ON SEPTEMBER 5, 2019, Russian president Vladimir Putin and Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe met for the twenty-seventh time at the Eastern Economic Forum in Vladivostok. The long-standing dispute over the Kuril Islands between Russia and Japan continued to be an issue, but the dialogue revealed a few interesting trends. Abe emphasized the “strategic importance” of strengthening political and economic relations with Russia as well as that of joint projects on the disputed isles, which could eventually help facilitate the conclusion of a peace treaty. Putin, for his part, also stressed the significance of bilateral documents signed during his visit to Japan. He asserted that expanding strategic communication, bilateral trade, and investment cooperation would bring Russian-Japanese relations to a new level. In this atmosphere, it would be possible to “find a compromise on the most difficult matters.” It appears that both parties hope that building a firm partnership could help solve the problem.

The territorial dispute over the islands, referred to as the Southern Kurils by Russia and the Northern Territories by Japan, arose when the isles were occupied by Soviet forces following Japan’s surrender at the end of World War II. The resulting disagreement over the islands’ sovereignty and the lack of a peace treaty have been a toxic influence on Russian-Japanese bilateral relations ever since. However, negotiations to resolve the dispute never move past the talking stage. What is really holding back progress?

THE POPULATIONS of both countries have lost faith in the matter ever reaching a productive resolution. According to recent polls, nearly three-quarters of Japanese do not believe any progress is achievable in negotiations, yet they should be continued in order to either “return” the territories to Japan (32.9 percent of respondents) or “compromise” on the transfer of the islands of Kunashir and Iturup immediately with talks over the other two islands in the future (43.5 percent). At the same time, the overwhelming majority of Russians (77 percent) are against even considering the transfer of the territories to Japan. The actual population of the Kuril Islands is itself almost wholly united against the notion (96 percent).

Experts argue that putting an end to disagreements with Russia over the islands would enable Abe’s government to pursue a more independent foreign policy line. This has been one of his key goals, especially in light of a proposed referendum on Article 9 of the Japanese constitution, which could have resulted in a reconsidering of roles and missions for Japan’s Self-Defense Forces. However, Abe’s withdrawal from the next election may drastically alter this calculus. Putting aside the possibility that the United States may attempt to intervene in signing a peace treaty between Russia and Japan, as it did in 1956, a strong relationship with one of the region’s largest actors would certainly help balance out nearby China’s growing and worrisome influence. This is something that Tokyo has been particularly concerned about in recent years, especially after China overtook Japan and became the second-largest economy in the world, ending the latter’s four-decade-long reign in the number two spot. Russia, for its part, could also use another solid partner in Asia to counter accusations that its recent “turn to the East” is in essence a turn to Beijing. The reality is that both could greatly benefit from this partnership. However, would ending this territorial tug of war necessarily lead to a breakthrough in bilateral relations?

The current dynamics between Russia and Japan present a chicken-and-egg dilemma: is it the territorial dispute that holds back the two from strengthening and diversifying their cooperation beyond exploiting natural resources and trading automobiles, or is it the ties themselves that need a major boost and a series of mutual concessions before there can be any progress in the dispute resolution? 

In this respect, it may be meaningful to draw on a case of another long-standing border issue in the region: the Sino-Soviet and later Sino-Russian dispute. That was successfully settled in two stages formally set forth in three major agreements of ratification: in 1991 for the eastern part of the border from the Pacific shore to Mongolia; in 1994 for the west from Mongolia to Kazakhstan, which was never a disputed territory so no complex negotiations were involved; and in 2004 for the three remaining isles of Bolshoy (Abagaitu) on the Argun River, and Tarabarov (Yinlong) and Bolshoy Ussuriisky (Heixiazi) on the Amur (Heilongjian) River near Khabarovsk.

