Russian-Japanese relations

Moskow and Tokyo: Is a Rapprochement Possible?

Tokyo’s decision to bring the theme of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s visit to the fore, as well as State Duma Speaker Sergey Naryshkin’s meeting with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe are both signs of a likely warming in bilateral relations, Russian analysts believe. Japan cannot but feel uneasy about the latest rapprochement in Russian-Chinese contacts. Also, it would like to demonstrate its independence to Washington.

The Japanese Pivot

Japan suddenly said that it is inviting Vladimir Vladimirovich for a visit, and not just for the sake of small talk but...to conclude a peace treaty and resolve the territorial issue:

No way until Japan have claims in Kuril islands

George1 wrote:No way until Japan have claims in Kuril islands

Then too bad for them.

KURIL ISLANDS Dispute will take more time to resolve . No i don't think Japan will pivot to russia . Japan provides critical location for yanks to launch missiles at russia's far east . Maybe japs are getting worried by seeing warm Russia-sino relations .They have not lifted sanctions yet too .

George1 wrote:No way until Japan have claims in Kuril islands

Russia's position has not changed--we are not prepared to give the islands to the Japanese in exchange for a peace treaty: the signing of that document is not so important to us that we would make territorial concessions. Therefore we can carefully conclude that Japan's position has changed. It may be that Japan decided to sign the peace treaty on Russia's terms and finally part with the islands which were under its control for a few decades of the 20th century.

http://fortruss.blogspot.ru/2015/05/the-japanese-pivot.html

We are the primary reason they have a defence force so I doubt it.

Vladimir79 wrote:We are the primary reason they have a defence force so I doubt it.

I'm also doubtful, the Japanese refuse to have a peace treaty signed with Russia or whatever, because they still believe they were the victims of WW2, not the millions of people raped and slaughtered in East Asia and Indo-China, which is why the US has been struggling mightly to get South Korea and Japan to cooperate militarily.

US pressuring Japan over Tokyo's policy towards closer ties with Russia

The US presidential administration has started explicitly showing its discontent over the Japanese government’s policy in regard to Russia, the Kyodo news agency said in a commentary published on Monday...According to the agency, at talks in the White House on April 28, the Japanese prime minister "noted the importance of dialogue with Moscow," and said he wanted "the visit of the Russian president to Japan to be held this year...."Abe said in his greeting message to the participants of the third Russia-Japan forum that opened in Tokyo on May 21 that he was ready to raise relations with Russia "to a new level."

Japan's former Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama, who visited Crimea in March, called on Shinzo Abe to lift restrictive measures that Tokyo along with other Western countries imposed on Moscow after the Black Sea peninsula joined Russia.

"I think Japan should take a step back from the economic sanctions. Sadly, during the recent G7 summit Prime Minister Shinzo Abe went in favor of the decision to extend the economic sanctions against Russia for six months. I hope that the Prime Minister understands that was undesirable for Japan," Yukio Hatoyama told RIA Novosti.

According to the former prime minister, Shinzo Abe should re-evaluate his stance on the restrictive measures, which hurt bilateral relations.

"I expect Russian-Japanese relations to improve if Tokyo does not support sanctions or lifts them," the politician said. Hatoyama, who served as Japan's prime minister from September 2009 to June 2010, has long called on Tokyo to conduct foreign policy independent of the US and opposed anti-Russian sanctions.

Western countries, including Japan, imposed several rounds of sanctions on Moscow following Crimea's reunification with Russia, which they claim was against the norms of international law. But Yukio Hatoyama does not share this view.

Despite fierce criticism in Japan, the former prime minister embarked on a three-day visit to Crimea in March.
During the visit he urged Japanese nationals from all walks of life to visit the Russian peninsula and see with their own eyes what life there was like and how different this picture was from the one painted in the media.

