I wrote why giving away the Kurils (even just two of the islands) to Japan in exchange for fuzzy and unenforceable investment commitments is a really bad idea back in 2010 and I see no cause to change any of that.
One big problem, then as now, is that ordinary Russians are against it.
Fourth, the vast majority of Russians prefer keeping their country whole. According to the latest poll in 2009, some 82% of Russians were opposed to giving back the Kurils to Japan, while only 8% were in favor (views are even more unambiguous in the Russian Far East where only 4% supported the giveaway in 2005). Vadim Nikitin respects democracy, right? But it gets even better. It turns out that he isn’t the majority even amongst the Russian liberals he presumably identifies with. Some 57% of (liberal) SPS/Yabloko voters said that their attitudes to Medvedev would change for the worse if he gives away the Kurils, barely distinguishable from the all Russian average of 63%.
The latest poll, conducted at the end of December 2018, basically shows the same thing: 77% against, only 9% for.
It’s also intriguing to look at who exactly supports the transfer. First, it is young people: 14% support it, versus 6-8% of over 30’s. This perhaps reflects the naive cosmopolitanism and (as commenter Dmitry endlessly points out) Japanophilia of the younger set. The rich, people without an income (i.e., mostly students), and Moscow are all relatively more supportive of handing over the Kurils. But even they are still in a decided minority.
However, there is also an interesting regional pattern. As in the that old poll, the people most against the transfer are in the Far Eastern Federal District, i.e. the ones who would stand to benefit most from any post-Kurils Japanese investments into Russia (theoretically, anyway; as I said, I’m extremely skeptical). However, the region most in favor is the North Caucasus Federal District, where a stunning 18% support the transfer. The population of DICh constitutes half of this region, while Russians account for 30%. I sort of doubt that either liberal cosmopolitanism or Japonophilia has made many inroads into Kadyrov’s demesne.
This would however sync well with the “map of Russian patriotism” (where Chechnya and Ingushetia are dead last, and Dagestan not far behind) and my musings that (adjusting for electoral fraud) Chechnya is the most oppositionist region.
So, giving away the Kurils – the young won’t care as much – only 25% say their opinion of Putin would fall on account of that, versus 45% for the over 30s. But the young are not exactly all that hot for Putin anyway). Conversely, it would be the more patriotic Russian elements – the bedrock of Putin’s support post-Crimea – who’d be most against the transfer. As well as the nationalists, of course. Considering that Putin has also recently lost a lot of supporters amongst leftists and the middle-aged due to pensions reform, I just don’t see him risking going through with that.
No matter what Japan promises investment-wise it just sets a terrible precedent. Giving away bits of your country is a bad idea, though I believe Russia and China exchanged river islands at some point.
The only scenario in which I’d even consider a transfer of the Kuril’s is if Japan offered to buy them in cold hard cash. Maybe for $100 billion. The Nips don’t really care about the Kurils.
This is not their country. USSR behaved like a hyena at the end of the WWII over there when Japan was already defeated. Japan did not attack the USSR.
I was gonna ask “since when is the Kurils part of Russia ?”, but then I remembered.
If a Russian as much as gazes in a particular direction, the land he’s looking at instantly joins The Traditional Lands of the Rus.
Japan was allied to a country that launched a genocidal invasion of the Soviet Union. The Soviets were forced to keep a substantial garrison in the east to guard against a Japanese invasion, something which no doubt caused a substantial number of excess Soviet military and civilian causalities in the west. Dominance of the Russian Far East was a major goal of the Japanese Empire, and there were several major border conflicts as a result.
Regardless of history, the islands are a part of Russia now and that’s all that really matters. Japan is basically a US puppet, and there’s no good reason for Russia to relinquish a strategically important region to a semi-hostile state for no immediate benefits.
So according to utu…
Russia should however nuke Israel because [reasons] as he always “argues” on the Syria threads.
