Siding Unlawful Aggressor

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is still insisting on improving the relationship with Russia, which has been criticized by a group of Western countries on internationally unlawful annexation of Crimea, Ukraine. He does not care about frustration of United States, which accuses Russian aggression on Ukraine. In the timing of right after reinforcing the alliance with U.S., Abe’s sympathy for Russia is hard to be understood.

Yomiuri Shimbun reported a hidden story about Japan-U.S. summit in Washington last month, in which Abe rejected a recommendation of President Barack Obama to take careful action toward Russia. According to the report, Obama asked firm integrated measures of Group Seven of developed counties against Russia. Abe insisted on keeping dialogue with Russian President Vladimir Putin, saying “For Japan, relationship with neighbor countries like Russia or China is also important. If China and Russia cooperate each other and their confrontation against Japan and U.S. gets serious, East Asia will be unstable.” Whether Obama recommended Abe to improve the relationship with China first is unsure.

Abe asked Putin to officially visit Japan this year at a summit meeting last year. But it will be difficult for him to obtain any achievement at the meeting in the situation that most Western countries are accusing Russia of its military aggression to a candidate for member of European Union. Taking opportunity of visiting Japan by one of the allies of Putin, Speaker of Russian Congress Sergey Naryshkin, Abe delivered a message of his determination for solving territorial problem over Northern Territory of Japan. Abe is obviously enthusiastic in maintaining dialogue with Putin.

However, Russia seems to be ignoring Abe’s active approach to Russia. In an interview to a Russian newspaper, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Labrov labeled Japan as “only one country in the world that questions the result of World War II.” Russian government is planning to have a major ceremony to commemorate winning the war in Northern Territory this September. While sending message to Abe to prepare for the official visit, Putin is unilaterally deteriorating the relationship with Japan.

The problem has been coming from Abe’s naïve recognition on international politics. Abe is seeing Japan-Russia relation not in the context of politics among major powers that won World War II, but through narrow bilateral relationship. His attitude indicates his ambition to make Japan-Russia relation a diplomatic card in Japan-U.S. alliance. But his ambition would never justify appeasement to a rogue aggressor on sovereignty of a nation. It is extremely difficult for Japan to develop independent diplomacy in this highly complicated relation among nations.