ABSTRACT
Since 1945, Russo-Japanese relations have been marred by conflict over the sovereignty of a group of four islands that Japan calls the Northern Territories and that Russia refers to as the Southern Kurils. Situated between the Japanese island of Hokkaido and the Russian Kamchatka Peninsula, the four islands were seized from Japan by Stalin during the last days of World War II. Since then, unyielding attitudes on both sides have stalled progress towards resolution of the dispute, and prevented the signing of a formal post-World War II peace treaty between Russia and Japan. The ongoing dispute has hampered bilateral relations and constrained cooperation in pursuit of common geopolitical and economic interests. In the security sphere, Russia and Japan face the common challenges of rising
Chinese economic and military power and of North Korea’s nuclear program. Japanese and Russian policy makers harbor similar concerns regarding Chinese territorial ambitions. Yet neither Moscow’s fear of Chinese territorial aggrandizement in the Russian Far East nor Beijing’s increasingly aggressive territorial claims against Tokyo have encouraged Russian-Japanese reconciliation. In the economic sphere, the energy sector is an obvious area for Russian-Japanese cooperation. The Far East region of Russia possesses large reserves of oil and natural gas, while Japan depends on energy imports. Japan’s thirst for foreign energy resources following the Fukushima nuclear accident in 2011, provides Tokyo with more incentive than ever for deepening bilateral energy ties. On the Russian side, much needed Japanese investment and technology would allow Moscow to exploit fully its energy reserves and help develop Russia’s impoverished Far East. In short, there are good economic, security and foreign policy reasons for Japan and Russia to improve bilateral relations. Yet if anything, RussianJapanese tensions over the Northern Territories have escalated in recent years, illustrated by Dmitry Medvedev’s visit to the disputed islands in November 2010, the first such visit by a serving Russian or Soviet head of state. In this chapter I argue that domestic political considerations within Russia and
Japan better explain the intractability of the Northern Territories dispute than economic or systemic factors. Japanese and Russian politicians have long used nationalist rhetoric to represent the disputed islands as an indivisible part of their respective nations. Japanese citizens have been primed to consider the Northern Territories as part of their nation and national identity since they were invaded by Stalin on August 18, 1945, three days after Japan’s surrender to the Allies. Russians are similarly primed to see the territorial issue in nationalist terms. For Russians, possession of the islands is connected with the legacy of World War II-an event that continues to exert significant influence on Russia’s national psyche. Although since 1991 Russia has made territorial
concessions in resolving border disputes with China (2005 and 2008), Norway (2010) and Ukraine (2012), none of these disputes arose as a result of World War II. Since the breakup of Russia’s Soviet empire in 1991, defending territorial integrity has been a concern for all Russian leaders. Any settlement on the Northern Territories dispute would inevitably require Russia to make territorial concessions and Japan to drop part of its territorial claims. A compromise would therefore contradict decades of nationalist framing of the dispute and could damage leaders’ reputation as defenders of the national interest. Furthermore, the islands dispute has long provided Russian and Japanese politicians
with a patriotic drum with which to muffle voices of criticism and discontent. I argue that leaders have failed to resolve the islands dispute in part because the dispute itself is more immediately politically expedient than improved bilateral relations. Resolution will only occur when the benefits to national interests clearly outweigh the loss of a politically useful nationalistic cause. Currently, a lack of settlement is not preventing either state from furthering their national economic goals. Economic ties between Russia and Japan have strengthened since the mid-2000s, despite worsening political relations from 2010. Growing bilateral trade and investment removes a possible incentive for Moscow to offer territorial concessions and renders a settlement unlikely in the short term. In the long term, changing geopolitical dynamics in Northeast Asia-in particular a common interest in counterbalancing the influence of China-may offer a more promising route to resolution of the dispute. In the chapter that follows, I first provide a brief history of the dispute and of
attempts to reach a settlement. I then examine economic, security and foreign policy explanations for the lack of settlement. My analysis will show that these factors are insufficient in explaining intransigence over the dispute. Finally, I explain why domestic factors are a key obstacle to overcoming the current impasse. I conclude by assessing recent developments in bilateral relations and the likelihood of a settlement in the near future.