PS. There is also the minor but quite important point that Russians couldn’t care less about what you think or want, and consider the Kurils Russian – which is, in fact, what this post was about.
Well, nobody is stopping you from annexing Moldova, if the loss of eurogibs is a price you are willing to pay for assuaging your East European butthurt.
The good guys gave Okinawa back,
and the Panama Canal Zone,
and the … 🙂
Those were never US territory though, you’d have to compare it to Guam or other Pacific territories of the US.
Don’t know why the Kurils are supposed to be an important issue though, few people live there, is there anything valuable about them?
And the Hawaii, you meant to say. Oh wait…
20,000 people on the four islands is not completely insignificant, and in general, people don’t like giving away chunks of their country’s territory. Especially when they are inhabited by their own people (ergo, Caucasians care less about that, since Russians are not their people) and there wasn’t any kind of international arbitration process around the issue.
They also control the entrance into the Sea of Okhotsk.
Helping the allies to defeat Japan even though it was no longer necessary is one thing. Annexing a part of Japan’s territory is another.
“Russians couldn’t care less about what you think” – One does not expect hyenas to be bothered by what is written about them in the books.
I didn’t write that Russia should give them away, tbh I don’t care about the issue, I just wondered what’s supposed to be valuable about those islands.
Is it a big deal for Japanese nationalists?
Russia’s border doesn’t end anywhere
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-38093468
I support the right of every nation to keep their strategically valuable rocks taken after wars
Yet another terrifying threat from the ex-KGB head of the authoritarian Kremlin régime. As if his obsession with the facist imperialist Dugin wasn’t enough…….
I would have supported this argument if Japan had not taken southern Sakhalin a few decades after they had recognized it as Russian.
But if Tokyo is okay with might makes right when to comes to Russian frontier territory, why shouldn’t Tokyo get a taste of that and lose some Japanese frontier territory?
They lost Ryukyu islands too, and only got them back after turning into a reliable client state.
Who should we give Hawaii back to?
Don’t know why the Kurils are supposed to be an important issue though, few people live there, is there anything valuable about them?
If you consider yourself weak, you are afraid to give up disputed territory. If you know that you are the biggest bad-ass in town you can be magnanimous.
Rare earth minerals.
“might makes right” – That Russia is considering returning the islands to Japan indicates that the might is not as mighty as it once was.
Is there any evidence that it’s seriously being considered? Official view still is that it’s out of the question, and AK’s arguments seem convincing that it would be a stupid idea from Russia’s/Putin’s point of view.
The perception of common people is politicians will sell national assets at fire sale prices, if allowed. I have no reason to doubt that this perception is correct. That is why, for instance, it is dangerous to donate land to local governments.
I don’t expect Russians to give up the Kurils for strategic reasons, but Russia has no valid claims to the Islands at all.
The islands were first settled by Japan and had 17,000 Japanese living on them. The Russians invaded, seized the islands, and kicked out the inhabitants. This is flat out theft.
The pro argument for giving up the islands is that the West is very good at using wedge issues like this as a way to pressure countries it wants to punish. They will use the Kurils to keep Japan in line in the anti-Russia team and it could cost Russia more valuable territory elsewhere.
That’s a dangerous gambit to play as Japan may fall into the anti-Russia camp anyway. But it is far more complicated than people here think.
To Hawaaians
Aren’t they are minority by now? What do you do with all the race-mixed people?
The reason is that Japan lost a war. Where do you think this mystical ‘right’ to land comes from? God?
Japan got off rather lightly for all the chaos it caused – at least in terms of territorial loss. You can even look at it today compared to Germany. I don’t have a lot of sympathy for Japan, and I don’t see why it needs any.
Japan unleashed the US on the world. They destabilized virtually the whole of East Asia. They committed countless appalling crimes. They played the race card when they were Nordics, trying to encourage others to hatred of whites.
Do you think they would have given back the Aleutians?
The islands were first settled by Ainu, the Japanese arrived much later.
