and Tokyo on the conclusion of a peace treaty did not change after the meeting of Russian leader Vladimir Putin with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. This was stated by the press secretary of the President of the Russian Federation Dmitry Peskov. Putin stressed that the focus was on economic cooperation. At the same time, according to the head of the international committee of the State Duma, Leonid Slutsky, "the results of the three-hour meeting between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Prime Minister Shinzo Abe unequivocally speak about the intensification of Russian-Japanese contacts." Intensification of contacts against the background of real estate positions. This is, in fact, the quintessence of the current Russian-Japanese relations and, in particular, the negotiation process, the goal of which each party sees its own.
For Russia, the issue of ownership of the islands is not worth it, at the moment we are interested only in a peace treaty. Japan’s peace treaty is indifferent, for it is in a state of American military occupation after the barbaric bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki (the only precedent in the history of mankind of using nuclear weapons), humiliated and suppressed, devoid of sovereignty, and its security is entirely in the hands of the United States. Moreover, the Japanese today do not even have such a privilege - to speak on their own behalf, to think for themselves, to determine their own destiny. “Drop the chimera of conscience,” American guardians tell them, “Washington thinks for you.”
But how did the Japanese get into such a humiliating trap? Back in Yalta in February 1945, at the request of American President Roosevelt, the Soviet Union pledged to go to war with Japan three months after the defeat of Germany. The United States simply had neither the strength nor the ability to force Japan to peace. Through the forces of the Soviet Trans-Baikal, as well as the First and Second Far Eastern fronts, the Japanese Kwantung Army was surrounded and defeated in Manchuria, as well as on Southern Sakhalin and the Kuril Islands, which ended with the signing of the Japan Surrender Act on September 2, 1945. All fair and in equal combat, where Japan, although defeated, retained its dignity. The USSR as the winner received the Kuril Islands.
However, the United States carried out an unprecedented wildness cannibal action. On 6 and 9 August 1945, America dropped two atomic bombs on two peaceful Japanese cities, where there was no military infrastructure at all, and especially military facilities, which led not only to horrendous destruction and human casualties, but also to the complete moral humiliation of Japan . Once again, revealing its anti-human essence, the United States, as many times later, asserted itself at the expense of the massacre of a peaceful and defenseless population from an unattainable distance while already defeating an army in order to punish and humiliate, crushing morally and physically. This is how the United States witnessed its participation in the war with Japan - right there, on this basis, began to claim its division.
For its inhuman action, the United States demanded no less than the largest Japanese island of Okinawa, which is, in fact, a significant part of Japan itself and which was under the jurisdiction of the American administration until 1972. This does not mean that now is not, just a little changed the wording. Compare, as they say, the scale of destruction.
Four small islands of the Kuril Ridge for a fair victory with preservation of dignity and without prejudice to the civilian population - and most of Japan with moral humiliation for the barbaric atomic bombing of peaceful cities with the destruction of hundreds of thousands of innocent people.
But this was not the end of American activity in Japan, but rather it had just begun. In 1951, the United States initiated the so-called San Francisco Treaty, which was supposed to officially end World War II, defining reparations and obligations. However, thanks to the efforts of the American side, the wording of the treaty turned out to be such that the Soviet Union, the main winner in World War II, simply refused to sign it.
In the text of the treaty, in particular, China’s territorial rights to Taiwan, the Pescadore and Paracel Islands were not fixed, but this is not the main thing for us. The main conflict was that, under the terms of the treaty, Japan recognized the loss of its sovereignty and waived “all rights, rights and claims to the Kuril Islands and to that part of Sakhalin Island and the adjacent islands, which Japan acquired sovereignty over the Portsmouth Treaty of 5 September 1905, ”but the USSR’s sovereignty over South Sakhalin and the Kuril Islands was not recorded. That is, they seemed to hang in legal uncertainty.