Hatoyama also noted that while in Crimea he became convinced that the 2014 referendum was in line with both the Ukrainian Constitution and the norms of international law. He also reiterated his view that Japan should reject its sanctions policy as a first step towards improved relations with Russia.

http://sputniknews.com/politics/20150620/1023627553.html#ixzz3dcKO8hyi

Russian Nuclear-Capable Bombers Circumnavigate Japan

On Tuesday, January 26, Japan’s Ministry of Defense revealed that the Japanese Air Self-Defense Force had scrambled jets in response to two Russian Tu-95MS “Bear” strategic bombers near its air space. According to a map released by the Japanese government, the two Russian bombers approached Japanese airspace from Russia’s Primorsky province, flying over the Sea of Japan, and eventually flew along the perimeter of Japan’s territorial airspace, encompassing the four main Japanese islands of Honshu, Kyushu, Shikoku, and Hokkaido, before returning to Russia.


The incident isn’t the first incident involving Russian strategic bombers near Japanese airspace by any means. Moscow regularly conducts such activities and Japan scrambles fighters to ensure that its territorial airspace isn’t violated.

However, the Tu-95′s flight path in this instance—along the perimeter of Japan’s islands—appears more provocative than usual. Generally, Russian bombers fly long-distance runs. For instance, Russian Tu-95s have been known to fly the length of the Ryukyu Island chain before returning to Russian airspace. (I discussed one such incident here at The Diplomat in late 2013.) Last March, Japan intercepted and escorted a Tu-95 over the Korean Strait between South Korea and Kyushu.

Japanese premier set to settle peace treaty issue jointly with Putin

Meanwhile, Japan’s Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga later told reporters during a regular news conference that Tokyo’s basic stance on the issue remains unchanged

TOKYO, November 14. /TASS/. Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said he was full of determination to solve the Russia-Japan peace treaty issue together with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

"I am full of determination to solve the peace treaty issue jointly with President Putin and intend to reach serious progress in negotiations on the matter," the Kyodo news agency on Wednesday quoted the Japanese leader as saying before his departure to Singapore, where he would hold talks with the Russian president.

Meanwhile, Japan’s Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga later told reporters during a regular news conference that Tokyo’s basic stance on the issue remains unchanged.

"As far as the upcoming top-level talks are concerned, I would like to abstain from comments on the matter. However, we expect to hold intense consultations on the basis of our basic stance - the issue of sovereignty over the four northern islands [Russia’s Southern Kurils] comes first, followed by signing of a peace treaty. This stance remains unchanged," he said.

During the meeting with Putin, Abe would put forward a proposal to speed up negotiations on the Kuril issue with an aim of signing a framework agreement in 2019 (possibly, during Putin’s visit to the G20 summit in Japan in June), Japan’s Mainichi newspaper reported last Saturday, citing Japanese government sources.

Since the mid-20th century, Russia and Japan have been holding consultations in order to clinch a peace treaty as a follow-up to World War II. The Kuril Islands issue remains the sticking point since after WWII the islands were handed over to the Soviet Union while Japan has laid claims to the four southern islands. In 1956, the two countries signed a common declaration on ending the state of war and restoring diplomatic and all other relations, however, a peace treaty has still not been reached. Moscow has stated many times that Russia’s sovereignty over the islands could not be questioned.

During the Eastern Economic Forum’s plenary session on September 12, Putin suggested concluding a peace treaty between Moscow and Tokyo without any preconditions before the end of the year. Commenting on the initiative, the Japanese Foreign Ministry told TASS that Tokyo would engage in talks with Russia on the peace treaty only after the territorial dispute is settled.


More:
http://tass.com/politics/1030748

kvs wrote:Japan is like the Baltics and Bandera-tards.  They refuse to accept any guilt for WWII.   Even though they conducted sick
Mengele style experimentation (Unit 731).   Their whole position on the Kuriles is part and parcel of this denial.   They
lost these islands much like Germany lost a lot of its land.   Such is the price of war.   Japan, being the loser, does not
get to set the standard and demand the return of its lost lands.  

