ABSTRACT
The international politics of that time were characterized by imperialism and by the perceived need for control of territory for reasons of both military strategy and economic exploitation. The problem was that Russia and Japan were geographically close to each other and to China in North-East Asia, and problems of security between them rose from the late nineteenth century onwards. The Kuriles are made up of four islands which Moscow seized from Japan as part of the war-time Yalta agreement with the US and Great Britain. Interest in Russian resources, particularly oil and natural gas reserves, is growing once again. States in the Asia-Pacific region would like to diversify their sources of energy, which are seen as vulnerable to the instability in the Middle East. Certainly Russo-Chinese relations have been marked by summitry between Yeltsin and Jiang Zemin on a number of occasions.
