Rethinking the previous studies on the South Kuril Islands Dispute in Russia: analyzing the Northern Territories problem from the perspective of Russian experts on Japanese studies

Abstract

Despite a good deal of research in the field, Japanese scholarship still insufficiently understands the Russian perspective on the territorial dispute between Japan and Russia, known as the Northern Territories problem in Japan and the South Kuril Islands Dispute in Russia, which prevents both countries from realizing the full normalization of the relations by signing a peace treaty and moving beyond Cold War era relations.

To overcome these inadequacies, this paper suggests the necessity for the use of a new analytic viewpoint that focuses on the political artificiality of contemporary Russian politics on the above territorial dispute. One reason why Japanese scholarship has not been able to fully understand the political function of the South Kuril Islands Dispute in Russian society, may be due to the lack of such studies that analyze this problem on the basis of this analytical viewpoint.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the character and the structure of Russian logic on this dispute, examining the achievements and problems of the previous studies on the matter in Russia.

The content of this paper covers the major contributions by Russian experts on the South Kuril Islands Dispute since the last years of the Soviet Union until today and analyses the major development of their position related to Japan. Such analysis discusses the arguments of Russian experts on Japanese studies, such as former soviet journalists, diplomats and scholars, former high officials in the Russian foreign ministry, and scholars at Moscow State Institute of International Relations of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation (MGIMO), the Center for Japanese Studies at the Institute of Far Eastern Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences and so on, revealing the fundaments of the Russian position, which include the importance of the results of the World War Two, generally known in Russian as the Great Patriotic War continuously seen as a renewed symbol of national identity for rebuilding Russian core values since the collapse of the Soviet Union.

The above analysis helps to deepen understanding of the essence of Russian stance in this unresolved territorial dispute and thus the connection and continuity between the Soviet and contemporary Russian approach towards the territorial dispute.

The resolution of the Northern Territories problem will assist Japan in evolving out of its “postwar era” and will contribute towards removing remnants of World War II and the Cold War in Northeast Asia. Ultimately, resolution of this problem will make a significant contribution to stabilizing the current situation in the Asia-Pacific Region.