The USSR made an unreasonable compromise during the 1950s.   This only gave Japan, a US protectorate, more "bravery"
to go after all of its losses.   Russia should outright state to Japan that it will never negotiate the results of WWII.   Japan
has to live with the consequences of its actions.   But instead it produces some of the worst revisionist textbooks on the
planet.

Obviously a half-Ukrainian writing this.


Japan did a lot to end the Western colonization of Asia.

They were nothing like the Banderists. Not saints either, but not as bad as Germany.

You forgot that when the U.S.S.R. attacked Japan, it literally broke a Non-Aggression Treaty it had signed with that country a few years earlier. It was the Soviets who broke a treaty, not Japan.

Japan did not stab the Soviet Union in the back during the Great Fatherland War.

Also, it is claimed that many Japanese prisoners-of-war perished in the Soviet captivity after the war. I do not know how many but in the Western sources it is claimed something around 100 000 or 200 000.


I am not saying that Russia should give these islands back, as that would be a bit dangerous due to the significant U.S. military presence in Japan, but I give the Japanese their due credit.

Funny how things go... it was the Americans in Yalta that demanded that the Soviets join the war in the Pacific, because the Americans feared that with the end of the war in Europe everyone might stop fighting except them and the Japanese and they would get stuck fighting a war that the UK was in no condition to be much help in fighting at the time.

Just the same as the lines in Europe were largely drawn up by all the allies... Britain, France, US, and the Soviets, but only the Soviets get the blame for their "occupation" of europe... if the US forces had left then the Soviets probably would have withdrawn too.

Japanese forces were even more brutal than the colonial forces before and after WWII... for most occupied countries in asia went from french or british or dutch or other colonial rule to japanese occupation and then back to French or british or dutch colonial rule usually enforced by Japanese troops...

The Japanese treated other asians the way the Germans treated the Soviets... a disease to be exterminated to clear land for use by their kind. Might keep a few for labourers though.

Putin: Russia interested in peace treaty with Japan on basis of 1956 Declaration

Trade and economic relations were a priority at talks with Abe, Putin stressed


MOSCOW, January 22. /TASS/. Russia has confirmed interest in signing a peace treaty with Japan on the basis of the 1956 Declaration, President Vladimir Putin said after talks with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on Tuesday.

"Naturally, we discussed the outlook for concluding a peace treaty," Putin said. "We reaffirmed our interest in signing this document."

"At the meeting in Singapore (in November 2018) we agreed to proceed with the negotiating process on the basis of the joint declaration the Soviet Union and Japan signed in 1956, which above all envisages the conclusion of a peace treaty," Putin recalled.

He remarked that at Tuesday’s meeting the two sides "spent a lot of time" on the issue of the peace treaty. The two countries’ foreign ministers were commissioned to coordinate this work. The first round of negotiations, he said, was held in Moscow on January 14. The results of the negotiations in the Kremlin were reported to the Russian and Japanese leaders.

"Let me point out that painstaking work is ahead for us to create conditions for achieving mutually acceptable solutions," Putin said. "The task is to ensure long-term and all-round development of Russian-Japanese relations at the proper level."

He pointed out that a future solution the negotiators were yet to propose "should be acceptable to the people of Russia and Japan and supported by the public at large in both countries."

For the time being the parties agreed to step up joint economic activity on the South Kuril islands in the five authorized spheres: aquaculture, greenhouse farming, wind energy, tourism and garbage processing.

In conclusion Putin thanked Abe and all other participants in the negotiations for what he described as "useful and meaningful exchange of opinion."

"I believe that this visit will certainly benefit bilateral relations and take us closer to resolving the key issues of our cooperation," he said.

Russian-Japanese relations

Vladimir Putin said that trade and economic cooperation between Moscow and Tokyo was given high priority during talks with Shinzo Abe.

