The Kuril Islands: Why World War Two Hasn’t Ended
A Layman’s Guide to the Unresolved Russo-Japanese Territorial Dispute
The Kuril Islands are a small chain of barely noticeable landmass North of Hokkaido, the northernmost island of Japan, and four small islands within this chain have kept the spirit of the greatest international tragedy of the 20th century going well past 1945.
These four islands are the subject of a territorial dispute between Russia and Japan. On the one hand, Russia argues that the Kuril Islands are Russian property because of Yalta General Order no.1, signed in conjunction with the United States and the United Kingdom, and the 1951 Treaty of San Francisco. Japan bases its claim to these Northern Territories on multiple treaties signed before the second world war. Though relations between the two countries have continued, the islands are a constant specter haunting any interaction the two nations have with one another. The dispute is a product of shameless opportunism, debilitating defeat, and a carelessness that has been described as, “A grievous error for which Japan paid dearly.” This article will examine the Kuril Islands as they are today, the history and circumstances surrounding the documents being cited, and an examination of Russia and Japan’s potential path toward a peace treaty to end the second World War once and for all.
An Introduction to the Islands
It would make sense to start with some general background of the islands. For the sake of simplicity, and because the islands are currently under Russian occupation, they will be referred to by their Russian given names, Iturup, Kunashir, Shikotan, and Habomai. They are rich in natural resources, especially a mineral known as rhenium which is one of the rarest minerals on earth. This mineral has an extremely high melting point and is used to create alloys that can be used in turbine blades x-ray machines, and other applications that require resistance to extreme heat.
Besides this, the fisheries off the coast of the islands are where most of the economic benefit comes from. These fisheries specialize in the collection of fish roe, a delicacy in both Russia and Japan. Locals living on the largest island, Iturup, often poach these fisheries for supplementary income because their wages are so low. About 30,000 people are living on the islands and most of them are Russian, but the population range is surprisingly diverse with even a few Ainu natives still calling the Islands home. The winters are harsh, jobs are scarce, transportation is a major obstacle, and most people are just trying to make ends meet. Russia has promised a 70 billion rubles ($1.1bn) development plan that is supposed to improve these conditions, but that seems to be a long way from becoming a reality.
History of Russo-Japanese Relations in the Kuril Islands
The history of the Islands disputed status begins in 1855 with the Treaty of Shimoda. This treaty is the document that opened formal relations between Russia and Japan, and it laid out the terms of trade and correspondence between the two nations. It also effectively stated that Japan would take ownership of the four southern Islands and Russia would control everything to the north. The second instance of the islands being a subject of interest in Russo-Japanese relations occurred in the 1875 Treaty of St. Petersburg in which Russia granted control over the whole Kuril island chain to Japan in exchange for full Russian control of Sakhalin, a larger island to the east of mainland Russia.
The original text of this treaty was written in French, and differences with its Japanese translation contribute to the controversy surrounding the islands today. The third treaty that the two nations signed was the Portsmouth Peace Treaty. It was signed in Portsmouth, New Hampshire in 1905 and mediated by then U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt to end the Russo-Japanese War as well as affirm that Japan was the dominant power in Korea. The treaty also acknowledged that the Kuril Islands remained Japan’s property with the addition of control over south Sakhalin.
General Order №1
As World War II ended Franklin Roosevelt was getting more involved in negotiations regarding what would happen to occupied territories after the war. He went into the negotiations about the Islands with a notion of what he believed was the right thing to do. He knew that Japan had secured their ownership of the islands through the Russo-Japanese War, and this fact coupled with the goals of the Yalta proceedings at the time framed the Kuril Island dispute in a way that favored the Soviets. However, when proceedings began, Roosevelt and the rest of the U.S. delegation appeared to agree that the issue should be decided by a Russo-Japanese peace treaty that either ceded the territory to Russia or preserved Japanese ownership of the Islands.
The confusion began when Truman issued General Order №1 regarding the terms of surrender of the Japanese at the end of the Second World War. In this order, there was no specific mention of the Kuril Islands as a territory that would be surrendered to the Soviet forces. Stalin, understanding this, attempted to change the language in the order to make it clear that “all the Kuril Islands” would fall into the possession of the Soviet Union as well as the northern part of Hokkaido.
