The idea of the Northern Territories

Notwithstanding the important transformations that have occurred on the bilateral, regional and international levels since the collapse of the Soviet Union, as of September 2008, the prospects for a breakthrough in the territorial dispute seem as distant as they were at the height of the Cold War. This chapter first outlines the post-war history of bilateral negotiations and shows that, over the years, there have been only very limited changes in the Japanese discourse on the Northern Territories. I next examine the current role of the dispute in the construction of Japan’s identity, which, arguably, contributes to the perpetuation of that country’s elite’s reluctance to consider a territorial compromise, and thus to a perpetuation of the dispute. As opposed to the almost three decades of Soviet-era denial of even the

existence of a dispute, Russia’s explicit acknowledgment of the dispute and of the basic need to reach a solution has led to multiple negotiations and proposals toward a possible resolution. Many of the details of these remained unavailable to the public until the 2002 “Suzuki Muneo affair” led to the airing of a clearer picture of the bilateral negotiations and the two countries’ respective positions. Suzuki, a Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) Member of Diet from Hokkaido’s Nemuro, a city of about 30,000 and the one closest to the disputed islands, served as the head of the Hokkaido and Okinawa Development Agency during the second Hashimoto cabinet (November 1996 to July 1998) and as a Vice Chief Cabinet Secretary in the Obuchi cabinets (July 1998 to April 2000). Over the years, Suzuki was able to acquire very considerable influence within MoFA, particularly regarding Japan’s policy towards Russia. Suzuki’s rivalry with the newly appointed Foreign Minister Tanaka Makiko (the first Koizumi cabinet, 2001) led to a number of widely publicized scandals. After a series of revelations in the press, presumably leaked by his opponents within MoFA (Honda 2002: 217), Suzuki was forced to resign from the LDP. In 2002 he was arrested on corruption charges related to a construction project that was part of Japan’s humanitarian assistance program to the Russian residents of the disputed islands. Under intensive media scrutiny, it was revealed that from the second half of the 1990s,

Japanese policy toward Russia had been largely dominated by the trio of Suzuki and two other MoFA bureaucrats: Sato-Masaru (nicknamed the Japanese Rasputin), at that time Senior Analyst in the International Information Bureau and To-go-Katsuhiko, former head of the Eurasia Bureau and Japan’s Ambassador to the Netherlands. The scandal resulted in an extensive shuffling of personnel, numerous dismissals of MoFA bureaucrats affiliated with Suzuki, a number of arrests and attempts to reform MoFA’s structure and the relations of MoFA bureaucrats with politicians (Asahi Shimbun 2002: 13). Most important for present purposes, however, the power struggle within

MoFA led to the extensive leaking of information and exposure of the previously unpublicized dynamics of the post-Cold War negotiations over the territorial dispute. Arguably, the most striking feature of this process as it was revealed was that, while Russia’s position evolved from a rigid denial of the existence of a territorial dispute to a basic agreement to transfer at least part of the disputed territory to Japan, Japan’s position remained largely unchanged in its demand for the return of all of the four islands. No doubt, the decoupling of the territorial dispute from other bilateral issues1 in itself constituted a change in Japan’s position. Furthermore, unlike the earlier simple demand for immediate return of all the four islands, the post-Cold War era saw Japan propose various scenarios for their return. Notwithstanding these changes, however, the basic demand for the return of all four islands remained intact throughout the post-Cold War years. As far back as October 1991, Japan’s Foreign Minister Nakayama carried

with him on his official visit to Moscow a secret proposal symbolic of Japan’s emerging recognition of the changes that were taking place in the Soviet Union. Unlike the earlier demands for the “return of four islands at once” (yonto-ikkatsu henkan), this proposal offered Japan’s flexibility in terms of the timing and modality of the return of the islands, in exchange for immediate Soviet recognition of Japan’s sovereignty over the Northern Territories (Sato-

and Komaki 2003: 22-3). This change in Japan’s stance on the return of the islands was confirmed a few months later, during the January 1992 meeting between Foreign Minister Watanabe Michio and Andrei Kozyrev, Foreign Minister of the newly independent Russia (Hasegawa 1995: 109). Russia’s response came in the form of a secret proposal carried to Tokyo by Kozyrev during his March 1992 visit. While Gorbachev’s concession during his April 1991 visit to Tokyo had been limited to acceptance of the four islands as objects of future negotiations, the proposal brought by Kozyrev envisaged the conclusion of a peace treaty, accompanied by the transfer of the two islands of Habomai and Shikotan to Japan in accordance with the 1956 Declaration. It also included plans for continued negotiations regarding the status of the remaining two islands of Kunashiri and Etorofu. This change in Russia’s position constituted not only a radical departure from three decades of outright Soviet denial of the existence of any territorial dispute, but also a concrete plan for the resolution of the dispute and, most important of all, complete normalization of bilateral relations. During this period, the US

administration pushed Japan to find a solution for the territorial dispute as part of its broader policy of integrating Russia into a US-led “new world order” (Asahi Shimbun 2002: 4, also Sato-and Komaki 2003: 27-8 and To-go-

