Abe’s Early Christmas Presents for Putin in Yamaguchi

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has portrayed Russian President Vladimir Putin’s visit to Japan on December 15-16 as a major success, describing the meetings in Yamaguchi and Tokyo as a “crucial step forward toward a peace treaty.” In reality, however, the Japanese leader will be sorely disappointed.

From Tokyo’s perspective, the main purpose of the visit was to achieve progress in resolving the countries’ territorial dispute. This relates to the status of four islands – known as the Northern Territories in Japan, the Southern Kurils in Russia – that were occupied by the Soviet Union at the end of World War II. Japan’s continued insistence on the return of these islands has prevented the conclusion of a peace treaty.

With a view to ending this impasse, in May 2016 Abe announced a “new approach” to relations with Russia. The purpose of this policy is to use economic cooperation in eight key areas to create a positive dynamic in the bilateral relationship. It is then hoped that this will facilitate a territorial breakthrough.

Putin’s December visit to Japan was presented as the potential culmination of this plan. In particular, it was anticipated that, during informal one-on-one discussions in Yamaguchi, Abe’s home prefecture, the Japanese leader could convince his Russian counterpart to agree to a framework territorial deal. Abe himself raised expectations by telling reporters, “I have a sense that we are moving toward a breakthrough in the stalled peace treaty negotiations.” There were even rumors that the Japanese government would call snap elections in January 2017 to capitalize on the success of the summit.

Compared with these high hopes, the results of the visit for Japan were dismal. To begin with, Putin showed little interest in engaging in serious territorial talks. He arrived in Yamaguchi more than two hours late and, when told by his host of the fatigue-relieving qualities of the local hot springs, he joked that it would be better if they did not tire themselves out.

In terms of concrete output, the Yamaguchi summit delivered no overall joint statement on the territorial and peace treaty issues. Instead, the only agreement of apparent substance was to begin discussions of joint development of the disputed islands. This looks impressive superficially since the indication that this would occur under a special legal framework suggests that Japanese companies could operate on the islands without tacitly acknowledging Russian sovereignty. It therefore appears to be a Russian concession.

In fact, however, it is unlikely that these talks on joint development will lead anywhere. Creating a special economic zone that is neither under Russian nor Japanese jurisdiction is an extremely difficult task. A similar agreement to discuss joint development was reached in 1998 but these talks achieved nothing. In addition, it is far from clear that the Russian side is really willing to compromise on the issue of legal jurisdiction. In particular, even before leaving Yamaguchi, Yurii Ushakov, Putin’s aide, told the Russian media that joint development would only be conducted under Russian law.

Japan was therefore diplomatically outplayed. Russia gave up only the agreement to talk about joint development, plus some vague comments by Putin about the importance of a peace treaty. In exchange, Russia was rewarded with $2.5 billion in economic deals, especially in the energy sector, and a commitment to establish a $1 billion joint investment fund. Although these deals are supposedly mutually beneficial, it is widely known that the Japanese government felt it necessary to place strong pressure on the country’s banks and trading houses in order to secure their participation. Separately, Japan unilaterally agreed to loosen visa requirements for Russian visitors.

Unimpressed by these results and Abe’s claims of success, 54.3 percent of the Japanese public took a negative view of the Putin visit, according to a Kyodo poll. The support rate for the Abe government also fell by 5.9 percent.

Given this apparent failure, it might be expected that Abe would abandon his “new approach” to Russia. This is unlikely. Abe is a politician with passions and one of these is undoubtedly for normalizing relations with Russia. This derives from Abe’s sense of duty to his late father, who served as foreign minister during the 1980s and devoted the last of his political energy to the pursuit of a peace deal with Moscow. Indeed, it is this family connection that explains the decision to host the summit in Yamaguchi. This is where Abe’s father is buried and, while awaiting Putin’s late arrival, the Japanese leader prayed at his father’s grave.

This personal motivation is backed up by underlying considerations of national security. This is the view that Japan must commit to courting Russia to prevent relations between Moscow and Beijing from becoming ever closer. The concern here is that, if Russia becomes too dependent on China, Beijing will induce Moscow to abandon its neutral stance and directly support China’s activities in the East and South China Seas. This would be to the detriment of Japan’s national interests.

Since Japan will remain suspicious of China and since Abe has a chance to remain prime minister until 2021, neither of these factors is likely to change soon. This means that the positive trend in Japan-Russia relations is almost certain to continue into 2017 and beyond. This will include discussions on further economic cooperation, plus the revival of security talks in the “2+2” format between the countries’ foreign and defence ministers. These were last held in November 2013 but suspended following the outbreak of the Ukraine crisis. There is also the prospect of Abe once again visiting Vladivostok in Russia’s Far East, as he did in September 2016.

That Abe is unlikely to be diverted from this path will be a matter of serious concern for those in the West who wish to diplomatically isolate Putin’s Russia. To counteract this, the Japanese government will reiterate that they will maintain economic sanctions on Russia due to its continued involvement in Ukraine. In effect, however, Japan has already broken ranks. By becoming the first G7 capital to host Putin since the annexation of Crimea and by signing a series of economic agreements, Tokyo has demonstrated that the G7 is not united. This is certainly how the visit was interpreted in Russia, where Leonid Slutskii, head of the Duma committee on international affairs, described the Abe-Putin summit as “a genuine breakthrough in the G7 sanctions blockade.”

In conclusion, while Japan gained little from Putin’s December visit, Russia obtained bilateral economic benefits without corresponding territorial concessions, and also demonstrated the faltering nature of G7 efforts to isolate Russia. All in all, Christmas came early for Putin in Yamaguchi.