Truman refused the request to occupy the northern part of Hokkaido, but he did agree to revise the order to include the Kurile islands in the zone of surrender. Unfortunately, this revision was missing one critical word, all. Stalin wanted all the Kuril Islands to be included in the Soviet zone of surrender. It is important to note that the terms of General Order №1 were simply meant to resolve who would occupy the Islands, but Stalin read the order in terms of a permanent cession of territory. Truman even made this clear in a letter to Stalin reading,
“I was not speaking about any territory of the Soviet Republic. I was speaking of the Kurile Islands, Japanese territory, disposition of which must be made at a peace settlement I was advised that my predecessor agreed to support”.
The Soviet Union moved on to occupy Habotai and Shikotan shortly after these accords were reached.
Treaty of Peace With Japan 1951
Russia often cites the Treaty of Peace With Japan 1951 as a precedent for its territorial control of the Islands. It was signed at a conference held in San Francisco to discuss some final issues surrounding the war. The treaty granted the Soviet Union full control of all the Kuril Islands, and it confirmed all the items outlined in Yalta General Order №1. However, there was a problem with the ratification of this treaty in Russia’s favor. Before the conference, John Foster Dulles, the U.S. Secretary of State at the time, outlined the terms of the conference and made sure to mention one of the main conditions of the conference concerning Russia saying,
“Recognition of the Soviet claim over the Kurils would be contingent upon full Soviet participation at the conference.”
After Prime Minister Shigeru Yoshida spoke at the conference regarding Soviet possession of the islands, Russia tried to block proceedings. When this failed, the Soviet delegation withdrew from the conference, rendering their claim to the Islands under conference terms laid out by John Dulles, null and void.
Russian Foreign Policy Circa 1945
This dispute should be examined with an understanding of what Stalinist foreign policy was at the time. Stalin’s goals were twofold: limit the ever-increasing influence of the United States on nations surrounding the Soviet Union and amalgamate nations around the Soviet Union to create a geostrategic perimeter. For Stalin, International relations was not about cooperation with other nations to create institutions that would generate a lasting peace, it was a pure realist zero-sum game that could only be won by being strong and deceiving your perceived enemies. He once said that international relations were not conducted based on “feelings of sympathy” but on “feelings of personal profit”. The only way to be successful was to be strong and expand Soviet reach as far as it could go. The Kuril Islands offered protection against those that would attack through the sea of Okhotsk. The Islands offer a natural barricade, and they have become a focal point of Russian protection of their eastern front.
Framing the Dispute
People remember these policies and the effect they had on them, and the history behind the dispute that people remember will play an important role in how it is solved. In 1947, the Soviet Union deported all Japanese people living on their new property. A little over 17,000 people lost their homes, and though life on the islands was difficult, people still feel the sting of being deported from their native soil. Japanese buildings were burned and everything, including streets, have been renamed.
For some, this is a meaningless relic of a bygone era, for others, like Shinzo Abe, the fact that the territory is still in Russian hands is a personal affront to the Japanese people. On the other hand, Russians living on the Islands feel personally besieged by Japanese claims to the Islands. Resident Tatiana Vasilieva, who is 63, was quoted saying,
“If they come here, we would be their servants and I don’t want that.”
This feeling of siege is not only encouraged by the Russian government, but it is also actively fed by the media inside of Russia.
According to a study conducted between October 2010 and February 2014, Channel 1, a local programming station that many Russian’s turns to for news, heavily favors whatever policies Russia is perusing in their reporting. The study also found that Channel 1 generally frames the dispute in four distinct ways, security, living standards and economic development, diplomacy and summitry, and patriotism.
Security is of great concern when it comes to Russian international strategy, and Channel 1 leverages this sentiment in some interesting ways. For example, the news station will have features that put former soldiers in the spotlight and reminds younger viewers not to forget about the sacrifices that went into gaining all the territory that Russia has.
In terms of development, Putin and Medvedev are often shown berating local officials who are too inept to properly spend the money the federal government is allocating, alleviating the federal government of responsibility.
The coverage of diplomacy and summitry follows a similar pattern. The news program once suggested that Japan “never came to terms” with the result of World War II.
Nationalism is a constant undertone in Channel 1’s reporting. It uses the imagined community created from the national pride of WWII to make the people of Russia feel affronted by any territorial claim by the Japanese.
Prospects for Resolution
As illustrated above, a resolution to the territorial dispute between Russia and Japan would not be a simple one. Neither country has any interest in disowning the islands entirely. This would cause problems domestically on both sides because of the perception of weakness. Vladimir Putin cannot afford this, and the propaganda campaign that has been used to stir the Russian people to the cause of preserving the Kuril Island for Russia to maintain national security and pride does not exactly support being conciliatory. Shinzo Abe cannot back down from negotiations for similar reasons. However, both countries stand to gain from increased cooperation with one another. Russia would gain an important economic ally that could help it restore its destitute eastern half, and Japan needs a balancing force that could help stop the spread of China’s increasing influence in the area.
