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Creative thinking on the
Kurils
By Kosuke Takahashi
TOKYO -
Japan's strained diplomatic relationship with
China and South Korea should not eclipse a key
player whose relationship with Tokyo could set the
tone in balance-of-power politics and economic
integration in East Asia over the next decades.
That player is Russia, and the overarching,
festering issue between Japan and Russia is
sovereignty over the four Russian-held Kuril
Islands. Recently, some Japanese experts on Russia
have been calling for greater flexibility and
compromise by Tokyo, which has always demanded the
return of all four islands.
There's no sign yet of
official acceptance, but pressures are building
for Japan to strike a deal and accept what is
called a "two  islands plus alpha" solution - still to be
hammered out. Some of the latest thinking is that Japan
should give up demanding the return of all four
islands and instead accept the two smaller islands
and a portion of the two larger ones.
Locked in a diplomatic
dispute over the islands, called the Northern
Territories by the Japanese and the Southern
Kurils by the Russians, conciliatory approaches
are beginning to crop up among Russia experts in
Japan. While the majority remain determined to
wage a long, drawn-out contest with Russia and
support Japan's official demand for the return of
all four islands, an increasing number of experts
have begun to float the possibility of compromise,
arguing that better relations with Moscow are
essential at a time when Japan's relations with
China and South Korea have plummeted.
They
argue that Japan and Russia need to find common
ground, a point of compromise on the Kurils. Their
approach, the two islands plus alpha solution, is
something less than a 50-50 split of the total
area, more like 37-63, with the smaller part going
to Japan. "Two" refers to the two smaller islands
Russia promised to return to Japan in 1956 and
that Russian President Vladimir Putin suggested
last November Moscow could relinquish - they
represent just 7% of the entire disputed area.
"Alpha" refers to some portion of the remaining
two bigger islands.
The Southern Kurils, or Northern
Territories, consist of three islands - Kunashiri,
Etorofu and Shikotan - and the uninhabited Habomai
group of islets, also termed an island. The
islands are believed to be rich in natural
resources, such as oil and gas, and the area is a
major fishing grounds. Russia has offered to
return the two smaller territories - Shikotan
Island and the uninhabited Habomai group of
islets, while retaining the larger, more valuable
islands. Tokyo has rejected the offer and has
sought the return of all four territories. Moscow
has never accepted the return of more than two
islands, while Tokyo has never accepted the return
of less than four islands.
| Island Name |
Area (square
kilometers) |
| Etorofu
Island |
3,184.0 |
| Kunashiri
Island |
1,498.8 |
| Shikotan
Island |
253.3 |
| Habomai islets |
99.9 |
| Total |
5036.0
| 
Source: The
Geographical Survey Institute
Japan
and Russia have not concluded a peace treaty since
the end of World War II, 60 years ago, due to this
unsolved territorial dispute. Currently, the two
sides are engaged in a covert but fierce war of
diplomatic nerves over President Putin's hoped-for
but deliberately unscheduled visit to Tokyo. The
delay is attributed by Japan to Russia's
foot-dragging over the Kurils. Putin told Prime
Minister Junichiro Koizumi last November on the
sidelines of the annual Asia-Pacific Economic
Cooperation (APEC) forum summit in Santiago,
Chile, that he would visit Japan in early 2005,
but the trip has yet to be scheduled, due
apparently to differences between Moscow and Tokyo
over the territorial dispute.
Experts in
Tokyo are now watching to see whether Koizumi will
visit Russia during the celebration of the 60th
anniversary of victory in World War II, to be held
in Moscow on May 9 - that could be an indicator of
Japanese flexibility. Since Koizumi is currently
facing severe criticism in the Diet, or
parliament, over his top priority, reform of the
postal system, whether he could spare time to
visit Moscow remains to be seen. If he does go,
this would be indicative of Tokyo's serious
intention to resolve the territorial issue and
improve ties between the two countries.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov
will be in Japan on May 30-31 to lay the
groundwork for Putin's promised trip later this
year, according to news reports.
"There is
an invitation [from Japan] and the visit cannot be
postponed," Lavrov was quoted as telling
reporters. Analysts believe Lavrov made the
remarks to indicate to Japan that Russia is ready
to make Putin's visit to Japan a reality if
Koizumi attends the Moscow ceremony.
Koizumi indicated on April 8 that he is
considering visiting Russia around May 9 if
parliamentary circumstances allow him to do so.
"We are considering it ... I would like to visit
if possible but it is a weekday," Koizumi told
reporters in response to questions about attending
the Russian ceremony.
Conservative
Japanese media, such as The Sankei Shimbun,
staunchly oppose such a visit to Russia, which
they say might be viewed by both the Japanese and
Russian public as Tokyo's weak-kneed diplomacy in
the territorial dispute with Moscow.
Need to make a deal
"Nothing but
the political shutdown by the two countries' top
leaders can solve this long-standing territorial
dispute," Shigeki Hakamada, a professor at Aoyama
Gakuin University professor in Tokyo and an expert
on Russian affairs, said in an interview with Asia
Times Online. "Both sides need to make some
concessions."
