Spotlight: Pace of Japan, Russia economic cooperation on disputed isles largely down to broader geopolitics

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said Thursday he plans to forge ahead in bringing to fruition joint economic activities between Japan and Russia on islands central to a long-standing territorial dispute.

The Japanese leader will meet Russian President Vladimir Putin to discuss this against a backdrop of other pertinent global matters that will also have to be traversed before any significant headway is made or new cooperation, economic or otherwise, agreed upon beyond rhetoric, informed sources have said.

The territorial dispute, however, remains the main sticking point between Tokyo and Moscow, and regards four islands situated off Hokkaido.

They are believed by Japan to be a part of the Nemuro Sub-prefecture of Hokkaido and are referred to by Japan as the Northern Territories.

Russia, who administers the islands, maintains that the islands, that they refer to as the Southern Kurils, are their territory with Russian leaders repeatedly referring to the islands as a strategic region of Russia.

Abe and Putin have both stated and agreed in principle, however, that it is unusual that both countries have not signed a postwar peace treaty due to the spat, and have agreed to discuss the matter candidly going forward.

But progress in this respect has been sluggish owing to geopolitical stumbling blocks as well as the firm belief on both sides that, while the absence of a peace treaty is an anachronism, many complexities on the issue remain.

Putin has said he considers the 1956 Japan-Soviet Joint Declaration, which stipulates the transfer of two islands to Japan to be "rules that should be put into the foundation of a peace treaty."

As for the two other islands' transfer, he has said there remain "too many questions about this issue," and that returning all four islands to Japan would be going outside the bounds of the 1956 declaration.

For Japan's part, it has long insisted that its sovereignty over all four of the disputed islands be confirmed before a peace treaty is signed.

But joint economic cooperation, since a summit held between the two leaders last December, remains high on both countries agendas. Collaborative activities in areas such as fisheries and tourism were already discussed, with the crux of the intended collaboration being that neither side's claim to sovereignty should be undercut.

It is such joint economic cooperation that Tokyo and Moscow hope will eventually lay the foundation for enhanced economic and diplomatic ties and, thereafter, could create an atmosphere amicable enough in which the territorial dispute and peace treaty could be tackled head on.

But the road ahead in this regard remains tricky, as the isles have strategic value for Russia, guaranteeing its navy access to the western Pacific, while top of Japan's security agenda is always its ally, the United States.

The latter is a point of contention Putin has previously raised with Abe, regarding the growing presence of the United States in Asia, with Russia also believing that certain moves on Tokyo's part, such as its missile defense system, is disproportionate to perceived regional threats.

On the latter point, Abe will likely be looking to Putin during this current trip for help on the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) issue.

Tensions continue to rise on the Korean Peninsula, although differing opinions on the recent deployment of a U.S. missile defense system in South Korea and a new shipping route between Russia and the DPRK, will add to the overall complexities.

Russia, in a move that Japan will likely protest, will begin a regular passenger-cargo ferry service between Russia and the DPRK starting in May, using the Mangyongbong-92, informed sources have said.

This ferry is banned from entry into Japan under sanctions following the DPRK's ballistic missile launches.

But recent geopolitical stumbling blocks aside, fundamental disputations still remain between Tokyo and Moscow, such as the subsequent sanctions imposed by western nations and Japan on Russia over Crimea.

At the time, Putin was immensely critical of Japan's role and said at the time that the sanctions would be "a clear hindrance for the peace treaty negotiations."

With the United States a strong ally of Japan's and Russia's current relations with the United States somewhat at odds, the global geopolitical picture currently looks somewhat unfavorable for the kind of "great step forward in realizing joint economic activities" that Abe said he wants to take while in Moscow, prior to departing Thursday.

Nevertheless, former commitments to an eight-point bilateral economic cooperation plan will remain some of the long-term goals for both parties.

The plan involves joint cooperation in the energy sector, Japan providing its high-tech know-how and hardware to help facilitate infrastructural projects, and both sides boosting people exchanges.

Other collaborative activities to be undertaken between Tokyo and Moscow, once the geopolitical climate cools, include Japan being allowed to join in the development of natural gas fields in Russia's Gydan Peninsula, cooperation between the countries' health ministries in the fields of medicine and healthcare, cooperation on the peaceful use of nuclear power, and enhanced cooperation in the areas of agriculture and fisheries.

But while this ongoing cooperative outlook may well be a productive vehicle for trying to advance with seemingly immovable stances on territory, the ever-changing geopolitical backdrop to this outlook remains a constant challenge to the pace and progress of such cooperation. Enditem