Tokyo wanted Japan to return to trade dialogue for the first time since 2022
Perhaps for the first time since the Ukrainian conflict, a high-ranking government delegation from Japan has arrived in Russia. The formal purpose of the visit is to protect the assets of the country's companies in Russia, but experts attribute Tokyo's unexpected activity to the escalation in the Middle East. Due to the critical shortage of oil, the country needs more Russian energy resources. However, Japan is not going to abandon its aggressive policy towards Russia. The country's Defense Ministry recently announced a certain Russian-Chinese threat in the Far East. Whether this visit will give an impetus to relations between Moscow and Tokyo is in the Izvestia article.
A government delegation from Japan has arrived in Russia
The crisis in the Middle East is forcing global economies to be guided more and more by common sense and less by externally imposed geopolitical rhetoric. On May 26, an official government delegation from Japan arrived in Russia, trying not to make too much noise about the visit. Although, in fact, this is the first such trip since the beginning of the Ukrainian conflict.
Just two weeks ago, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova stressed that the agency had not received any relevant requests from Tokyo. At one point, they even denied reports about sending this mission, and on the day of the visit, information was received through the Japanese newspaper Nikkei with reference to the Minister of Economy.
Moreover, the Japanese publicly disavow any discussions on energy. According to Resi Akazawa, we just need to maintain a dialogue in terms of protecting the assets of Japanese companies operating in Russia. Currently, there are more than 100 of them in our country. Although Moscow, however, was not going to ban the work of Japanese companies and repeatedly stressed that they did not intend to adopt Western practice in the form of unilateral sanctions. At the same time, as the Japanese side repeated again, there is still no talk of "intentions to conduct new economic cooperation."
Katsuyoshi Arai, Head of the Bureau of Trade Policy at the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, and Makoto Ishikawa, Adviser to the Bureau of European Affairs at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, did not come to discuss economic cooperation. According to local media, the press will be informed about the contents of the visit on May 27. There is also a certain atmosphere of secrecy on the Russian side. Dmitry Peskov, the press secretary of the President of the Russian Federation, only stated that we are talking about contacts at the government level.
According to Saori Qatada, professor of international Relations and director of the Center for International Studies at the University of Southern California, the visit seems to be related to the events in Iran and the resulting oil shortage.
— Japanese oil reserves are designed for 250 days, and half of them have already been used up. Therefore, the leaders are in a desperate situation. I think this visit is related to the urgent need of the country," she said.
Japan's oil imports consist of almost 90% of supplies from the Middle East. And due to the blocking of the Strait of Hormuz, the discussed opening of which is under threat after another escalation, imports have sharply decreased. Only 3.843 million tons came to Japan from this region in April, three times less than a year earlier. The country was one of the first to announce the release of part of its oil reserves. Such a strong dependence eventually forced Tokyo to import oil from Russia again — in early May, it became known that Idemitsu had purchased a shipment from Sakhalin. In fact, this is not such a resonant moment as it might seem at first glance. There are sanctions exceptions for the Sakhalin-2 project due to its alignment with LNG supply contracts. Nevertheless, any additional energy cooperation implies reputational costs for pro-Western Tokyo.
By the way, shares in Sakhalin-2 belong, among others, to Mitsubishi and Mitsui, whose representatives should be part of the delegation that arrived in Moscow. It can be assumed that one of the topics may be not only the expansion of Russian oil purchases, but also cooperation in the field of natural resources in general, says Olga Dobrinskaya, Candidate of Historical Sciences, senior researcher at the Institute of China and Modern Asia.
Some time ago, US President Donald Trump urged Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi to withdraw from Russian projects, which was refused, Vladimir Nelidov, a senior researcher at the Institute of Oriental Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences, recalled.
— She replied that this was in line with Japan's interests and that continued participation in them was necessary to maintain and diversify hydrocarbon supplies to Japan. And it seems to me that this visit should be considered in the same spirit," the expert told Izvestia.
Izvestia sent inquiries to the Japanese Embassy in Russia and the Trade mission of the Russian Federation.