IT MAY be argued that the two territorial disputes are, from the perspective of international law and otherwise, rather different. First, the Russian-Chinese dispute emerged as a part of a long history of bilateral relations, while the Russo-Japanese one is a result of the Second World War, during which China was an ally of the USSR and Japan was its enemy. Second, Japan is a close ally of the United States, and it does not intend to compromise these relations significantly in the near future. China has never been in such a position. Third, the Kurils have a significant Russian population. Finally, since Russia clearly states that the islands are a part of its territory, in case of a compromise settlement it would be hard to claim that it is merely a border delimitation, as was the case with China. Instead, it may look like a transfer of the territories to Japan. On the positive side, although there was a war between the USSR and Japan, there have never been border clashes afterwards, like between the USSR and the People’s Republic of China in 1969.

In more global terms, Sino-Russian border disagreements were, from the very beginning, about clarifying the border demarcation arrangements made in the mid-nineteenth century. The borders between the two were established by the Treaty of Peking concluded in 1860, in which China recognized the Russian Empire as master of lands on the left bank of Amur River and of those between the Ussuri River and the Pacific Ocean. However, as was often the case in the nineteenth century, the river was considered no man’s land, and, by extension, the islands located in it. In other words, the status of the islands remained undetermined. The three largest islands, just like most other smaller river islands, were unilaterally incorporated into Soviet territory at the end of 1920s, and given the Russian names of Bolshoy, Tarabarov, and Bolshoy Ussuriisky. After coming to power in 1949, the Communist government of China did not dispute the border, since the Soviet Union was a major partner and friend. But when tensions between Moscow and Beijing started to take their toll, Beijing insisted on border talks.

By 1964, the USSR agreed to divide the borders in accordance with the international law based on the thalweg principle—namely to identify them as going through the center of the main channel of any river. That meant that islands between the main channel and the Chinese bank should go to China. Yet the implementation of this decision became impossible when, in July of 1964, Mao Zedong claimed in a meeting with a delegation from the Japanese Socialist Party that “About a hundred years ago, the area to the east of [Lake] Baikal became Russian territory, and since then Vladivostok, Khabarovsk, Kamchatka, and other areas have been Soviet territory. We have not yet presented our account for this list.” This triggered a harsh reaction from Nikita Khrushchev, who ordered the withdrawal of the Soviet delegation from the talks. The two leaders parted ways in pursuit of their respective geopolitical ambitions. 1964, nonetheless, was start of negotiations that would last for over forty years.

Uncertainty was followed by open confrontation at the border in 1969, but the following decades demonstrated little progress. The situation finally shifted when Mikhail Gorbachev came to power with his policy of new thinking, which was aimed at reducing the military presence of the Soviet Union in the world. The three major obstacles Beijing saw in the way of normalizing relations with Moscow—Soviet troops in Mongolia, their extensive presence on the Sino-Soviet border, and support of Vietnam’s intervention in Cambodia—conveniently coincided with Gorbachev’s priorities. Removing these obstacles, along with the fact that China was then ostracized from the West following the suppression of the Tiananmen Square Protests, secured a smooth transition to a rapprochement between the two states.

The first of the three agreements on border demarcation was signed shortly before the collapse of the Soviet Union and ratified afterwards in 1992. The situation was complicated by the fact that other former Soviet republics shared the border with China, but the negotiations proceeded between the joint delegations of Russia, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, and Kyrgyzstan on the one side, and the Chinese delegation on the other. The islands of Bolshoy, Tarabarov, and Bolshoy Ussuriisky were deliberately left out from these talks, as well as the following phase of the painless negotiations in 1994 regarding the border from Mongolia to Kazakhstan, pushing them to the last phase. It still took ten to fourteen years from that point to finalize the demarcation. The disputed territory was divided approximately fifty-fifty, although a slightly larger territory went to Russia, with entire island of Tarabarov and parts of Bolshoy and Bolshoy Ussuriisky going to China. This successful resolution removed a potential point of contention and secured a decades-long, strategic partnership between Beijing and Moscow, which eventually facilitated the latter’s still-unfolding turn to the East.

Neither the treaty nor the dispute resolution created close ties between Moscow and Beijing. Instead, both served as a reflection of progress already achieved, and helped solidify a framework for future proactive cooperation. Over the period from 1991 to 2004, bilateral relations became qualitatively different from what they had been. The normalization grew into a full-blown comprehensive strategic partnership despite certain fears present in the political discourse in the early 1990s: Russia feared the harmful influence of another Communist regime, while China was wary of the uncertainty following the disintegration of the USSR and the chaos it caused in Russia, as well as of the possibility of Moscow making friends with Washington to distance itself from its Communist past. 

