The Great Russo-Japanese Detente

Despite the ongoing crisis in Ukraine, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe appears committed to playing nice with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Specifically, Abe wants Putin to visit Tokyo before the end of the year. The Japanese leader has spared no diplomatic effort in accomplishing this goal, starting with a June 24 phone call, when Abe and Putin spoke for the first time since they met on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum last November.

Shotaro Yachi, head of the National Security Secretariat, held talks with Nikolai Patrushev, secretary of Russia’s Security Council, in early July to discuss a possible summit meeting. Japanese Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida is also expected pay a visit to Moscow in late August with the same objective. Meanwhile, Japanese officials are doing their best to arrange a meeting between Abe and Putin on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly in New York this September so Abe can formally invite Putin to visit Japan.

Abe wants to pursue dialogue with Russia to resolve the dispute over the Northern Territories – the four southernmost islands of the Kuril Islands chain, which are disputed between Japan and Russia. On a broader level, though, Abe seeks to prevent a Sino-Russia alignment. The Yomiuri Shimbun reports that at the Group of Seven (G7) working dinner held on June 7, Abe stated, “We should not let China and Russia team up. Therefore, dialogues with Russia are necessary.”

However, any positive change in Japan’s attitude towards Russia without a concomitant improvement in the situation in Ukraine risks disapproval from the United States. The same Yomiuri story notes that President Barack Obama remained silent following Abe’s comment, even while many of the European leaders present agreed with Abe.

Abe is aware of the risk his Russia diplomacy runs when it comes to potentially alienating the United States. Abe has agreed to impose sanctions on Russia in line with the rest of the G7 nations, while other U.S. allies, such as South Korea, have not. More recently, Yachi advised Abe not to attend Russia’s May 9 ceremony to commemorate the 70th anniversary of Russia’s victory over Nazi Germany because of concerns about the reaction in Washington.

Yet, while displaying such sensitivity to the risks and minimizing the damage where he can, Abe is still continuing with his policy of engagement. He even went off script during the U.S.-Japan summit meeting with Obama on April 28 to emphasize that dialogue with Putin would continue: “Though Asia’s balance has been kept because of the Japan-U.S. alliance, if China and Russia team up to reinforce their anti-Japan activities, Asia will be destabilized. It should not [be allowed to] occur that the two superpowers, China and Russia, will unnecessarily promote confrontational stances.” 

There was a time during the Cold War when the U.S., still occupying Okinawa, could direct Japan’s Russia policy. In 1956, U.S. pressure forced Japan to scrap a compromise with the Soviet Union in which two of the four disputed islands would have been returned to Japan. Then, as a U.S. dependent, Japan had no choice but to acquiesce, and put off a resolution with its giant northern neighbor.

Compared to those bygone years, Japan today has the potential to pursue a more independent foreign policy. And with Tokyo increasingly worried about a rising China, cooperation with other states in the region to balance China is of the utmost priority. This can be seen in Japan’s relationship not only with Russia, but also with Australia, India, Vietnam, the Philippines, and, of course, the United States.

As such, there are complicated international considerations in any sort of Japanese rapprochement with Russia. But equally important, domestic considerations also can limit Abe’s room to maneuver.

In Youngshik Bong’s analysis “Flashpoints at Sea?: Legitimization Strategy and East Asian Island Disputes,” he finds a cyclical pattern in Japan’s negotiations with Russia, which has repeated itself three times. Talks in the first period (1985-91), were initiated by Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev and Japanese Prime Minister Yasuhiro Nakasone, but fell apart due to Gorbachev’s leadership crisis and a lack of political will in Japan. In the second period (1991-96), Boris Yeltsin’s leadership was key, until domestic circumstances forced him to cancel his 1993 visit to Tokyo. The third cycle (1997-2001) was spurred by Ryutaro Hashimoto, but again failed when Hashimoto resigned in 1998 due to domestic considerations.

Bong argues that one of the major impediments to territorial resolution, a key prerequisite to any lasting geopolitical reconciliation, is Japanese and Russian political elites’ concern about the negative impact that a compromise on the territorial issue would have on their domestic standing. While the salience of the issue to the general Japanese electorate may be fading as the Japanese forcibly removed from the Northern Territories age, the emotional politics surrounding the islands is a Pandora’s box nobody wants to open.

And while Abe and his ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) appear untouchable in Japan’s current stale and moribund domestic political environment, there is no way to predict whether he can maintain his hold on power long enough to see any major initiative vis-à-vis Russia come to fruition. The same can be said of Putin and his leadership.

On the Russian side, Russia is also engaging in its own “pivot to Asia,” motivated in the long-term by its desire to diversify its economic relationships and develop its Far East, and accelerated in the short-term by its deteriorating relationship with the U.S. and Europe since the crisis in Ukraine erupted. Most of Russia’s “pivot to Asia” has been focused on Beijing – which, as noted earlier, prompts concern in Japan. But thankfully for Japan, Putin appears open to dialogue. At a June 20 meeting with foreign news agencies, Putin said Russia and Japan need dialogue because “it is possible to resolve any diplomatic problem.”

However, just because Putin is ready to play Abe’s game, it does not mean Japan has an easy path ahead. Japan has a moral obligation to uphold Ukraine’s territorial integrity, but there is also a self-serving aspect – Japan can hardly press for peaceful resolution of sovereignty issues in the East and South China Seas, and at the same time stand by in silence while Russia uses force to violate that very norm in Eastern Europe.Abe reiterated this commitment when in early June, during a time of escalating violence in eastern Ukraine, he visited Kiev and held a joint press conference with Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko to show Japan’s support for the battered nation. Abe promised “Japan … will do everything possible for a peaceful settlement to the problems facing Ukraine.” One can only wonder what trick Abe has up his sleeve that will allow him to simultaneously appease Russia and Ukraine – as well as Ukraine’s American and European backers.