Japanese and Russian leaders agreed to study joint rule of a group of contested islands, offering a road map to re-establishing full diplomatic relations after more than seven decades.<\/p>\n
Economic and political ties between the two countries have been limited by Russia\u2019s occupation of the islands, which lie to the northeast of Japan\u2019s main islands, in the closing days of World War II. Both sides have claimed them, deadlocking negotiations.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have to change our approach to reach a peace agreement\u2026we owe this to our future generations,\u201d Japan\u2019s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe told Russian President Vladimir Putin in an unusually fervent address at a conference in Russia\u2019s eastern city of Vladivostok on Wednesday. \u201cA joint administration [of the islands] is a way of doing this.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mr. Putin agreed to study the proposal, saying the islands are too insignificant to continue blocking relations.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey don\u2019t have fundamental importance to Russia\u2019s economy,\u201d he told Mr. Abe, sitting beside the leaders of China, South Korea and Mongolia. \u201cJust look at the map of our country and its size.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mr. Putin went further, offering to sign a peace treaty without any conditions by the end of the year, and then work on the status of the islands, known as the South Kuril Islands in Russia and the Northern Territories in Japan.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe idea just came into my head,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019m not joking about this.\u201d<\/p>\n
Japanese officials quickly poured cold water on the proposal. Mr. Abe\u2019s chief aide, Yoshihide Suga, told reporters in Japan that the country needs to get the islands back before signing any deal. He confirmed that the two leaders, who have met more than 20 times in recent years, hadn\u2019t previously discussed an unconditional peace accord.<\/p>\n
Analysts cautioned against expecting a quick breakthrough. Implementing joint administration would take years at best, as the countries wrangle over jurisdiction of basic issues such as policing and taxes, said Alexander Gabuev, an Asia-focused researcher at think tank Moscow Carnegie Center.<\/p>\n
\u201cEveryone in Japan understands that Russia has no real incentives to make any meaningful concessions on the Kurils,\u201d he said. \u201cEveryone can live with the status quo but Abe and Putin want to create an impression that the two strongmen can sit down together and sort out all the problems.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
Mr. Putin is reaching out to Asia as he tries to shift Russia\u2019s strategic balance eastward in response to Western sanctions.<\/p>\n
As the Vladivostok conference kicked off, tens of thousands Russian and Chinese soldiers launched unprecedented joint military exercises along their shared border. At the conference, Mr. Putin revived the idea of a new railway connecting the entire Korean Peninsula to Russia\u2014a concept also backed by South Korea\u2019s leader, Moon Jae-in, who wants to reopen transportation links with North Korea\u2014and touted Russian railways as an export channel for Mongolian minerals.<\/p>\n
The Kremlin hopes Asian investment will help offset the Western funding lost as the U.S. and Europe sanction Russia for its alleged interference in elections, alleged use of chemical weapons to target adversaries and its interference in Ukraine.<\/p>\n
Mr. Abe said cooperation deals announced by Japanese companies in Vladivostok are just a taster of investment that could flow to Russia after a peace treaty. Used Japanese cars already dominate the streets of Vladivostok, while nearby gas fields supply supercooled fuel to Japanese power plants.<\/p>\n
\u201cJust think of the potential that we can achieve,\u201d he told Mr. Putin. \u201cHelp us reach a peace accord.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Soviet Union declared war on Japan in August 1945, a week before Japan\u2019s surrender. After seizing the islands it expelled their Japanese residents. Japan signed a formal peace treaty in 1951 with the U.S. and other Allies, but left out the Soviet Union because of the disputed territories.<\/p>\n
The islands have since become symbols of national sovereignty in both nations, raising the political cost of any concession.<\/p>\n
Though the islands are mostly barren, populated by only about 10,000 people, the adjacent waters contain plentiful fishing stocks, and possible deposits of oil and gas.<\/p>\n
Wall Street Journal<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Japanese and Russian leaders agreed to study joint rule of a group of contested islands, offering a road map to re-establishing full diplomatic relations after more than seven decades. Economic and political ties between the two countries have been limited by Russia\u2019s occupation of the islands, which lie to the northeast of Japan\u2019s main islands, in the closing days of… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":120,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1731","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-article"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/eastasiaandoceaniablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1731","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/eastasiaandoceaniablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/eastasiaandoceaniablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/eastasiaandoceaniablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/120"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/eastasiaandoceaniablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1731"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/eastasiaandoceaniablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1731\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1736,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/eastasiaandoceaniablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1731\/revisions\/1736"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/eastasiaandoceaniablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1731"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/eastasiaandoceaniablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1731"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/eastasiaandoceaniablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1731"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}