This is a new episode in a period of heightened diplomatic tensions between Russia and Japan. Chinese and Russian bombers flew together on Tuesday, May 24 near Japanese territory, Japanese Defense Minister Nobuo Kishi announced. These Chinese and Russian planes, however, did not penetrate Japanese airspace.
“Two Chinese bombers joined two Russian bombers in the Sea of Japan and made a combined flight to the East China Sea,” Nobuo Kishi told reporters. After that, a total of four planes, including probably two more Chinese bombers and two Russian bombers “operated a bundle flight from the East China Sea to the Pacific Ocean”, the minister added. This is the fourth time such grouped flights have taken place near Japan since November 2021. Japan, which has border disputes with its Chinese, Russian and South Korean neighbors, regularly flies fighter jets to defend its airspace.
A Russian surveillance and intelligence plane also flew on Tuesday north of the northern Japanese island of Hokkaido to the Noto Peninsula in central Japan, said the Japanese Minister of Defense.
Nobuo Kishi described these actions as particularly “provocative” on the day of the “Quad” summit in Tokyo, the name of this informal alliance bringing together the leaders of the United States, Japan, Australia and India, all concerned about China’s growing military influence in Asia-Pacific. “As the international community responds to Russia’s aggression against Ukraine, the fact that China has taken such action in conjunction with Russia…is concerning. This cannot be underestimated.” , he pointed out.
“The main concern between Japan and Russia is the Northern Territories”
These maneuvers come in a context of heightened tensions between Moscow and Tokyo. Japan had decided at the beginning of April last to stop importing Russian coal, while remaining involved in offshore oil and gas projects near Sakhalin, in the Russian Far East.
Above all, for the first time since 2003, Tokyo once again considers that four small islands of the Kuril archipelago – a volcanic archipelago of around thirty islands in the north of the country which extends over nearly 1,200 kilometers between the peninsula of Kamchatka and Japan and whose population does not exceed 18,000 – are “illegally occupied” by Russia.
Sparsely populated but rich in fish, metals and oil, four islands of the Kuril Archipelago are of major geostrategic importance for Russia.
AFP
In its annual diplomatic “Blue Book” published on April 22, an official document which has given the main lines of Japanese foreign policy since 1957, Tokyo had reused this expression about these four islands of the Kuril archipelago, neighboring the large northern Japanese island of Hokkaido. Called “Northern Territories” by Japan, they had been invaded by the Soviet army in the very last days of the Second World War in August 1945 then annexed by Moscow. This territorial dispute has prevented the signing of a peace treaty between the two countries since the end of the Second World War.
“The main concern between Japan and Russia is the Northern Territories,” said the Japanese Foreign Ministry in this latest “Blue Book”. He called them “Japanese territories over which Japan holds the right of sovereignty.”
These four islands, rich in thermal waters, fish, oil, minerals and rare metals such as rhenium, used for the manufacture of supersonic aircraft engines, are of major geostrategic importance for Russia. They allow permanent access to the Pacific Ocean for Russian warships based in Vladivostok thanks to the strait between Kunashir and Iturup which does not freeze in winter.
Located on the Sea of Okhotsk, they therefore open a corridor for the Russian navy and submarines towards the Pacific and constitute a lock against the American military presence in Japan. “The situation in the Kuril Islands is an indicator of geopolitical tensions: Russia, a Euro-Asian power, wants to defend its peaceful flank in the face of the important relationship between Japan and the United States”, emphasizes to France 24 Karoline Postel-Vinay, researcher at Sciences Po and Ceri, specialist in Japan.
The war in Ukraine, that other bone of contention
While in recent years Tokyo has spared Moscow’s susceptibility, Russian-Japanese relations have seriously deteriorated with the war in Ukraine. Japan has participated in the Western sanctions taken against Moscow since the start of the Russian offensive. The Japanese Foreign Ministry estimated at the end of April that the Russian-Ukrainian conflict now prevented further discussions with Russia on a possible bilateral peace treaty.
Moscow had already abruptly decided on March 22 to abandon these talks with Japan, judging “impossible to discuss (…) with a State which occupies an openly unfriendly position and seeks to harm the interests” of Russia. Tokyo protested.
“At a time when Japan has become an unfriendly country and has joined in a whole series of hostile actions towards our country, it is really very difficult to talk about the continuation of the negotiation process,” Dmitri repeated to the press. Peskov, April 22. For the Kremlin spokesman, the four islands of the Kuril archipelago in question constitute “an inalienable territory of the Russian Federation”, he added.
The posture of the current Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida seems to contrast with that of his predecessor, Shinzo Abe, recalls France 24. Shinzo Abe had held about twenty cordial meetings with the Russian government to settle the Kuril issue and try to prevent a rapprochement between Russia and China. Fumio Kishida, for his part, breaks with Japan’s usual discretion in international relations by aligning himself with Western sanctions against Russia and by deliberately using the term “invasion” to speak of the conflict in Ukraine.