Japan and Russia

When discussing Japan’s diplomacy and security, the relations between Japan and Russia contain a peculiar ambiguity. In Japanese society, the presence of Russia’s economy and culture since the end of the Cold War has been small compared with the countries of Asia, the US, and major Western European countries, and wariness also remains because of historical memory. In international issues, while there are continuous discussions in Japan regarding the US, China, the Korean Peninsula, and the nations of Southeast Asia, on occasion Russia abruptly becomes the focus of attention as a main diplomatic matter pertaining to territorial problems and disputes. This article attempts to consider whether such Japanese relations with Russia, which are easily confused because attention is intermittent in this way, can be understood within the overall image of Japanese foreign and security policy.
 

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The views, conclusions and recommendations expressed in this report are solely those of its author(s) and do not reflect the view of the Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung, or its employees.