Tokyo wants to rely on Russia in its conflict with Beijing and Seoul

One after another, Japanese travel companies announce that they are ahead of schedule in selling tours to the Sochi Olympics, almost like Soviet collective farms reported about the grain harvest. This is due to the fact that Tokyo wants to rely on Russia in its conflict with Beijing and Seoul.

REUTERS

One after another, Japanese travel companies announce that they are ahead of schedule in selling tours to the Sochi Olympics, almost like Soviet collective farms reported about the grain harvest. The country's largest travel agency, JTB , has announced that individual tickets to the 2014 Games have already sold out. And this despite the fact that tours to Sochi for 5-9 days cost from 6,300 to 14,000 dollars - about one and a half times more expensive than for the Winter Olympics in Vancouver in 2010.

The Japanese, however, are confused by many things: travel companies, for example, complain about the lack of suitable hotels for them. In addition, there are no direct flights to Sochi: a trip there from Tokyo will take at least 15-16 hours. Terrorism is also feared: the Japanese media now report fearfully about every new skirmish in Dagestan, although before for years they ignored the continuous seething in the North Caucasus they did not understand.

However, our island Far Eastern neighbors still go to Sochi, because they love to travel, adore the Olympics, are seized with a general passion for figure skating and firmly believe that the athletes of their country will take many medals in the February battles on the Black Sea coast. And the mighty producer of alcoholic beverages, Asahi, even released a canned beer dedicated to the Sochi Games.

Meanwhile, the political elite is actively discussing the question of a trip to the Olympics by Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. The point here, of course, is not the desire of the head of government to stare at the graceful skaters, but one of the main directions of his diplomacy - the intention to really get closer to Russia.

What should the Japanese prime minister do on February 7th?

In his approach to going to the Olympics, the Japanese premier differs markedly from many of his colleagues in the club of leaders of the seven leading industrialized countries. Mr. Abe is literally torn to the opening of the Games on February 7, although at first he was almost forcefully restrained from this by his close associates and advisers. And it was not at all about the problem of Russian gays and lesbians, which was so loudly voiced in the West. Just on February 7, the opening day of the Olympics, Tokyo annually celebrates the Day of the Northern Territories, as the Southern Kuriles are called here. In memory of the fact that on February 7, 1855, the first Russian-Japanese treaty was signed, which gave all these islands to Japan.

On the occasion of the anniversary, Tokyo regularly hosts nationwide meetings with the participation of political aces, where the prime minister and foreign minister tell the audience about their unwavering determination to fight for the return of the northern territories. Abe's advisers found it inconvenient to stand on the same podium with the leadership of Russia on such a day: they say, the patriotic public will not understand. As a compromise, the prime minister was offered to go to Sochi later, for example, to some competitions on the 20th of February, and already there to try to cross paths with Putin.

But Abe, I was told, was very upset. He was wary of tarnishing his carefully crafted relationship with President Vladimir Putin, who might take offense over the Olympics. But just last year, Abe met and talked with the Russian president four times, including an official visit to Moscow last April. The Japanese prime minister decided not to risk the results already achieved. In short, he snapped at his advisers and outplayed everything: it was decided that on February 7, Abe would have time to attend parliament, then make a short speech at a meeting about the Southern Kuriles, jump into a special plane and make a dizzying flight across Eurasia to Sochi in time for the opening ceremony Olympics. During the visit, he also wants to hold separate talks with the President of Russia, which he has big plans for. In Russia, the Japanese prime minister sees a natural partner, if not an ally, in the extremely unpleasant situation that Tokyo has found itself in in eastern Asia.

Anti-Japanese Front?

China has recently made it clear that it sees Japan as a regional rival as well as the main base of US influence in the region. And Beijing wants to gradually reduce it to a minimum, in order to completely remove it later. The main theme of the anti-Japanese campaign in China is Tokyo's accusations of revising the results of World War II: Japan, Beijing is sure, is trying to downplay the scale of Japanese crimes in the occupied territories and does not intend to return to China its ancestral territories seized by aggression. We are talking about the uninhabited islets Senkaku (Diaoyu) in the East China Sea. They are now constantly on duty armed ships of the PRC Maritime Police. Tokyo is not yet ready to defend the outlying islands. Well, the Chinese claims about the “seizure of ancestral territories” are simply rejected: the disputed islands, as the Japanese assure, did not belong to anyone at the time of joining.

Recent history also complicates Tokyo's relationship with Seoul. Koreans believe that the Japanese are not sincerely apologizing for the crimes committed during the colonial period in Korea. There is also a territorial dispute: Tokyo claims rocky islets that belonged to Japan until the end of World War II, and then fell under the control of Seoul.

Tokyo's situation is now very unpleasant - even its only ally, the United States, is behaving dubiously. Washington, however, declares that it extends its obligation to defend Japan from aggression to the disputed Senkaku Islands, but in the dispute over their ownership it takes neutrality. Washington is not happy with some of the actions of Prime Minister Abe, who has a well-deserved reputation as a nationalist and a hawk. Americans, for example, condemned his recent pilgrimage to Tokyo's Yasukuni Shrine, dedicated to soldiers who died for the emperor. Among them are the main Japanese war criminals who were executed in 1948 by the verdict of the international Tokyo Tribunal for the Far East.

Who will stand closer to Putin?

In front of Japan, the threat of, if not complete, then partial diplomatic isolation in the region is becoming more and more clear, and this objectively pushes it towards Russia. In the development of relations with Moscow, Prime Minister Abe sees an opportunity to strengthen his country's position in the Far East. Moreover, Russia and Japan objectively have a lot in common: for example, such an interesting topic as natural gas supplies. Moscow is keen to expand its market share in Japan. It is already the world's largest buyer of liquefied natural gas (LNG), the demand for which has grown significantly due to the shutdown of all nuclear power plants after the accident at the Fukushima-1 station. Two new LNG plants that Gazprom and Rosneft intend to build in the Russian Far East are largely focused on Japan.

True, there is a problem - the Southern Kuriles, but Prime Minister Abe expects to make progress here too. Back in April last year, he agreed with Putin to intensify negotiations on the islands, which are going on behind very tightly closed doors. Apparently, there is no particular rapprochement of positions, and official Tokyo has not yet said a word about the possibility of a compromise: it still wants all the Southern Kuriles, although it is ready to be flexible in terms and conditions of their transfer. However, some movements in the Japanese elite on this matter are still taking place. In January, for example, quite influential former Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori said at a press conference that he sees several options for a compromise solution to the issue, including various schemes for dividing the islands or establishing a joint ownership system on some of them.

Tokyo wants to make some progress towards President Putin's visit to Japan, which could take place this fall. However, this is still far away, and the first on the agenda is the Olympics in Sochi. Tokyo drew attention to the fact that Chinese President Xi Jinping is also going to its opening, who defiantly ignores Shinzo Abe, rejects his calls for dialogue and has never met with him. In Sochi, therefore, a very interesting situation could arise: the leaders of China and Japan will fight for the right to stand closer to Putin on the podium to show which side Russia is on in the “polygon” of difficult relations in the Far East.