Упрощенная HTML-версия
Author : S. Tikhvinsky
Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary, Merited Worker of the Diplomatic Service of the Russ-
ian Federation, Member of the Russian Academy of Sciences
IMMEDIATELY AFTER THE JAPANESE ATTACK on December
7, 1941, on the U.S. naval base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, and on British
colonies in the Far East, the American and British governments began
to urge the USSR to enter the war against Japan.
Striving to make the Soviet Union enter the war against Japan, Ameri-
can diplomacy voiced its determination to strip Japan, after the war, of
territories that it had seized earlier, including the Kuril Islands, as pun-
ishment for aggression.
In 1954, Ichiro Hatoyama came to power in Japan. In his election cam-
paign, he promised to begin talks with the USSR. He kept his word, al-
though the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs was clearly
pro-American and anti-Soviet at that time. The Soviet side proposed that the talks be held in
Tokyo or Moscow, yet this was rejected by the Japanese. Their proposal to hold talks at the UN
Headquarters in New York, where the Americans could influence the negotiations, did not suit
the USSR. Finally, after a long discussion, London was chosen as the site of talks.
I arrived in Tokyo on May 13, 1956. Despite the late time of the day and the heavy rain, about
a hundred people met me at the airport. Japanese business circles were interested in normalizing
relations with the USSR. They were supported by left-wing parties and moderate circles - in par-
ticular, those that were outraged at the continuing occupation of Japan by U.S. forces. Japanese-
Soviet friendship organizations had been set up; their members included people from trade
organizations, fishing enterprises, and men of culture, science, and the arts.
Upon his return to Tokyo from a foreign mission, Foreign Minister Shigemitsu declared that he
would go to Moscow himself to conclude the talks and obtain concessions.
Many years have elapsed since that time. The extensive efforts of Soviet and later Russian diplo-
mats to establish good-neighborly relations with Japan did not bear fruit. At times, it seemed
that a breakthrough in concluding a peace treaty was imminent, as was the case in May 1964
when A. Mikoyan, First Deputy Chairman of the Council of Ministers, came to Japan with a
delegation of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR. Yet Japan got mired in the Cold War. Japanese
revanchists got the support of some ruling circles of Japan and, most importantly, support from
the USA.
In an interview to the editor-in-chief of the radio station Ekho Moskvy on March 2, 2011, S.
Lavrov replied to a question on the stance of the Russian Federation on US interference in Russ-
ian-Japanese relations by saying, "We were taken aback by the form in which US representatives
commented the state of Russian-Japanese relations. [...] In Potsdam, it was set down that the
Kuril Islands would belong to the Soviet Union. [... ] We tell our American colleagues that we
don't entirely understand why, after having been so calm about our relations with Japan over the
past decades, they have suddenly taken a different attitude towards it. We don't understand it
very well."
http://interaffairs.ru
Post-War Normalization of Russian-Japanese Relations