2007: 167-8). However, despite this ground-breaking shift in Russia’s position, as well as the American pressure, the Japanese side failed to respond to this initiative and momentum for resolution of the dispute was lost as bilateral relations started to cool from the latter half of 1992. Yeltsin’s abrupt cancellation of his visit to Tokyo, mentioned in the previous chapter, was the culmination of this process. During and in the aftermath of Yeltsin’s visit to Tokyo in October 1993, a

number of new ideas were introduced as guiding principles in the bilateral search for a resolution of the territorial problem. The Tokyo Declaration, agreed to by Russian President Yeltsin and Japan’s Prime Minister Hosokawa during this visit, is still regarded in Japan as the basic framework for any resolution of the dispute regarding sovereignty over the four islands, in which the two sides agreed to work towards a resolution based on “historical and legal facts,” “bilateral agreements” and the “principles of law and justice.” In 1997, Prime Minister Hashimoto introduced the policy of a “multilayered approach” based on the three principles of “trust, mutual benefit and long-term perspective” to replace the earlier policy of “expanded equilibrium” vis-à-vis Russia. He also proposed to find away past “awinner/loser dichotomy” in the search to resolve the territorial issue. The strong personal bond that gradually developed between Hashimoto

and Yeltsin facilitated the drafting during the November 1997 Krasnoyarsk summit of an optimistic declaration which stated both parties’ intentions to solve the territorial dispute and to conclude a bilateral peace treaty by the year 2000. This optimistic plan, introduced unexpectedly by Yeltsin during the summit, did not include any detailed guidelines for achieving its goals. Japan’s concrete proposals for the solution of the dispute and conclusion of a treaty were presented during Yeltsin’s reciprocal visit to Japan in April 1998. During what came to be known as the Kawana summit, Hashimoto presented Yeltsin with a detailed proposal based on scenarios developed by MoFA’s Russia specialists. The proposal suggested approaching the territorial problem and the conclusion of a peace treaty not as a dispute but rather as a border delineation issue; the proposed clarified border between Japan and Russia would be drawn between the islands of Etorofu (Iturup) and Uruppu (Urup), locating all of the disputed islands within Japan’s territory. The plan also envisaged a separate bilateral agreement to determine the actual timing and the modalities of the transfer of the islands, and assured Japan’s recognition of the legality of Russia’s administrative control during this transitional period (Sato-and Komaki 2003: 172-97). While the Japanese negotiators presented this scenario to their Russian

counterparts as a significant compromise in Japan’s position, the concessions contained in this proposal, namely the abolition of the demand for immediate return of the islands and the softening of the language in which the territorial

issue was described, were largely symbolic and did not constitute a significant departure from Japan’s earlier demands. It was, in essence, little more than a repetition of the 1991-92 Nakayama/Watanabe proposal noted earlier. Incidentally, neither of the other two scenarios developed by MoFA on the eve of the summit (Sato-and Komaki 2003: 154-67) envisaged any changes in the scope of the actual territory to be transferred to Japan. Russia’s rejection of the Kawana proposal, in the form of a counter-

proposal for the conclusion of an interim peace treaty and continuous negotiations regarding the status of the islands, was conveyed to Japan five months later, when Obuchi Keizo-(who had replaced Hashimoto as Japan’s Prime Minister) visited Moscow in November 1998. The brief written response given to Obuchi by Yeltsin during their five-minute meeting stated that while Russia hoped to continue negotiations regarding the status of the islands, the Kawana proposal did not constitute a compromise in Japan’s position, was counter to the principle of a “mutually acceptable solution” and would be acceptable neither to the Russian public nor the Duma (Russia’s lower house of parliament) (Sato-and Komaki 2003: 250-1). After Russia’s rejection of the border delineation scenario, the territorial

dispute as well as bilateral relations in general disappeared from the priority lists of both Moscow and Tokyo, as both societies underwent major political changes. In Russia, the deterioration of Yeltsin’s health and sharp drop in his domestic popularity undermined his ability, and perhaps desire, to pursue negotiations with Japan and to entertain territorial concessions which could inflict further damage to his shrinking legitimacy. On 31 December 1999 Yeltsin suddenly resigned and designated the previously little-known Prime Minister Vladimir Putin as Acting President. InMarch 2000, Putin was elected as Russia’s second President. Meanwhile, in Japan, Mori Yoshiro replaced Obuchi as Japan’s Prime Minister after the latter’s sudden collapse in April 2000. Arguably, it was during the short-lived Mori premiership (April 2000 to

