Russian relations with Japan are frozen because of the Kurile Islands (the Northern Territories) problem. The USSR occupied the four islands in 1945, when, at President Roosevelt’s request, Stalin broke a nonaggression treaty with Tokyo at the tail end of World War II and occupied the southern part of Sakhalin as well as the islands. Today, Russia benefits from rich fisheries in the Kurile Islands’ waters, but Japanese investment is frozen.
Foreign investment and economic development need three preconditions: a positive security climate; the rule of law; and basic infrastructure. Russia has a long way to go on all three. It needs to have good relations with the major pacific powers—the United States, China and Japan—while further developing ties with Canada, Korea, Australia and others.
It needs to overhaul its courts and eradicate corruption. Most importantly, it needs to continue developing modern infrastructure and attract high-quality personnel to the Far East. The potential is tremendous. Can Russia rise to the challenge?
Ariel Cohen, Ph.D., is senior research fellow in Russian and Eurasian Studies and International Energy Policy at The Heritage Foundation (www.heritage.org).
Image: www.kremlin.ru
Comments
The Russian takeover of land belonging to the Qing Dynasty amounted to 350,000 square miles. This happened as Anglo-French forces had sacked the Summer palace in 1860 and needed to be persuaded to leave. Count Ignatieff, intervened under the guise of helping speed the Anglo-french withdrawal (when in fact he was providing them with inside intelligence on Chinese intentions) and in conjunction with Nicholas Muraviev, the founder of Vladivostok, hatched a plan to gobble up all the territory east of the Stanovoy mountains to the Sea of Japan. They forced China to sign a treaty by which all the land was transferred to Russia without paying a cent. China was effectively shutoff from the Okhotsk and Japan seas and Vladivostok and Khabarovsk were founded. There were tens of thousands of Chinese residents in Vladivostok up until the late 1930's when under Stalin's orders they were deported en masse or sent to the Gulags.