Russia has shown that they are willing to make compromises in the past. In 1956, the two nations signed the joint Japanese-Soviet Declaration. This was supposed to normalize relations between the two countries and end formal hostilities. It also establishes some conditions that would be met following its signing.
Russia would support Japanese entry into the United Nations, drop all reparation claims, and return the islands of Habomai and Shikotan to Japan upon the signing of a peace treaty. This shows that the Russians have been willing to negotiate this issue in the past, and the events that followed in the 90’s only stood to reaffirm the agreements the two nations had reached.
At that time, Boris Yeltsin, the first president of the new Russian Federation, tried to cool relations between the two nations with this reaffirmation. This led to the Tokyo Declaration and the Moscow Declaration. The Tokyo Declaration effectively called for continuing cooperation between the governments of Russia and Japan and called for an agreement based on “historical and legal facts and based on the documents produced with the two countries’ agreement as well as on the principles of law and justice”.
The Moscow Declaration served to reaffirm the Tokyo Declaration, but it went even further by defining an actual time a treaty would be signed by, the year 2000. It also included a clause offering Japanese citizens who had family on the four islands or once lived there visitation rights, and it explored the possibilities of economic cooperation that may have been available for the two nations to take advantage of.
Unfortunately, these measures did not lead to a peace treaty being signed in 2000. Boris Yeltsin seemed to believe that it was a job for the next generation of the Russian leadership to handle. What it did do, was show the two nations what steps in the right direction looked like. It was the first time in 25 years a Japanese Prime Minister visited Moscow, and it was the first time the two countries had put serious efforts, in the form of actual documentation, toward negotiating a treaty since 1956.
Vladimir Putin has offered a resolution based on the 1956 declaration that would return Habomai and Shikotan to the Japanese. However, the Japanese are steadfast in their conviction that all four islands belong to them.
There have also been calls for the establishment of an economic zone of cooperation in the Kuril Islands that will allow the two countries to operate with each other within the territories on a purely economic basis. Sovereignty would be outside of the realm of discussion in this zone, and economic projects would have a specific set of legal frameworks that would need to be put in place.
These are the types of initiatives that have been thawing relations between the two nations for years and hopefully will continue to do so.
Conclusion
An analysis of the treaties and documentation that have come into being as part of these negotiations would indicate Japanese ownership of the Kuril Islands.
Russia’s only claim to the islands comes in the form of a treaty that one could argue they have no business citing because their decision not to participate in the conference that created it, which would render their claim to the islands based on that treaty null and void.
However, the situation is not that simple, and if there is going to be any solution to the dispute, it is going to be in the form of compromise on both sides of the aisle. Russia has shown that it is not entirely closed off to a compromise that would return the islands to Japan, but Japan is not interested in only getting two of the islands back from Russia because of national pride and a desire to keep the islands demilitarized.
It would be impossible for Russia to accept the loss of the other two islands because of the geopolitical significance they have in Northeast Asia. They offer control of the Sea of Okhotsk, as well as a protected passageway for vessels they need to send past the Islands into the North Pacific.
With these considerations in mind, the joint administration of the islands appears to be the only tenable solution for both parties. This would offer Russia the ability to maintain some geostrategic footing in the area while also hopefully satiating Japanese desires to demilitarize the area in some way.
This would be a heavy hit to Russian hardliners who discourage the loss of Russian land to foreigners, but the sacrifice would not be taken in vain. Russia desperately needs more economic cooperation with the Japanese to help revitalize the far eastern region in Russia, which is hopelessly poor and poorly administrated by a faraway capital city.
Joint administration could help solve the economic problems the residents of the islands have been facing for years through foreign investment and development opportunities. The residents there have been open to investment for some time even though they do not want to see the islands fall into Japanese hands. It would also go a long way in satisfying the Japanese who want to visit the islands to see old homes, gravesites, old shrines, and other memories from the past.
It would take a lot of administrative and legal work, but in time, both countries could find enough of the good in this plan to look past what sacrifices had to be made.
Even Russia, with its strict defensive buffer policies, cannot afford continued isolation with a nation like Japan, and Japan cannot afford to miss the opportunity to have a relationship with Russia to balance growing Chinese influence.
In the end, no solution will be entirely just to all parties involved, but to put the final nail in the coffin of WWII, it may have to do.