Nevertheless, avenues for mutually beneficial cooperation made the existing differences seem insignificant. A series of important bilateral documents followed. In 1994, a Joint Declaration called Sino-Russian relations “truly equal relations of good-neighbourliness, friendship and mutually advantageous cooperation based on the principles of peaceful coexistence.” In 1996 and 1997, two agreements on confidence-building in the military field and mutual reduction of military forces along the border areas were signed. Among other measures, Moscow and Beijing agreed to exchange information on the components of the armed forces and border troops deployed near the border; to refrain from military exercises directed against the other party; to limit the scale of military exercises; to reduce armed forces in the 100-kilometer zone on both sides of the border to agreed-upon limits; to not deploy river-going combat vessels from their navies in this zone; to invite observers to military exercises on a reciprocal basis, etc.

In June 1997, a special agreement on regular meetings of government leaders established a permanent structure of economic cooperation between Russia and China. The leaders of the two countries, worried about the United States’ apparent desire to unilaterally dominate the international system, signed a declaration aiming to promote a multipolar world and the establishment of a new international order. It manifested the converging positions of the two, which later became nearly identical. In 2001, the Treaty of Good-Neighbourliness and Friendly Cooperation firmly recognized the existing border, thus making rival territorial claims impossible. That same year, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization was established, creating a framework for multilateral cooperation in Central Asia. By 2003, China became Russia’s fourth-largest trading partner and Russia the eighth-largest partner for China. Bilateral trade quadrupled from $5.8 billion to $21.2 billion.

With these developments in the background, negotiations over the isles were bound to be successful by extension of the formally established Sino-Russian partnership. The order was such that the ties had to improve significantly first, diminishing the overall importance of the territorial issue and facilitating its successful settlement.

The notion that Russo-Japanese relations will only flourish after the currently disputed territories are finally divided could benefit from deeper historical analysis. Politically speaking, a peace treaty with Russia would most probably not affect Japan’s generally pro-American foreign policy course. In economic terms, friendship alone would not be able to force Tokyo to increase investment flows into the Russian economy unless the investment climate itself dramatically improves first. If this happened, the investments would follow even in the absence of any treaty.

THE FACT that the negotiations were finally brought to a positive conclusion does not imply that they were always necessarily easy or straightforward, or that the societal response following the border issue resolution was inevitably positive. It is often an argument in the case of Russia and Japan that the general public, being rather nationalistic in recent years, would oppose any form of settlement unless it is “all or nothing.” In this respect, it is worth remembering that both the Chinese and Russian governments were also criticized at the time for “buying” friendship with territory, giving away land unfairly, losing it to a tricky opponent, or even “betraying the motherland.” The nationalist Rodina party declined to support the agreement. “We do not vote for ceding Russian territory,” then-Rodina party leader Dmitry Rogozin told Trud. “We cannot understand why Russia should pay for good relations with China by surrendering its territory.” “Why should we transfer islands to the Chinese?” asked the popular Komsomolskaya Pravda. The newspaper quoted Viktor Ishayev, governor of the Khabarovsk region, as saying that the “yellow threat” could soon become a reality “by 2020 when China’s population is expected to reach 1.5 billion.” Chinese criticism of the matter was not publicly visible in the media for obvious reasons, but even some official periodicals admitted that certain circles within the country did not see the necessity of accepting the 1860 border treaty. Others insisted on the return of the whole island of Bolshoy Ussuriysky instead of only a part or continuing the dialogue indefinitely. Social media remarks were even more critical. In other words, the level of public disapproval was, arguably, comparable to that concerning the prospect of dividing or losing the Kuril Islands now by either party.