"If we talk in general, the cooperation between Russia and Japan is moving positively on the economic track, and there are obvious achievements. However, in our common opinion with Shinzo Abe, a qualitative shift has not yet occurred, and the potential of cooperation between the two countries is not fully explored. Therefore we have discussed the idea of developing more ambitious plans to expand economic ties in key areas, from trade to investment and technological cooperation," Putin told reporters after the talks with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.

According to Putin, "in the near future it would be possible to set a goal to increase the trade turnover between Russia and Japan 1.5-fold - at least up to $30 bln."

According to the Russian Federal Customs Service, in 2017 the trade turnover between Russia and Japan amounted to $18.3 bln (almost 14% growth over 2016). The trade turnover in January-October 2018 increased by another 18.2% year-on-year and amounted to over $17.5 bln. Japan in 2017 ranked 9th among the largest foreign trade partners of Russia. According to the Ministry of Finance of Japan, Russia in the same year occupied the 13th place in export trade in Japan and 20th in import.

Speaking of cooperation between Moscow and Tokyo in specific sectors of the economy, Putin noted, in particular, expanding cooperation in the field of transport and infrastructure. "The development of regular transport links along the Northern Sea Route for LNG exports to Japan and the states of the Asia-Pacific region is seen as promising," he added.

Putin noted close cooperation between Russia and Japan in the humanitarian sphere, in particular, the successful Russian-Japanese Cross Year of Culture, which was launched in May 2018. He recalled that Russia and Japan are co-organizers of the International Theater Olympics, which will be held in the second half of 2019 and will gather creative teams from 30 countries.


More:
http://tass.com/politics/1041225

Russian-Japanese projects are being implemented in the Far East

This year, the "Plan of Cooperation for Transforming Russia into a Leading Country with a Favorable Living Environment and Innovative Reform of Industry and Economy" proposed by the Prime Minister of Japan to the President of Russia is five years old. All eight points of the document have already been filled with concrete deeds.

Good that economic ties continue to be strengthened.

I remember during the 1990s there was a huge fear in the west... in the white european west, that somehow with the collapse of Russia that Japan might take advantage of the situation and use their management skills and technology together with Russian expertise in Aerospace technology to return Japan to the forefront of military aircraft design... ie Japanese money and technology and skills together with a cheap educated workforce in the former Soviet Union might create an Asian rival for Europe and European companies.

I didn't think much of it at the time because even in the state they were in the Russians expected to be treated as equals because they knew their potential, and the Japanese, like the US and EU are incapable of seeing Russia as anything but the losers of the cold war.

Wtf?? Japan continuously proves itself a colonized puppet state.

Artyom Lukin
@ArtyomLukin
Japan takes part in the US-led Sea Breeze exercise in the Black Sea that Russia views as provocative. By contrast, South Korea declined the US invitation to join the the drills. Expect more Russian warplanes probing Japanese air defenses this year.

https://twitter.com/ArtyomLukin/status/1410276558514839553?s=20

Well, Russia is building up mil assets in Kuril islands. Better they send more snooping devices on those islands and troll the Japs.

Build a large inflatable Godzilla and show it to them.

Hole wrote:Build a large inflatable Godzilla and show it to them.

Hole wrote:Build a large inflatable Godzilla and show it to them.

I thought war crimes were illegal?

Russia has prepared proposals for joint work with Japan in the Kuril Islands, 23.07.2021.

Putin: Russia has prepared unique proposals for joint work with Japan in the Kuril Islands.

MOSCOW, July 23 - RIA Novosti. Vladimir Putin asked Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin to focus on the prospects for joint activities with the Japanese in the Kuril Islands.

In the coming days, the head of the Cabinet will go on a working trip to the Far East , where he will discuss resettlement from emergency housing, the situation in healthcare and other issues.

"I ask you to pay special attention to the situation in the Kuril Islands. You know that we have been working with our Japanese partners for a long time to create the necessary conditions for participants in economic activity. We discussed this with you. There are good developments. You have very good proposals. ", - said the president at an operational meeting with permanent members of the Security Council, referring to Mishustin.

