USSR2/Asia Files: Russia woos Japan away from USA with strategic partnership, including peace treaty, military cooperation, civilian nuclear pact

Although Japan and the USA have participated in the Treaty of Mutual Cooperation and Security since 1960 and, before that, in the Mutual Security Assistance Pact of 1952, the perceived decline of the Soviet threat and the expansion of Japan into a global economic powerhouse has prompted many Japanese, especially of a leftist orientation, to question the necessity of the US-Japanese alliance. Finally, after more than 60 years of being technically at war, Japan and Russia are moving toward signing a peace treaty that will presumably resolve the dispute between the two states over the South Kuril Islands, which have been occupied by Russia since the Second World War, but claimed by Japan. Beginning tomorrow, Japanese Foreign Minister Masahiko Komura will visit his Russian counterpart, Sergei Lavrov, and Russian businessmen for four days of meetings in Moscow. Komura will also broach the subject of a possible visit to Russia by Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda at the beginning of his European tour, slated for early May.

Pictured above: In 2005 Neo-Soviet Tyrant Putin and then Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi met at the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation Summit in South Korea before heading back to Japan for additional talks. Notwithstanding the Kremlin's peaceful overtures to Japan, in February 2008 a Russian bomber briefly entered Japanese airspace south of Tokyo.

Japan FM to visit Moscow April 12-15 for peace treaty talks
10:14 11/ 04/ 2008

TOKYO, April 11 (RIA Novosti) - Japan's foreign minister will arrive in Russia on a four-day official visit on Saturday for talks on bilateral cooperation and a peace treaty, a Japanese foreign ministry official said on Friday.

Russia and Japan have failed to sign a formal peace treaty following World War II over their territorial dispute on the South Kuril Islands. Tokyo has moved to step up bilateral ties with a view to signing the treaty with Russia's new leadership.

Russian president-elect Dmitry Medvedev is to be sworn in next month. Outgoing leader Vladimir Putin will stay in as prime minister.

In Moscow, Masahiko Komura will meet with his Russian counterpart, Sergei Lavrov, and members of the Russian business community.

He will also visit a Toyota plant near St. Petersburg. The Japanese auto giant opened the plant last December planning to produce 20,000 Toyota Camry cars a year. Visiting the plant's opening ceremony, Putin said bilateral trade in 2007 grew more than 40% on the previous year's figures to $18.5 billion.

Komura will also discuss in Moscow a possible visit to Russia by Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda at the beginning of his European tour planned for early May.

In January, the Japanese premier expressed his readiness to improve relations with Russia in all spheres.

Source: Novosti

On April 7 Voice of Russia reported that "Russia and Japan plan a separate summit meeting on the fringes of the next summit of the G-8 on Hokkaido in July. First Deputy Foreign Minister Andrei Denisov told this to the press after emerging from another round of bilateral consultations about Pacific and global security in Tokyo on Monday."

Meanwhile, Novosti reports that in Moscow today Chief of the Joint Staff of Japan’s Self-Defence Forces Admiral Takashi Saito met with Chief of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces Yuri Baluyevsky to coordinate expanding cooperation between the Japanese and Russian militaries, especially in the East Asia region. Following the meeting with his Japanese counterpart, Baluyevsky declared, no doubt with some relief: "Japan will not join the U.S. global missile defense network in the near future despite close cooperation with the U.S. on boosting its own missile defenses. Japan is not planning to integrate its national missile shield into the U.S. global missile network."

Japan against joining U.S. global missile shield - Baluyevsky
14:13 11/ 04/ 2008

MOSCOW, April 11 (RIA Novosti) - Japan will not join the U.S. global missile defense network in the near future despite close cooperation with the U.S. on boosting its own missile defenses, Russia's chief of the General Staff said Friday.

"Japan is not planning to integrate its national missile shield into the U.S. global missile network," Gen. Yury Baluyevsky said after talks with his Japanese counterpart Adm. Takashi Saito in Moscow.

Under a December 2004 missile defense cooperation arrangement with the U.S., Japan intends to build by 2011 a national missile-defense network comprising sea- and land-based components.

Japan's determination to boost its missile defenses was strengthened after North Korea conducted a series of ballistic missile tests in July 2006, and an underground nuclear test explosion three months later.

Japan's Cabinet endorsed in December 2007 a review of emergency missile defense rules giving Self-Defense Forces (SDF) the discretion to fire missile interceptors without the premier's go ahead.

The government also authorized the use of U.S. SM-3 interceptor missiles as part of Japan's two-layer missile shield.

The U.S. sea-based SM-3 interceptor missiles are designed to intercept incoming ballistic missiles in mid-trajectory at altitudes up to 300 kilometers (about 190 miles), while land-based U.S. Patriot PAC-3 systems, which will be deployed at four ground-to-air missile units, are expected to shoot down missiles before they hit the ground.

During a test-launch on December 17 last year from the Japanese Aegis-equipped destroyer Kongou, an SM-3 interceptor shot down a simulated target over the Pacific near Hawaii.

However, Japan is opposed to the use of space-based elements in a global missile shield which Washington is proposing.

U.S. plans to deploy elements of the missile shield in Central Europe are expected to cost $1.6 billion over the next five years. The program will later be expanded to include sea-based missiles and missile tracking systems in space.

Washington insists that space-based systems would provide anti-missile protection independent of geographic location, strategic warning or permission to deploy bases, and would make it possible to intercept ballistic missiles in mid-trajectory.

In the area of civilian cooperation, Russia's Atomenergoprom and Japan's Toshiba have formed an alliance in nuclear power operations, including power plant construction and fuel production. On March 27 Novosti gloated:

Experts predict that the alliance will become the world's leader in the nuclear sector. Previously, the market was divided between four players: the French-German alliance of Areva and Siemens, two American-Japanese groups, Toshiba-Westinghouse and GE-Hitachi, and Russia's Atomenergoprom. The Russian-Japanese alliance will cut the number of players to three. Moreover, Toshiba now owns a 70% stake in Westinghouse.

"If we decide to build a nuclear power plant in Russia's Far East, as stipulated in the general plan for placing nuclear power plants, it would be logical to invite the Japanese," Sergei Novikov, a spokesentity for Rosatom Nuclear Energy State Corporation, explained.