Moreover, some time later, the American Congress introduced into the treaty an amendment that the United States in general (having emphasized this separately) does not recognize the sovereignty of the USSR over the Kuril Islands. Than, in fact, imposed the agenda of the islands of Japan, which had not even stuttered about any islands before, realizing that this was an inevitable victim for defeats in the war, a payment for the wrong side.
Further more. In 1956, the USSR in the person of Nikolai Bulganin and Dmitry Shepilov in Moscow signed the Soviet-Japanese declaration on the normalization of relations, as a result of which the state of war between Japan and the USSR was stopped. According to the declaration (not a treaty, namely, fixing good intentions), the USSR recognized the possibility of transferring Japan - as a gesture of goodwill - the Shikotan Islands and the Habomai Islands group after a peace treaty was signed between the USSR and Japan. It was after and precisely as a gesture of goodwill, and not as an obligation. However, this course of events did not suit the Americans, and in 1960 Japan was imposed another treaty.
On January 19, 1960, an agreement on mutual cooperation and security guarantees between the United States and Japan was signed, according to which the United States was able to create and use military bases in Japan, as well as deploy any number of armed forces there. Immediately after that, on January 27, 1960, the Soviet side withdraws its signature from the declaration of 1956, which removes any discussion of the transfer of the islands from the agenda, making the declaration legally void. Literally: the Soviet government refused to consider the question of the transfer of the islands of Japan, because it "will lead to the expansion of the territory used by American troops." On this, in fact, on the issue of transfer of the islands was put a full stop. Since then, nothing has changed. American bases are still in Japan, and the territory used by American troops has since expanded and continues to expand around the world.
And yet, at the current talks between Putin and Abe, “intensification of contacts” was recorded. What would it mean? According to the agreement of 1960, signed, by the way, by the grandfather of the current prime minister on the maternal side, the Japanese authorities allowed the Americans to use military bases on their territory for the next 10 years. That is, the contract was designed for 10 years, after which each of the parties had the right to denounce it. Had a right! But not denounced. But maybe.
It is already clear that while maintaining the current status quo, no one and nothing will move anywhere. But the status quo does not suit Japan, since not one iota brings them closer to a new acquisition - not a return! - islands. But we are absolutely not satisfied with the presence of Americans in Japan, which lasted for more than ten years.
At the same time, it is the Americans who continue to inflate this topic, pushing Japan to the conflict, which, according to their plan, should justify the extension of their military presence in Japan.
But you never know what the Americans want. We, Russia and Japan, must proceed from our interests, if our sovereignty and pride in our history matter to us. For us, the ideal scenario might look like this: the United States, on the initiative of the Japanese side and on the basis of the 1960 treaty, leaves Japan. Which thus acquires a neutral status, restoring sovereignty. And then the conditions for the implementation of the declaration of 1956 are reopened: we sign a peace treaty, after which, perhaps as a gesture of goodwill (and the Russians, as we know, very good) Russia transfers the island of Shikotan to Japan and the group of rocks Flat, called in Japan Habomai.
But this story may have a continuation, namely: neutral sovereign Japan, being, in fact, despite its insular location, a fragment of the Eurasian civilization (in its culture, traditions, depth and value system), is part of the Eurasian bloc with the participation of Russia. It is desirable through the creation of the geopolitical axis Berlin-Moscow-Tokyo, becoming an absolute and unconditional military, strategic and geopolitical ally of Russia, which completely removes concerns about security issues.
The new allies in the Eurasian bloc - Russia and Japan - are building joint naval bases on the islands and together control the Pacific Ocean so that no other force can dominate it. All the more so that ours, Russia and Japan, are not dominated by geopolitical opponents. In this way, Japan will again join the now four islands of the Kuril chain - Iturup, Kunashir, Shikotan and Habomai - for the sake of peace and security in the region. Does this idea seem incredible? But the story is made only through the movement from the idea (no matter how dizzying it may seem) to its realization. Japan and the islands may well be together. But only without America and as part of the Eurasian bloc. Together with Russia.
The point of view of the author may not coincide with the position of the editorial board.