Are relations between Moscow and Tokyo normalizing
This visit can be considered an important signal to Moscow for the possible beginning of normalization of Russian-Japanese relations, said Oleg Kazakov, senior researcher at the Center for Japanese Studies at the Institute of China and Modern Asia of the Russian Academy of Sciences.
— Of course, this is not a full-scale delegation designed to form a "new economic cooperation." This is possible only after the end of the CBR and the beginning of the phased lifting of sanctions. But in the format of negotiations on the protection of Japanese assets, questions will undoubtedly be raised about acceptable joint actions in the interests of Russian and Japanese businesses, the expert believes.
The trend of visits by Japanese officials is interesting. In early May, Muneo Suzuki, a senator from the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), arrived in Russia and met with a number of high-ranking Russian politicians. Among them are Deputy Foreign Ministers Andrei Rudenko and Mikhail Galuzin. He held separate talks with Vyacheslav Nikonov, First Deputy chairman of the State Duma Committee on International Affairs, as well as with Grigory Karasin, head of the Federation Council Committee on International Affairs.
However, it is worth emphasizing that Suzuki is an old—timer in Japanese politics and has already visited the Russian Federation many times. And these contacts do not mean that Moscow and Tokyo are about to open a new channel or begin an active exchange of delegations.
— No, we are not planning anything, we are just willing to meet with people who represent the Japanese parliament. But this does not mean that we are ready to engage in some kind of systematic parliamentary exchanges. We must not forget that Japan is one of the unfriendly states that participate in sanctions, violate the bounds of decency in the media sphere in every possible way, hoping that sooner or later they will regain the so—called northern territories and so on," Grigory Karasin told Izvestia after Suzuki's visit.
This does not mean that Russia is not ready to develop cooperation in principle. For now, the Russian Federation expects the Japanese establishment to return to common sense and stop participating in the information and political war declared to us, the senator stressed.
Nevertheless, this time the visit of the Japanese MP may serve as some kind of impulse to normalize the dialogue. According to him, before arriving in Moscow, he met with Takaichi to check his watch. "Both Prime Minister Takaichi and Foreign Minister Motegi believe that Russian-Japanese relations are very important," the MP said.
Saori Katada emphasizes that Sanae Takaichi, as a protégé of Shinzo Abe, would like to normalize ties with Russia in the long term, which in practice means first resolving the issue with the Kuril Islands — it is territorial differences that mainly prevent the conclusion of a post-war peace treaty.
On February 20, Takaichi did indicate her intention to conclude an agreement, immediately stating that relations between the two countries remained "difficult" and the Japanese would continue to support Ukraine along with their allied countries. Contacts between Russia and Japan were interrupted at the initiative of Tokyo, Dmitry Peskov recalled at the time, noting that relations were practically reduced to zero. "There is no dialogue, and it is impossible to discuss the topic of a peace treaty without dialogue," the Kremlin spokesman said.
Perhaps, in such a difficult situation, Japan will try to resort to the tactic of separating politics from economics, while maintaining the current political narratives, Dobrinskaya notes.
And these narratives are mostly preserved. On the eve of the visit of the Japanese delegation, the head of the Ministry of Defense, Shinjiro Koizumi, suddenly announced the need to maintain defense on the island of Hokkaido due to the allegedly increased military activity of the Russian Federation. "Russia continues to conduct active military activities in the Far East, including the Northern Territories, and this, combined with its strategic cooperation with China, causes serious concern," the minister explained. An additional trigger for the deterioration of relations may be the refusal of Japanese journalists to visit the site of the recent terrorist attack in the LPR. "If Japanese journalists have a conscience, then the Russian Federation will find an opportunity for them to conduct a separate review," Zakharova said.
Thus, Tokyo, at least politically, continues to proceed from the logic of confrontation with the Russian Federation. The Japanese are acting cautiously and with an eye on the United States, their key ally in the Asia-Pacific region. Washington, despite the dialogue with Moscow, keeps its distance. Now the Japanese are rather probing the ground regarding a possible resumption of cooperation — but only after the settlement of the conflict in Ukraine.
Переведено сервисом «Яндекс Переводчик»