A nationalist resurgence in Japan is indeed the phenomenon addressed more often in the media, and public attitudes to ceding the territories to Japan in Russia are also rather negative—just as attitudes to “giving away” the territories to China used to be in the 1990s and early 2000s. Nonetheless, when assessed retrospectively, the agreement of 2004 is considered to have been necessary by the government and most experts, and perhaps not so costly for a partnership with such an important actor in the region: 

It is apparent that in this case Putin made the right call for the state … he attempted to secure an alliance with a necessary partner. If we had to sacrifice a small part of river backwaters, we find this expense acceptable.

The same might happen if the territorial issue between Russia and Japan is settled: Moscow will enjoy a newly-established partnership in the Asia-Pacific, while Abe’s government will make a major leap forward in making Japan more confident and independent in the international arena. Of course, the Japanese government is much more dependent on public opinion than the Russian or Chinese governments, which also limits its ability to contain nationalistic sentiments. However, one should not underestimate the role of public opinion in Russia or even in China, where leaders are becoming more sensitive to it as well.

With the current general stalemate in bilateral relations between Moscow and Tokyo, a settlement is unlikely to happen very soon. What Japanese border studies expert Iwashita Akihiro argued a decade ago still holds true:

…territorial disputes seem to be of little interest to ordinary Japanese-Russian relations because, even if a peace treaty or border demarcation agreement were signed, it might not be of much consequence to either side. Russia and Japan had peacefully coexisted for the past forty years even during the Cold War period. They have not been particularly good neighbours, but nor have they been great enemies in the traditional sense. In the post-Cold War period, Russo-Japanese relations have slowly but gradually developed. Neither government feels an acute need to compromise with the other concerning disputed islands.

In a paper, Iwashita asks how the vacuum should be filled in bilateral relations and proposes a detailed plan for a fifty-fifty resolution on land and at sea. He also points out that such a resolution may easily turn from a “win-win” situation to a “lose-lose” one for both parties. The gap in Russian-Japanese relations may indeed be large, but when both sides consider the objective benefits that would follow once their territorial dispute is resolved, the way forward should be apparent.

THE RUSSIAN-Japanese territorial problem certainly has its differences with the Sino-Soviet/Sino-Russian one. Due to the 1855 Treaty of Shimoda, which established the borders between the two empires, Japan officially used to have control over Kunashir, Iturup, Habomai, and Shikotan, while the remaining Kuril Islands went to Russia and the status of the island of Sakhalin remained undetermined. The Treaty of Saint Petersburg in 1875 confirmed that Sakhalin was Russian territory and that all the Kuril Islands, including the now-disputed four, once again belonged to Japan. Over the course of the next few decades, Japanese communities of some seventeen thousand people developed on the isles. The Treaty of Portsmouth at the end of the Russo-Japanese War gave Japan the southern part of Sakhalin as well.

After its defeat in World War II, Japan had to renounce all its occupied territories under the 1951 Treaty of San Francisco with the Allies. It also renounced “all right, title and claim to the Kuril Islands,” as well as over other possessions (that included Sakhalin). The Soviet Union incorporated the Kurils, including the isles of Kunashir, Iturup, Habomai, and Shikotan, into its territory, deporting the existing Japanese population. However, Japan did not recognize these four islands as being part of the Kurils and claimed them back.

The diplomatic ties between the two nations were restored by the Soviet-Japanese Joint Declaration of 1956. The first clause of the declaration clearly expressed the joint will of both countries to end the war: “The state of war between the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and Japan shall cease on the date on which this Declaration enters into force and peace, friendship and good-neighbourly relations between them shall be restored.” This fact is often conveniently left out when Western media sources provide historical background on the dispute, implying that the state of war between the two countries has not formally finished. Article 9 of the document also expresses the will of the USSR to cede the Habomai Islands and the island of Shikotan, but states that the actual transfer of these islands to Japan will only take place after the conclusion of a peace treaty between the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and Japan. However, the treaty was never signed. The main reason why was the Treaty of Mutual Cooperation and Security between the United States and Japan, which, according to Moscow, changed the strategic situation in the region and made the original pledge null and void. The United States put pressure on Japan and advised against a territorial compromise with Moscow under the threat of terminating economic aid and retaining Okinawa.

