On October 24, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe informed the country's parliament of his readiness to improve relations with Russia. According to him, the implementation of agreements reached by the leaders of the two countries during his visit to Japan in 2016, Russian President Vladimir Putin, gives reason to hope for it.

“On the basis of a relationship of trust between me and the president of Russia, we will solve the territorial problem and conclude a peace treaty. We will open a new era in the Japanese-Russian relations, ”Abe quoted Tass.

Two years ago, Vladimir Putin and Shinzo Abe agreed to restore previously frozen contacts through the military departments of the two countries, intensify the negotiations of diplomats and instruct experts to work out options for conducting joint economic activities in the southern part of the Kuril chain.

“For the second year, the former residents of the islands (Kunashir, Iturup, Shikotan and Habomai, claimed by Japan. - RT ) can visit the graves of their ancestors, arriving on the islands by plane. We have begun work on the implementation of joint economic activities, ”said Shinzo Abe on October 24.

In addition, he described the situation with the absence of a peace treaty between Russia and Japan as "abnormal."

In September 2018, on the fields of the Eastern Economic Forum held in Vladivostok, Vladimir Putin and Shinzo Abe approved the "road map" of development of the islands of the southern part of the Kuril ridge. As Shinzo Abe said later, the leaders of the two countries identified five projects to be implemented in the Southern Kuriles: in the field of fishing and seafood, tourism, wind and light electricity, and waste treatment.

Later, Oleg Kozhemyako, who served as governor of the Sakhalin region, which also includes the Kuril Islands, confirmed that Japanese businessmen are free to participate in all economic projects on the islands until a peace treaty is concluded.

  • pos. Yuzhnokurilsk on about. Kunashir
  • Reuters
  • © Thomas Peter

Iturup, Kunashir, Shikotan and Habomai, incorporated into the USSR in 1945, are the subject of a territorial dispute with Japan, which calls into question Russia's sovereignty over this part of the Kuril archipelago. It is precisely because of the unresolved nature of this problem that the peace treaty between Russia and Japan has not yet been concluded.

"Mismatched positions"

On September 12, 2018, speaking at a meeting of the Eastern Economic Forum in Vladivostok, where Abe was also present, Putin proposed the Japanese side to conclude a peace treaty before the end of the year, postponing the resolution of the territorial dispute.

  • Vladimir Putin and Shinzo Abe on the margins of the Eastern Economic Forum
  • © Donat Sorokin / TASS Host Photo Agency / Pool via REUTERS

However, the Japanese side did not accept this proposal. Vladimir Putin himself later talked about Abe’s position, speaking on October 18 at a plenary session of the Valdai Club.

“Already in an informal setting, we with him (Shinzo Abe . - RT ) continued this discussion,” Putin said. - He said that for Japan today this approach is unacceptable, we must first build a solution to the issues of principle in these territories, and then talk about a peace treaty. It is possible and true, but we have been marking time for 70 years now, and nothing is visible - neither the end nor the edge. ”

As the Japanese student and MGIMO teacher Vladimir Nelidov noted in a conversation with RT, the main reason for not allowing Abe to accept Putin’s proposal is that Moscow and Tokyo initially set completely different goals for themselves. If it is important for Abe to force Russia to make territorial concessions and go down in Japan’s history as a leader who has returned the Kuriles, the Russian leadership is seeking to expand economic cooperation and is not ready to sacrifice sovereignty over the islands.

“Abe’s statements about the“ new era ”do not correlate well with reality, because, despite the fact that for two or three years the rapprochement continues, mainly promoted by personal contacts between the leaders, the positions of the parties are in fact incompatible,” said RT Nelidov.

The expert suggested that Shinzo Abe was most likely guided by internal political considerations, trying to demonstrate to the Japanese public that he was confidently solving the problem of the “northern territories”.

Problematic economy

Experts note that, despite the frequent meetings of the leaders of Russia and Japan, the constant presence of Shinzo Abe at the Eastern Economic Forum and his visit to the St. Petersburg Economic Forum in 2018, the level of economic cooperation between the two countries leaves much to be desired.

Thus, over the past five years, the level of direct Japanese investment in the Russian economy has seriously decreased from $ 757 million in 2012 to $ 18 million in 2017. At the same time, bilateral trade fluctuates around $ 18 billion and in the last year even showed a tendency to increase. In 2017, according to the Japanese Ministry of Finance, bilateral trade with Russia grew by 21%, reaching almost $ 20 billion.

“The Japanese tell us that the whole thing is a territorial problem, and as soon as it is resolved, a favorable atmosphere will be created for the development of trade and economic relations. Implying that Japanese capital and state-of-the-art technologies will flood into Russia, ”said Valery Kistanov, head of the Center for Japanese Studies at the Institute of Far Eastern Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences, in an interview with RT. “None of this will happen, because the Japanese big business is not interested in the territorial problem, it is interested in profit, and for this you need a good investment climate.”

According to the expert, the Japanese are holding back the development of economic relations with Russia, including the factor of dependence on the United States, in particular, the fear of being under sanctions.

“It’s necessary that the Japanese stop looking Washington’s mouth,” Kistanov said. - What kind of economic breakthrough in our relations can we talk about if Japanese firms act with an eye on the United States? They are afraid that if they start cooperating with us, then reprisals from Washington will follow. ”

However, as the expert emphasizes, there is no guarantee that deep economic ties are transformed into good political relations. This shows the example of China, which is Japan’s main trading and investment partner. At the same time, Beijing and Tokyo view each other as opponents.

  • Chinese and Japanese warships near the Senkaku Islands
  • Reuters
  • © Kyodo

In particular, the countries have their own unresolved territorial dispute - around the Senkaku Islands (Diaoyu) in the East China Sea, which by the level of tension (demonstrations of strength by the military departments of the two countries, mass anti-Japanese protests in China, accompanied by pogroms of Japanese stores) in 2012 with the dispute between Moscow and Tokyo around the Kuriles.

Deng Xiaoping Formula

Like Russia, China for a long time was not a party to a peace treaty with Japan. The 1951 San Francisco Peace Treaty was signed not by representatives of Beijing, but by the government of the Republic of China, which fled from the Communists to Taiwan Island. Only in 1972 diplomatic relations were established between the PRC and Japan, and in 1978 the Treaty of Peace and Friendship was concluded.

The latter document did not concern the territorial disputes of the two countries, despite the fact that from the beginning of the 1970s, China began to actively declare its claims on Senkaku. Prior to that, since 1945, the islands were under US jurisdiction.

According to experts, the compromise was reached thanks to the position of the PRC leader Deng Xiaoping at that time, who offered to shift the solution of the territorial dispute to future generations and conclude a peace treaty without addressing this problem.

According to Valery Kistanov, in the 1970s such a decision became possible for two reasons: firstly, the fact that in this dispute Beijing put forward claims to Japan, and not vice versa, as in the case of the Kuril Islands, and secondly, the treaty Favored by the United States, which had just themselves established relations with the People's Republic of China as part of a strategy for containing the Soviet Union.

“To make China its partner in the confrontation of the USSR, Nixon normalized relations with China, then Japan did it,” the expert stressed.

Now, in his opinion, it would be problematic to apply the formula of Deng Xiaoping to conclude a peace treaty between Japan and Russia.

However, Nelidov is convinced that this formula, which coincides with the position expressed by Vladimir Putin, can only lead to a breakthrough in the political relations between Moscow and Tokyo, ensuring the signing of a peace treaty.

“It seems to me and many experts that this is the only option that can work, but so far Japan does not show understanding,” the political scientist states.