Globally, and domestically, there was widespread surprise when Shinzo Abe announced he was stepping down as Japan's Prime Minister in August 2020, citing ill health. It wasn't long, however, before Abe's successor was announced as his close ally, Yoshihide Suga.
During Suga's first few months in office, observers are closely watching how he will navigate his country's foreign relations, especially those with China, amid heightened tensions between the two superpowers in the East China Sea.
However, there are other dynamics that Suga must place closely navigate, not least Tokyo's relationship with Moscow, one that has been fraught for several decades due to tensions related to what are known as the Northern Territories in Japan, and the Southern Kuril Islands in Russia.
The disputed islands, located off the coast of the Japanese island of Hokkaido, and separating the Sea of Okhotsk from the Pacific Ocean, have been a point of argument since confrontations between Tsarist Russia and Imperial Japan in the 19th century. Following Japan’s surrender to Allied Forces in 1945, at the end of World War Two, the islands – of which there are four in total – were ceded to Russia as part of the 1951 San Francisco Peace Treaty.
Prime Minister of Japan Shigeru Yoshida signing the San Francisco Peace Treaty on September 8, 1951
After decades of tensions between the two counties on the issue, in January 2019 bilateral talks took place between Abe and Russian President Vladimir Putin, but no progress was made.
Abe took what many regarded as a “pragmatic approach” to the issue, having pursued the peace treaty and showing a willingness to engage with Moscow, and observers have said they expect Suga, who was Chief Cabinet Secretary under Abe, to continue on this path.
“Given [Suga’s] deep involvement in the Abe government, I expect his position and policy to be quite close to Abe’s,” said Assistant Professor Yongwook Ryu, from the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy. “In other words, the Japanese government under Suga will continue to take a pragmatic approach and seek to find ways to resolve the territorial issue and conclude a peace treaty with Russia.”
However, Prof Ryu warned that when it comes to a resolution on the issue, the ball is firmly in Russia’s court, after it “made progress difficult” at the most recent peace talks, having demanded that Japan recognise that the four islands in the dispute are part of Russia as a starting point for further talks.
He added that an agreement in the Kuril Islands dispute would work in Tokyo’s favour, by allowing it to pursue a more independent foreign policy in the future, notably amid its intensifying conflict with Beijing.
“In particular, Japan could devote more attention and energy to what it regards a more immediate and serious issue, namely, China. Whether or not the two sides [Japan and Russia] could settle their long-standing disputes depends on whether or not they could overcome their domestic nationalist groups and sentiments,” Prof Ryu said, adding that the nationalism issue is more pronounced in Russia than it is in Japan.
Despite the tensions, Prof Ryu does not expect the situation to heavily escalate, given that both sides have shown a willingness to engage on the issue, and that it does not occupy the highest priority on their policy agenda, but warned that if it does, then it could have a significant impact on regional security.
“Due to Japan’s security alliance with the [United States], any conflict Japan gets involved in will automatically implicate the US. And as we know, both the USA and Russia are nuclear powers, which will create a dangerous situation,” he said.
As relatively cool trading partners, Prof Ryu added that he doesn’t expect economic relations to have a major impact on the dispute, but said that closer ties in the future could hold potential sway. Japan is looking to import oil and gas from Russia, and as a result has started government and private company consortiums, or joined with Russian entities, in a number of projects in Russia, including Sakhalin-1, Sakhalin-2, Vladivostok and Yamal.
“A growing trade and energy interdependence could exercise a pacifying effect on the bilateral relationship, but it won’t be sufficient for resolving the territorial dispute, which both sides treat as being separate from their economic relationship, he said.
In essence, Prof Ryu does not expect the new leadership in Japan to bring any significant change to bilateral relations with Russia, except possibly slowing momentum of negotiations slightly, given it was Abe who had taken the initiative to pursue negotiations regarding the territorial dispute with Russia.
“The most likely scenario is that Russia will treat Suga as a leader who is likely to continue Abe’s policy. However, Russia may also perceive Suga to be an interim prime minister and expects a new leader to come in next year, in which case the bilateral negotiation will unlikely make much progress during the Suga administration,” he added.
(Photo: NASA)