Another reason was growing nationalism in Japan. The Japanese government is often accused of being inconsistent in denouncing its military past, oftentimes at the expense of healthy relations with its partners in East Asia. Certain anxious episodes of wartime history are understated, glossed over, or simply covered up. As Russian diplomat Vitaly Vorobyov argues, a dominant narrative in Japanese postwar policymaking, including cultural diplomacy, is the victimization of Japan at the hands of the rest of the world. Territorial disputes, including the one with Russia, fit well in this victimization framework and have become a national symbol of unfair treatment by the winners of the war. This explains why Japan thinks that “returning” all the isles would restore justice in the world order and help the country overcome its “defeated country inferiority complex”—something unbefitting of the world’s third-largest economy.

For Russia, as a successor to the Soviet Union, ceding the territories would mean the opposite of justice. It would be a “revision of the results of World War 2”—a potentially dangerous practice from the perspective of Moscow. It could lead to serious problems not only with Japan, but also elsewhere in the world. For instance, in Eastern Europe, many parts of current Russian territory (Kaliningrad oblast, which used to be Eastern Prussia, along with some former parts of Estonia, Latvia, and Finland) were added to the Soviet Union and later Russia in line with the postwar arrangements. This is deeply rooted in the minds of both Japanese and Russian leaders, but the concerns become especially apparent during times of mistrust. Such times never become a fertile ground for proactive cooperation, making negotiations last for decades, as happened in the Sino-Soviet case.

AT PRESENT, Russia seems to be ready for a compromise. Its official position is to hold a dialogue based on the Soviet-Japanese Joint Declaration of 1956. The Sino-Russian model shows that specific border arrangements can be negotiable, depending on the circumstances, but one thing is clear: nobody gets all or nothing. This means that Moscow might agree to the transfer of Habomai and Shikotan to Japan under certain conditions, one of which would be that this transfer would be the final settlement. Japan would then recognize Russia’s sovereignty over the remainder of the disputed territory without attempting to further negotiate it. Other concerns mentioned by Russia—such as Japan’s alliance with the United States, the possibility of a U.S. military base being built on the transferred islands, and Japanese sanctions against Russia—are generally negotiable and can be overcome.

Japan’s position, however, suggests little willingness to compromise: Tokyo demands that Moscow recognizes Japanese sovereignty over all four islands, transfer two to Japan immediately, and continue negotiations on the remaining two. This position has already resulted in failure on several occasions, with the most recent being in December 2016 at the Putin-Abe summit in Yamaguchi, Japan.

More recently though it seems that the general approach under Abe has shifted slightly, and his statement in Osaka during a meeting with Putin in June 2019 is another indication of that. Tokyo now seems more inclined to support Moscow’s approach in calling for broad bilateral cooperation to precede the resolution of the territorial dispute, creating an atmosphere of mutual trust and making the involved parties more amenable to reaching an agreement. This position was clearly formulated by Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov in December 2019, when he said that any agreements should be “supported and accepted by the people and parliaments of Russia and Japan,” and that the path to a final settlement “lies through efforts to improve relations, bring them to a qualitatively new level, and achieve the comprehensive development of Russian-Japanese ties in all areas, including the economy, investment, the humanitarian economy, security, and international positions.”

Such an approach also enabled Russia to resolve its territorial issues with China, and according to some experts, might influence other border dispute resolutions in the region, such as the Sino-Indian one. This has already led to significant growth in bilateral trade and broadened political dialogue between Moscow and Tokyo. The two countries’ leaders meet several times each year to foster political dialogue in all spheres, including security.

This is still rather far from the ideal, but the overall trend is encouraging, as is the willingness of the two current leaders to overcome the issue. Russia’s turn to the East, its interest in Asia and Japan, and its wish to avoid excessive dependency on China as a partner, along with Japan’s desire for a more independent position on the international arena and its fears of growing China, are some of the new tendencies that could bring the two nations closer together.

Olga Puzanova is a lecturer and researcher at the International Laboratory on World Order Studies and the New Regionalism at the National Research University Higher School of Economics in Moscow. 

The research for this article was supported by a grant of the Faculty of World Economy and International Affairs of the National Research University Higher School of Economics in 2020.

Image: Reuters.