April 2001) that Japan and Russia came closest to reaching a breakthrough in the territorial impasse. The March 2001 Irkutsk summit between Mori and Putin, held two and a half years after Obuchi’s visit to Moscow, did not lead to any concrete plans, partly because Mori’s resignation from the premiership was already considered a fait accompli, but it did generate a momentum for further negotiations. On the eve of the summit, Putin came out with an unprecedented statement that was in effect the first explicit acknowledgment in forty years by a Soviet/Russian leader of the validity of the 1956 bilateral declaration stipulating the transfer of the two islands of Shikotan and Habomai. (In 1960, after revision and renewal of the US-Japan Security Treaty, the Soviet Union had refused to carry out transfer of the islands, citing a change in circumstances.) Russia was now openly showing its readiness to honor the agreement and to transfer the two islands to Japan, along with conclusion of the peace treaty. On the Japanese side, the dominance of the pragmatic Suzuki-To-go-–Sato-trio in shaping Japan’s Russia policy, spurred by Mori’s pressing need to produce certain achievements in foreign policy to counter the

sharp decline in his domestic popularity (brought on by a number of gaffes and mishandling of the Ehime Maru incident),2 led to a proposal for “simultaneous parallel negotiations” (do-ji heiko-kyo-gi), or the “two wheels theory” (kuruma no ryo-rinron). Neither this momentum nor the presence of the “two wheels theory” in Japan’s policy was long lived, however, due to the eruption of Suzuki Muneo affair in December 2001. The series of scandals triggered by the power struggle for control of MoFA, waged between Suzuki Muneo and the eccentric Tanaka Makiko (appointed Foreign Minister April 2001-January 2002 by Koizumi as an expression of gratitude for her earlier support in his quest for premiership), brought an end to the behind-the-scenes negotiations and virtually paralyzed Japan’s Russia policy, as many of the key actors, including the members of the “Suzuki trio,” were purged from their positions. Negotiations on the status of the islands and toward the conclusion of a peace treaty entered a “dormant season”; Japan’s position relapsed into that of the Cold War era-the simple demand for the return of the four islands (Sato-2003: 263 and Iwashita 2005a: 10-14). During and in the aftermath of this period of “confusion in the Ministry of

Foreign Affairs” (NIDS 2003: 245) the “simultaneous parallel negotiations” line pursued by the trio was often presented in the Japanese press as a de facto acceptance of two (smaller) islands and thus a betrayal of the national cause (for example, Saito-2002: 8-93). Some observers have therefore interpreted the Suzuki affair as a struggle between hardliners and more flexible elements within MoFA. The exact details of the negotiations are still unclear, but it seems that the scandal and the related information leaks had more to do with factional power struggles within MoFA than with ideological rivalry regarding Japan’s Russia policy. The “simultaneous parallel negotiations” plan apparently envisaged the conclusion of a peace treaty, along with a transfer of the Habomais and Shikotan to Japan, but also a simultaneous continuation of negotiations regarding the status of the other two islands, Kunashiri and Etorofu (Sato-and Komaki 2003: 286-335 also, Sato-2005a: 65 and To-go-2007). If this was indeed the case, the scenario developed by the trio never meant giving up all the claims to the other two islands and, while drawing strong criticism from such powerful figures as Suetsugu Ichiro (for example, see Suetsugu 2000), the most influential private individual in Japan’s Russia policy, in general did not deviate from the initial aim of achieving the return of all the four islands. In the wake of the Suzuki affair there were other, perhaps symbolic, chan-

ges in the domestic discourse. Wada Haruki, a Left-leaning historian and professor emeritus of Tokyo University who portrayed the territorial dispute as the historical clash of two imperial expansionisms over Ainu land (Wada 1999) and who, since the 1980s, has criticized the foundations of the mainstream discourse on Northern Territories as historically inconsistent, was invited in 2002 to speak on Japan-Russia relations in front of the Diet Commission on Okinawa and the Northern Territories. In his statement, he repeated his interpretation of the history of the dispute and defended the “gradual

solution” pursued by the Suzuki trio as a pragmatic approach that did not contradict the basic conception of all the four islands as Japanese territory (11 July 2002 at NDL). Japan’s delegation to the bilateral Council of Wise Men3 included no members affiliated with the hard-line Council on National Security Problems (headed by Suetsugu Ichiro until his death in 2001), whose presence has previously been dominant in similar government-sponsored bilateral forums. Instead, Shimotomai Nobuo, a professor of International Relations at Hosei University who has taken a rather moderate stance on the territorial issue, was Japan’s only Russia specialist present. These developments were no doubt more symbolic than constituting a real

