On the new trends in the Russian-Japanese relations

Abstract

After signing the Joint Declaration of the USSR and Japan on October 19, 1956 in Moscow the question of signing a peace treaty was periodically raised in the Soviet-Japanese and then in the Russian Japanese political relations, with the help of which the Japanese side wanted to change the de jure and de facto post-war borders between the countries. During the reign of the Abe cabinet, 27 meetings were held between Russia and Japan at the level of the leaders of the countries. After Abe Shinzo's sudden departure from the post of the Prime Minister for health reasons, Suga Yoshihide turned out to be in this position. In 2020 and 2021 he never met with the Russian President V.V. Putin, but was actively building relations with the United States. During a year of Suga cabinet’s leadership in the context of coronavirus restrictions, the Russian-Japanese relations have noticeably “cooled down”. However, the actions of Y. Suga on the world stage and the policy of the Russian government in relation to the Kuril Islands make it possible to speak not only of Japan's new approaches to security in the Asia-Pacific region, which are focused on the idea of “containment” of China, but also of a more pragmatic Russian approach to Japan's territorial claims. It is possible that the development of these trends will lead to a new vision of building mutually beneficial Russian-Japanese relations in the future.

Keywords

• japan
• east asia
• far east
• russian-japanese relations
• territorial issue
• people’s diplomacy (peoplomacy)
• humanitarian relations
• covid-19