Russia announced the suspension of peace negotiations with Japanwhich it had maintained for territorial reasons since the end of the Second World War, after the sanctions imposed by Tokyo and as a result of what the Kremlin described as an “unfriendly position” in the face of the conflict in Ukraine. Japan has joined Western powers in recent weeks in imposing tough economic sanctions on Moscow for its offensive in Ukraine launched on February 24. The war could modify the Japanese defense strategy in the face of Chinese regional ambitions and open a door to those who ask for more military spending in the country, according to analysts.
Japan’s “anti-Russian” course
“Russia has no intention, under the current circumstances, to continue negotiations with Japan on a peace treaty”the Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement. For the Kremlin it is “impossible to talk about the signing of a fundamental document on bilateral relations with a state that has an openly unfriendly position and seeks to harm the interests” of Russia.
Russia has announced that it will block Japan’s designation as a partner in the Black Sea Economic Cooperation Organization, a structure created in the early 1990s to boost economic cooperation among Black Sea countries. From the Kremlin they lamented the “anti-Russian course” that Japan took in recent days and expressed disappointment that the Asian country has abandoned the development of “mutually beneficial cooperation and good neighborliness.”
After World War II, both nations did not sign a peace treaty due to a dispute over four small islands in the Kuril archipelago., a group of islands occupied by the Soviet army in the last days of the conflict and that, since then, have not been returned to Japan, which calls them the “Northern Territories”. Although there have been attempts at negotiation since the fall of the USSR, they have never been successful.
In the last days, Japan raised to 76 the number of Russian citizens whose assets were frozenamong whom is the president, Vladimir Putinas well as 12 Belarusians, including his peer Alexander Lukashenko. Japan, like other G7 countries and the European Union (EU), has applied successive rounds of sanctions on Russia since the conflict began, which also includes the exclusion of Russian banks from the Swift system.
Japan breaks with its past
When Russia occupied the Ukrainian peninsula of Crimea in 2014, the Japanese response was lukewarm. But this time it has been in step with its Western allies, going so far as to send non-lethal military aid to Ukraine. The crisis is already impacting debates on military spending and capacity in a country whose constitution limits the role of its armed forces to defense.
“Japan has already been accused of paying its way out, in a way, by giving money without getting directly involved in crises,” said Valerie Niquet, an Asia expert at France’s Foundation for Strategic Research. This time, Tokyo “is putting a lot of emphasis on what they’re doing to show that they’re not sitting around waiting to see what happens.”
In part this speed reflects the extraordinary nature of the conflict, but there are other factors at play, including the departure of former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who sought a rapprochement with Moscow. Abe, who resigned in 2020, hoped that with a better relationship he could resolve the dispute with Russia over the Kuril Islands. Without Abe involved, the Japanese government felt freer to act against Moscowalthough it has not left the joint energy agreements with Russia for fear of a shortage.
China in the crosshairs
Even more worrying is China with its growing regional ambitions, including its desire to “reunify Taiwan” and its claims to several disputed islands. Previously, Tokyo feared that aggressive action against Russia would lead Moscow closer to Beijing, “but now that has completely changed,” he said. James D.J. BrownAssociate Professor of Political Science at Temple University in Tokyo. Now the vision is that “Japan has to be tough on Russia because otherwise it sets a precedent, and perhaps encourages China to think it can do the same.”Brown noted.
The Ukrainian crisis could also strengthen the position of those calling for more military spending. In last year’s campaign, the ruling Liberal Democratic Party set a long-term goal to increase the military budget to more than two percent of GDP, compared to the traditional one percent. The debate to have attack capacity, such as being able to carry out drone attacks against an enemy, has been controversial given the limits of the pacifist constitution of the archipelago since 1947.
Even more controversial is that ruling party seeks to debate nuclear deterrent, following suggestions by lawmakers to consider sharing nuclear technologies. Japan is currently dependent on US nuclear protection, and its long-standing policy prohibits it from producing, possessing or harboring such weapons. But the mere fact of discussing the issue in the country, which suffered from the bomb attacks in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, reflects the extent of the effects of the Ukrainian crisis.