He stressed that some of the initiatives are unprecedented.

"I am saying this on purpose in order to intrigue the participants in economic activity. Well, I hope that after your trip, assessing the situation on the spot, we will finally formulate these proposals and we will definitely implement them," Putin concluded.

Relations between Moscow and Tokyo have been overshadowed for several decades by the absence of a peace treaty following World War II. One of the conditions for his imprisonment, the Japanese put the return to them of the four islands of the southern Kuril ridge - Kunashir , Shikotan , Iturup and Habomai , Russia does not agree with this.

Despite the disagreements, in 2016 the governments of the two countries began to implement joint economic activities in the South Kuriles. The main directions were: growing sea and agricultural products, tourism, waste processing and wind farms. Due to the pandemic, the process has stalled.

https://ria.ru/20210723/kurily-1742552009.html

The Kremlin responded to Japan's protest over Mishustin's trip to the Kuril Islands, 26.07.2021

MOSCOW, July 26 - RIA Novosti. Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin visits those Russian regions that he considers necessary, said the presidential press secretary Dmitry Peskov .
So he commented on Japan's protest over the visit of the Prime Minister to Iturup .

The Kremlin spokesman also added that Mishustin is making trips to those areas, the development of which, "including in cooperation with our partners, will have a lot of work to do."

Answering a question about the conditions for concluding a peace treaty with Japan , Peskov noted that "he would prefer not to formulate any conditions so unequivocally - this is a very complex substance." However, according to him, it is this document that can put an end to the territorial dispute between Moscow and Tokyo.

"You know that over the years, including the President (Vladimir, - Ed.), Putin has been making significant efforts to reach this peace treaty," Peskov said.

The Russian position, as the presidential press secretary recalled, was repeatedly brought to the attention of Japanese colleagues during negotiations at various levels, including at the highest. This work, he stressed, will continue.

Today Mishustin began a working visit to the Far Eastern and Siberian federal districts.

Later, Japanese Deputy Foreign Minister Takeo Mori summoned Russian Ambassador Mikhail Galuzin to the Foreign Ministry because of the prime minister's trip to the "northern territories" - as Tokyo calls it the Russian islands Iturup, Kunashir , Shikotan and Habomai.

For many years, relations between Moscow and Tokyo have been overshadowed by the absence of a peace treaty, which was never concluded after the Second World War. The main obstacle is the question of the ownership of the Southern Kuriles (the islands of Kunashir , Shikotan , Iturup and the Habomai ridge ). Japan claims them, citing the bilateral 1855 Treaty on Trade and Frontiers.

In 1956, the USSR and Japan signed a joint declaration in which Moscow agreed to consider the possibility of transferring Habomai and Shikotan after the conclusion of a peace treaty. However, subsequent negotiations did not lead to anything.

The Kremlin has repeatedly stressed that Japan must first of all recognize the results of World War II, including Russia's sovereignty over the South Kuriles.

https://ria.ru/20210726/kurily-1742906476.html

Medvedev with another quip

Ex-Russian president suggests Japanese PM should ritually disembowel himself
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/jan/14/ex-russian-president-suggests-japanese-pm-should-ritually-disembowel-himself-dmitry-medvedev-fumio-kishida

On Saturday, Kishida said the G7 summit of major industrialised nations in Hiroshima in May should demonstrate a strong will to uphold international order and rule of law after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Medvedev said the nuclear statement showed “paranoia” towards Russia and “betrayed the memory of hundreds of thousands of Japanese who were burned in the nuclear fire of Hiroshima and Nagasaki” – a reference to the atomic bombs that the US dropped on Japan to force its surrender at the end of the second world war.

Rather than demanding US repentance, Kishida had shown he was “just a service attendant for the Americans”.

He said such shame could only be washed away by committing seppuku – a form of suicide by disembowelment, also known as hara-kiri – at a meeting of the Japanese cabinet after Kishida’s return.