Nobuo Shimotomai, professor
of law at Hosei University and an expert on
Russian politics and history, holds similar views.
He noted that calls for the two islands plus alpha
formula are growing steadily among Russia experts
in Tokyo. "President Putin has played a diplomatic
card suggesting the return of two of the four
islands, and this year will be a decisive time for
the Japan-Russia talks on the Northern Territories
and future ties," Shimotomai told Asia Times
Online.
Akihiro Iwashita, a professor at
Hokkaido University's Slavic Research Center,
echoed their views. "Solving this issue will be
accompanied by pain in the two countries' domestic
politics," Iwashita told Asia Times Online. "But
Koizumi and Putin have leadership ability to make
a breakthrough on this territorial dispute."
As examples of such leadership, Iwashita
cited Koizumi's two surprise visits to North
Korea, and Putin's visit to Beijing last October
that solved the final settlement of Russia's
long-standing border disputes with China. Putin
and Chinese President Hu Jintao put an end to
their remaining territorial disputes over three
islands, reaching a 50-50 agreement in their
negotiations over borders.
A bitter
legacy of World War II
For Japan, the
dispute over the Northern Territories/Southern
Kurils is a bitter legacy of World War II. On
August 9, 1945, three days after the atomic bomb
was dropped on Hiroshima and the day on which
Nagasaki suffered from the bombing, the Soviet
Union declared war on Japan, in violation of the
Neutrality Pact that Tokyo signed in 1941. Four
days after Japan accepted the Potsdam Declaration
announcing Japan's surrender to the Allied powers, Soviet
troops undertook aggressive action, moving on the
Kuril Islands, which then belonged to Japan.
By September 5, Soviets troops had occupied the
four islands now in dispute.
History never accepts what-ifs.
But if Japan had accepted the Potsdam
Declaration right after the August 6 bombing of
Hiroshima, there could have been no Nagasaki bombing
and Soviet leader Joseph V Stalin might not have
declared war on Tokyo. Then, there would not have
been the island dispute today, nor would
there have been nearly 600,000 Japanese soldiers held
in Siberian labor camps where about 60,000 were said
to have died under cruel working
conditions. From a Japanese perspective, Japanese leaders at that
time made a serious and terrible misjudgment
of the situation.
Meanwhile, for
Russia, this territorial dispute has also been a
symbol of diplomatic frustration. Princeton
University Professor Gilbert Rozman points out in
his article in the book, The International
Relations of Northeast Asia, for Russia,
"Japan's demand for four islands meant overturning
the Yalta Agreement and yielding to nationalist
pressure". At the February 1945 Yalta Conference
involving Stalin, United States president Franklin
D Roosevelt and British prime minister Winston S
Churchill, the US and Britain are said to have
allowed the Soviet Union to unjustly invade and
occupy these Japanese lands in the post- World War
II period - a reward for Soviet participation in
the war.
In 1960, Moscow unilaterally
abrogated the 1956 Japan-Soviet communique, the
treaty promising to return to Japan the smaller
Shikotan Island and the uninhabited Habomai group
of islets - two of the four territories. Not until
the early 1990s, shortly after the collapse of the
Soviet Union, did Moscow officially admit the
existence of any territorial dispute with Tokyo,
largely due to the Cold War. In 1993 the two
countries finally issued the Tokyo Declaration
that committed them to tackle the issue of
sovereignty over all four islands, including the
two bigger islands Kunashiri and Etorofu. This is
the reason most intellectuals here still are
willing to stick to Japan's traditional demand for
the return of all four islands. Although since
last November Putin has offered Koizumi hard
choices for ending this territorial dispute by
suggesting the return of the two smaller islands,
Japanese experts on Russia say the more time and
effort that is put into this issue, the more
Russia might and could compromise in the near
future.
Experts have many
views and interpretations of this issue, depending
on how they see the historical records. Those
who focus on the Soviet Union's violation of
the Neutrality Pact with Japan in August 1945 tend to
buy Tokyo's views and case for the islands. Those
who stress the 1956 Japan-Soviet communique
clearly accept Russia's case for sovereignty over
the islands. How one interprets the language
of historical documents also matters. Japan's 1951
San Francisco Peace Treaty with the Allied Powers
stipulated in Article 2(c) that Japan would renounce
all rights, title and claim to the Chishima
Retto, literally meaning the Kuril islands chain in
Japanese. But amid criticism from domestic and foreign
observers, the Japanese government has never
recognized those four islands to be included in
those renounced as the Chishima Retto, claiming
those islands have always been inside traditional
Japanese territory. This is the major reason why
Japan has refused to call those four islands the
Southern Kurils and calls them the Northern
Territories instead.
