Japan’s relations with Russia are taking a decidedly businesslike turn, as the countries put economic imperatives ahead of a long-standing territorial dispute over islands off Hokkaido.
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on Sunday headed to Moscow on the first leg of an “economic diplomacy” tour to Russia, Turkey and the Middle East aimed at building business ties and possibly reaching a breakthrough with Moscow.
Japan and Russia have yet to sign a peace treaty formally ending hostilities from World War II thanks to a group of four islands north of Hokkaido that were captured by Russian forces at the war’s end. Yet, the legacy of antagonism over the islands was utterly absent from a forum of businessmen who gathered earlier this month in one of Tokyo’s poshest hotels to drum up Japanese investments in the Russia’s Far East island of Sakhalin.
The discussions of huge energy projects planned or already built suggest that economic prerogatives are overriding other concerns as both sides focus on their mutual interest in boosting trade and investment. With rival China also pursuing closer energy cooperation, Japan has more incentive than ever to put historical roadblocks aside and get down to business.
Abe said recently he will seek to resume stalled talks on the territorial dispute when he meets Russian President Vladimir Putin, the first official visit by a Japanese prime minister to Moscow in a decade. He told the Diet he hoped to build “new momentum” and set a future course for relations during his visit.
He will also visit Turkey, where Japan is hoping to seal a deal to export nuclear technology, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.
An actual deal on the disputed islands is unlikely during Abe’s visit to Moscow, said Kazuhiko Togo, a former senior diplomat who heads the Institute for World Affairs at Kyoto Sangyo University.
However, the meeting will be “extremely important,” he said. “Putin and Abe would gauge each other whether this is a counterpart trustworthy enough to make crucial and extremely difficult decisions together. If they succeed, then the future of our relationship would be in good hands. If not, then it would not be promising.”
Former Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori, who often acts as a senior statesman on Tokyo’s behalf, visited Moscow in February. He says he is hoping the leaders will agree on building a new relationship and meeting more often.
At issue is Japan’s longtime insistence that it must get back all four of the disputed islands – Etorofu, Kunashiri, Shikotan and the Habomai islets, Mori told Kyodo News.
A compromise is needed, Mori said.
“If the stance is ’absolutely four islands’ should be returned, the current stalemate will just continue,” Kyodo quoted Mori as saying.
Japan needs to respond to Moscow’s overtures reasonably soon, Togo said.
“In my experience, if the Japanese government doesn’t react within a year the window will close,” he said.
Since taking office in late December, Abe has sought to highlight Tokyo’s interest in building closer ties with Southeast Asia to help drive economic growth and offset the fallout from tensions with Beijing over the Senkakus row. He says “economic diplomacy” is a priority for reviving the sluggish economy.
After Russia, he is due to visit Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Turkey, where negotiations are under way for a major nuclear power technology deal, officials say.
Russia’s Far East is keen to attract more Japanese investment in its energy sector and in construction of infrastructure it needs for closer trade ties with the rest of the Asia-Pacific region.
Resource-scarce Japan, likewise, is an eager customer for Russian natural gas, coal, timber and other natural resources.
“From the 1990s, Japan has been providing significant support to RussiaÅfs energy sector,” Takashi Nishioka, president of the Association for Trade with Russia and the Newly Independent States, said in an address to the forum in Tokyo Wednesday.
“Prime Minister Abe’s visit to Moscow will pave the way for greater Japan-Russia economic cooperation,” he said.
Japan, the world’s biggest consumer of natural gas, imports 39 percent of its liquefied natural gas needs from Sakhalin I, a huge, multinational project between Russia’s Rosneft, Japan’s Sodeco, ExxonMobil and other major partners that pooled resources to exploit gas reserves found off the island’s coast in the 1970s and 1980s.
The closure of most of Japan’s nuclear power plants following the disaster in Fukushima has boosted demand for LNG and other conventional fuels.
In 2012, imports by Tokyo Electric Power Co. from Sakhalin rose to 3 million tons a year from the 2 million it had been importing since 2009.
“The Sakhalin project will be of even greater importance as an energy source in the future,” said Hitoshi Nishizawa of Tokyo Electric Co.’s Fuel and Power Company, JapanÅfs biggest power utility.
The sensitive environment, harsh northern climate and seismic activity in the region, which lies right along the “Ring of Fire,” call for special technology and equipment from global suppliers, he said, noting that Japan is supplying pipes for the project.
The Sakhalin project is creating “a whole range of business opportunities for the region,” said James Taylor, president of Exxon Neftegas Ltd.
Apart from oil and gas, participants outlined plans to expand port facilities to accommodate huge post-Panamax freighters and very large tankers and to build rail links between Sakhalin and the Eurasian mainland and with Japan and between the Russian Far East and North America, via the Bering Strait.
Japan has equipment and technology well suited for power grids in the Russian Far East that might connect to Hokkaido, said Sergey N. Tolstoguzov, chief of Russian utility RAO Energeticheskiye sistemy Vostoka OAO.
“It is a good match for cooperation,”h he said.
Elaine Kurtenbach, AP, April 29, 2013
http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2013/04/29/national/leaders-likely-to-put-isles-dispute-on-back-burner-to-talk-business/#.UYTAakpOj1U
Putin mentions even split of disputed territory in talks with Abe: source
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MOSCOW (Kyodo) — Russian President Vladimir Putin has mentioned to Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe that Russia has previously settled some of its border issues with other countries by splitting the disputed areas evenly, a Japanese delegation source said Tuesday.
Putin, however, did not touch on the past settlements clearly in connection with a long-standing territorial dispute between Russia and Japan over a group of four islands when he met with Abe in Moscow on Monday, according to the source, but the remarks may be interpreted as a potential approach that the president has in mind to resolve the row.
Putin, who is keen to settle the dispute over the Russian-controlled islands off northern Japan and sign a postwar bilateral peace treaty, has told Abe that Moscow resolved its border dispute with China in 2008 by evenly dividing the contested islands on the Amur River, the source said.
Putin also made a reference to how his country used this kind of land-splitting approach to settle its maritime border dispute with Norway, the source said.
Tokyo and Moscow remain at odds over the ownership of the islands — Etorofu, Kunashiri, Shikotan and the Habomai islet group — which are known as the Northern Territories in Japan and the Southern Kurils in Russia.
Abe and Putin said in a joint statement released after their meeting that they will instruct their foreign ministries to “accelerate negotiations to work out a solution acceptable to both sides over the peace treaty issue.”
Equally dividing the Northern Territories would mean drawing a border across Etorofu with four-fifths of the island’s area in the northern half and the remaining part of the island, Kunashiri, Shikotan and Habomai in the southern half.
A plan to split the total space of the four islands, seized by the Soviet Union in 1945, in half also surfaced during the administration of Prime Minister Taro Aso in 2008 to 2009.
The negotiations on the territorial dispute have made almost no progress in recent years and a wide gap remains between Tokyo and Moscow.
The Japanese government has maintained its position of seeking the return of all four islands, with Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga reiterating in his news conference Tuesday that negotiations will begin based on the understanding that they will all be returned to Japan.
Russia, for its part, has opposed making compromises beyond the 1956 Japan-Soviet Joint Declaration, which states that two of the four islands, Shikotan and Habomai, which are much smaller in size, will be handed over to Japan after a peace treaty is signed.
Last year, Putin expressed to reporters his readiness to make a compromise in settling the territorial issue.
Kyodo News, May 1, 2013
http://mainichi.jp/english/english/newsselect/news/20130501p2g00m0dm029000c.htm