ABSTRACT
Introduction The efforts by regional and local administrations in Hokkaido and Sakhalin to foster closer interregional relations, outlined in Chapter 3, led to the establishment of ‘pipes’ or channels for private-level exchanges. The growth of cross-cultural relations between both regions’ citizens resulting from these exchanges have undermined outdated perceptions and propagated previously unimagined levels of goodwill. However, at the same time, these exchanges failed to induce attitudinal changes towards the territorial dispute among Sakhalin oblast residents.1 This chapter examines why this is the case. It evaluates two factors: school history education and nationalism – the latter defined in this context as ‘the making of combined claims on behalf of a population, to identity, to jurisdiction, and to territory’ (Hearn 2006: 11) – said to be behind the majority of Sakhalin residents’ opposition to Russia transferring the South Kuril Islands to Japan. The chapter argues that, although history education and other forms of government propaganda can partly explain Sakhalin residents’ perceptions of the territorial dispute, nationalism, which is largely derivative of the region’s poor socio-economic conditions, is a more plausible reason for their opposition to surrendering the South Kuril Islands. The improvement in mutual perceptions and newfound feelings of trust and friendship between the peoples of the two regions, fostered by subnational government cultural exchange, has not been sufficient to alleviate this opposition.2
