Translated material
Warm for light
The new Prime Minister of Japan puts Russia and China in second place
“Japan should become a strong and bright country, from which foreigners would be amazed. And the government should be warm and feel the joy of working for the benefit of the people,” said Japanese Prime Minister Taro Aso (pictured) yesterday, delivering a keynote speech in parliament. 68-year-old Aso was elected head of government on September 24 , after the early resignation of his predecessor Yasuo Fukuda.Washington remains the main foreign policy reference point for Tokyo, which was confirmed by Prime Minister Aso: “Strengthening the Japanese-American alliance always comes first. Building and jointly developing stability and prosperity together with the countries of the Asia-Pacific region, primarily with neighboring China, South Korea and Russia, comes second.” It is noteworthy that he did not touch upon the topic of “northern territories,” that is, Japan’s claims to the Russian Southern Kuril Islands. Although this silence hardly indicates that Tokyo has abandoned its territorial dispute with Moscow, it is possible that the new prime minister will be pragmatic, focusing on economic cooperation between the two countries.
In a conversation with Russian journalists in Tokyo, a representative of the Japanese Foreign Ministry commented on this part of the prime minister’s speech: “Russia is assessed in the speech as an important neighbor of our country, with which it is necessary to cooperate. Of course, continuity in relation to Russia is maintained, but at the same time the speech includes new, more positive than before, nuances.” The diplomat recalled that in May 2006, Taro Aso, who then headed the Japanese Foreign Ministry, negotiated with his Russian colleague Sergei Lavrov; they discussed plans to intensify cooperation between the two countries in the Far East and Eastern Siberia.
The head of the Center for Japanese Studies at the Institute of Far Eastern Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Viktor Pavlyatenko, in a conversation with Vremya Novostey, was more skeptical: “There is no reason to believe that under the new prime minister there can be dramatic changes in Japan’s policy in the Russian direction.” Nevertheless, according to the expert, “in the current difficult geopolitical and geo-economic situation in the world, maintaining the status quo in relations between our states, in their political, economic and military contacts can be considered positive.”
The new prime minister placed third place among his foreign policy goals on participation in solving global problems: the fight against terrorism, climate change, poverty and water shortages. Aid to “young democracies” was in fourth place. Let us recall that when he was head of the diplomatic department, Taro Aso put forward the concept of a Eurasian “arc of democracy” - from Vietnam and Laos to Georgia and Moldova. Considering Tokyo's current solidarity with the West's position regarding the August conflict around Georgia, the development of this line in Japanese foreign policy may conflict with Russia's interests.
In conclusion, Aso called for a comprehensive solution to the problems of the Korean Peninsula, including the “speedy return to their homeland” of all Japanese abducted by the North Koreans in the 1970s and the resolution of Pyongyang’s nuclear missile problem. North Korea has rejected Tokyo's attempts to link nuclear negotiations to the search for missing Japanese, an insistence that could complicate already difficult negotiations with Pyongyang.