change in position. In 2005, the rationale of the “four islands at once” stance was challenged in a widely publicized book written by one of Japan’s leading scholars on Russia, Iwashita Akihiro. The following year, in 2006, the book received the prestigious 2006 Osaragi Jiro-prize for criticism. In contrast with earlier critiques of the mainstream discourse, which questioned the soundness of its historical or legal foundations, Iwashita (2005a) challenged the very basis of the unbending demand for the return of all the four islands by questioning its consistency with Japan’s national interest. Through examining the recent successful resolution of Russia’s territorial dispute with China, achieved on the basis of equal division of the disputed territory and which substantively facilitated further deepening of bilateral relations, Iwashita argued the need for Japan to take a compromise position in order to achieve a breakthrough in the territorial impasse. Besides the historical inconsistency in the mainstream narrative, argued Iwashita, the persistent rigid demand for all four islands did not serve Japan’s present national interests and in fact only perpetuated the dispute. It seems that the argument, perhaps because of its specific reference to

Japan’s national interest, found resonance in Japanese political circles. In December 2006, Foreign Minister Aso-publicly mentioned the possibility of an equal division of the disputed territory during Diet interpolations, possibly reflecting the impact of Iwashita’s argument. However, similarly to an earlier sensational remark by LDP Secretary-General Nonaka Hiromu, who stated publicly in 2000 that the territorial dispute should not preclude the conclusion of a peace treaty with Moscow, Aso-’s statement met with a fierce critique from the conservative press and from within MoFA, andwas quickly eliminated from the political discourse. Aso-himself was quick to state that he had been referring to just to one of existing ideas and not expressing a change in Japan’s official position (Sankei Shimbun 15 December 2006 at sankei.co.jp). His successor, Machimura Nobutaka, categorically dismissed the idea of a territorial compromise, stating that the equal division of the territory is unthinkable, and the governmental position remained the demand for the return of “four islands at once” (Sankei Shimbun 30 August 2007 at sankei.co.jp). Tamba Minoru, one of former key actors in Japan’s Russia policy and a onetime ambassador to Russia (1999-2002), who currently often comments on bilateral relations in the domestic press, rejected the possibility of a territorial

compromise on similar grounds, arguing that such a proposal was based on irrational assumptions and undermined Japan’s national interest and the “basic principles of the Japanese state” (nihon kokka no genrigensoku) (Tamba 2007: 240 also see Watanabe 1999a: 72 for a similar argument). In this way, the idea of territorial compromise surfaced briefly but was quickly eliminated from the domestic discourse as damaging the “basic principles” of Japan. Incidentally, Japan’s main opposition party, the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ), despite its continuous efforts to establish its differences from the ruling LDP, shares the demand for Russia’s recognition of Japan’s sovereignty over all the four islands (for example, see Hatoyama 2006). To summarize, during the post-Cold War years, Russia’s position evolved

rapidly from the Soviet-era denial of the existence of any territorial dispute, to Gorbachev’s reluctant admittance of the existence of the dispute, toward willingness to return two islands to Japan and to engage in negotiations regarding the status of the other two. On the other hand, any changes in the Japanese policy discourse have been largely cosmetic; plans expressing flexibility regarding the timing and modalities of the return of the islands were forwarded, but the underlying demand for the return of all of the four islands remained unchanged. In the meantime Russia, perhaps frustrated by Japan’s inflexibility and for-

tified by its newly acquired economic prowess, withdrew to a much more rigid position. In November 2004 Russia’s Foreign Minister Lavrov stated in an interview on Russian television that Russia was prepared to honor the 1956 Declaration. The next day, this statement was reiterated by Putin (in Ferguson 2008: 114). This, however, was the last public statement by Russia’s government that implied readiness to return parts of the disputed territory as part of a permanent peace settlement. During a press conference conducted on 31 January 2006 Putin mentioned the Yalta Agreement (1945), the Potsdam Declaration (1945) and the San Francisco Peace Treaty (1952) as the principal legal documents to be referenced in determining the status of the disputed territories. The mentioning of the Yalta Agreement, which allocated the Kuriles to the Soviet Union and whose validity Japan denies, and the contrasting failure to reference the 1956 Joint Declaration, have been widely interpreted in Japan as an attempt to justify Russian possession of the islands and as a hardening of the Russian position (Asahi Shimbun 2006: 2). In August the same year, further evidence of this hardening was seen in the Russian government’s announcement of a US$630 million plan to develop the entire Kurile, chain including the disputed islands. The actual implementation of this plan and its place in bilateral relations remain undetermined, but it seems that final resolution of the territorial dispute is further than ever from realization.