Last September,
Koizumi stepped up the pressure on Putin over this
territorial dispute by setting out on a tour of
the Northern Territories by an offshore patrol
vessel. Many foreign observers said out Koizumi
intentionally increased the tension and even
strained relations between the two nations. But
Japanese experts such as professor Hakamada of
Aoyama Gakuin University said that tour was only
intended to correct a possible erroneous
perception in Russia that Tokyo was to focus on
promoting full economic corporation by shelving
the territorial issue. This is because, prior to
the tour, the two countries' economic corporation
had been emphasized by the Japan-Russian Action
Plan, adopted by Koizumi and Putin in January 2003
when Koizumi visited Russia. In any case, the
Kurils jaunt seems to have sent the wrong signals
to Russia and to foreign observers, regardless of
its true intentions.
Return of three
islands the best solution
For Japan, the
best politically feasible remedy to settling this
long-standing and festering territorial dispute
could be the return of the three smaller islands -
Kunashiri, Shikotan and Habomai - to Japan. This
solution could be an alternative to Putin's offer
to return the two smallest islands - Habomai and
Shikotan - and might help bring Japan and Russia
closer to a resolution on the territories issue.
At a meeting in Tokyo of Japanese and
Russian experts on February 2, a Japanese
participant suggested a 50-50 split of the entire
area of the Northern Territories. The two islands
that Russia has proposed to return constitute just
7% of the total area of the four islands. A 50-50
split of all four islands would give Japan
Kunashiri, Shikotan and Habomai islands and a
portion of the remaining Etorofu. The three
islands actually only constitute 37% of the total,
but Japan could give up Etorofu as a bitter legacy
of World War II and a reminder of earlier leaders'
serious political misjudgment - a lesson for
future Japanese politicians and the public.
This 37-63 split of the entire area of the
disputed islands could be a win-win international
resolution as well as a lose-lose result in the
two countries' domestic politics, since giving up
perceived sovereignty always goes against national
sentiment. But Tokyo should allow Russia to run
the administration of Kunashiri in the near- and
mid-term, permitting Russian residents to live on
the island and waiting for some of them to move to
Etorofu in the long term. The Japanese government
repeatedly has said Tokyo would flexibly respond
to the timing and manner of the return of the
administration over the Northern Territories, if
the islands were to return to Japan.
Another reason in support of this kind of
solution is that since those smaller three islands
- Habomai, Shikotan and Kunashiri - and the
largest island - Etorofu - are administered by
different local government organizations, it must
be easier to redraw a national boundary between
Kunashiri and Etorofu. Specifically, Habomai,
Shikotan and Kunashiri have been administrated by
the "Southern Kuril" local government of the
Sakhalin provincial government, while Etorofu has
been under the administration of the "Kuril" local
government of Russia's Sakhalin Island.
In
addition, while Etorofu is known for its
self-sustaining economy, supported by one major
monopolistic fish processing firm called
Gidrostroy, Kunashiri and Shikotan, both closer to
Hokkaido, have been suffering from economic woes
and are more dependant on the Japanese economy,
especially Hokkaido Nemuro's local fishery
industries.
Further, given the shifting
balance of power in Asia due to the rapid rise of
China as a major political and economic power and
the implications of North Korean problems and
energy resources in Russia, cooperation between
Japan and Russia is strategically very important.
Experts here have pointed out that many, if not
all, "silovikis", or ex-KGB and intelligence types
surrounding Putin, are said to be wary of China's
rapid economic rise accompanied by a "demographic
threat" to Russia's Far East and East Siberia -
these silovikis were educated and trained in the
1970s when the confrontation between the Soviet
Union and China was fierce.
Japan is eager
to make deals giving it access to Russia's massive
oil and gas reserves in Siberia, and Russia would
welcome Japan's investment. Tokyo and Moscow have
a clear interest in solving the territorial row,
which has been the principal obstacle to putting
the bilateral relations on a better standing.
Moreover, for Japan, solving this
territorial dispute with Russia would give
enormous momentum to settling the country's other
border issues with China, South Korea and Taiwan.
To the south, Japan is engaged in a sovereignty
dispute over the Senkaku Islands (known in China
as the Diaoyu Islands) and competing development
of offshore gas fields in the East China Sea. In
the west, it faces the thorny issue of the South
Korean-held Takeshima, known in South Korea as
Tokdo or Dokto. For Japan, the Northern
Territories issue can leave more room for
compromise with its northern neighbor Russia than
other territorial disputes.
For Russia and
Japan, the year 2005 is a symbolic year
representing an opportunity that may not arise
again. Not only does it mark the 150th anniversary
of the treaty of commerce and friendship between
Moscow and Tokyo, but it also marks the 100th
anniversary of the peace treaty of Portsmouth, New
Hampshire, signed in 1905, at the conclusion of
the 1904-05 Russo-Japanese War. Further, it
commemorates the 60th anniversary of the end of
World War II. History will look kindly on Koizumi
and Putin, if they can resolve this long-standing
and festering territorial dispute once and for
all. The two leaders need to hammer out a proper
road map for settlement of the territorial issue
if they wish to securing their places in history.
The four islands are not worth a long
destabilizing battle in a potentially volatile
region.
Kosuke Takahashi, a
former staff writer at the Asahi Shimbun, is a
freelance correspondent based in Tokyo. He can be
contacted at letters@kosuke.net.
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