Predictably clueless.
Point being that it sets a bad precedent. You shouldn’t lose your territory because you lost a war. Right now the west is chomping at the bit to cleave Russia into many different countries or to grant Russian territory to other nations.
Do you really want to see Russia carved up because they experience another Yeltsin and lose a war?
Do you want to see America lose California to China because of American poor leadership?
You might be able to say that the islands belong to the Ainu, but you can’t say they belong to Russia.
Only the Ainu and Japan have any claim to those islands. Not Russians.
Some solutions outside the box. 1) Joint Russian and Japanese settlement as Norway and Russia do on de-militarized Svalbard Island. 2) Give the 4 islands to the UN as an unihabited, off-limits nature and marine preserve. 3) Give them back to the Ainu who lived there long before Japanese or Russians. Commenters to this essay seem not to know much history. Go read the Wikipedia entry. There is also not much discussion of Japan denying itself Siberian resources (energy, minerals, lumber) because Kuril exiles have considerable poltical power in Japan, like Cuban exiles in the USA.
According to the Wikipedia article you recommended the civilian Japanese population expelled in 1946 was just 17 000.
It doesn’t seem very likely that such a small population and its descendants can have much influence by itself on Japanese policy today.
‘To Hawaaians’
What about the ninety percent of the population that isn’t Hawaiian? Should the Japanese, whites, Chinese, Filipinos, ‘Portuguese’, and all the mixtures thereof be expelled?
Moreover, most remaining ‘Hawaiians’ are usually crossbreeds of some sort themselves. Should those be expelled as well? What degree of racial purity would you propose?
I don’t think there was ever a risk that Russian authorities would consider giving up territories to Japan. It is in the exact same situation as that of EU, where it cannot act without permission from Master. Merkel, Sarkozy, and Abe did their jobs and reduced their countries’ tangible clout to nil.
Yes, colonialists should all go home.
Why does Japan think the islands are worth it though?
Once Russia is willing to give away parts of its territory to China, one can raise the question–why not to Japan as well?
Is it because Japan has ten times less people than China has and is thus much less important for Russia?
These islands were historically Japanese.
The U.S. really did behave noxiously in regards to this back then.
How many Russians live on these islands right now?
Are there going to be enough Chinese people who will want to move to California, though? I mean, if China wants California as its Lebensraum, it better have enough willing settlers to actually settle California.
Option #4: Give these islands to either South Korea or China.
If Romania actually annexes Moldova, what happens to Transnistria?
How about anyone who is capable of doing the hula dance gets to stay in Hawaii?
Putin apparently said back in 2006 that the 1956 Soviet offer to give up two of these islands (the much less populous ones, I think) is still valid, though.
Was southern Sakhalin’s population Russian-majority when Japan seized it in 1905?
If anything, I’d sure that Russia was too mild in its territorial conquests. It should have conquered Ottoman Armenia during the Hamidian Massacres in the mid-1890s as well as entered the Sino-French War in the 1880s in order to conquer Mongolia and Xinjiang. Also, if there would have been an opportunity, Russia should have conquered Iran’s/Persia’s Caspian Sea coastline as well.
To Lilo and Stitch, of course.
Did the Western Allies agree to let the Soviet Union annex the southern four Kuril Islands?
Considering that Japan previously annexed Korea and Taiwan and also forcibly separated Manchuria from China, though, I really don’t think that Japan has much to complain about.
Japan should be grateful that Hokkaido didn’t become a Soviet satellite state for almost half a century like East Germany did.
Timofey Tsoi. Is he a Sakhalin Korean?
Although it would allow them access to the Sea of Okhotsk and there may discovered resources in the water at some point in the undetermined future, I think it is primarily a matter of pride at this point in time for the Japanese side.
I strongly doubt that Russia would ever agree to give up more than the two least populous Kuril Islands.
The samurai strongly values honor, no?
It is a way to show that they are a ‘normal’ country again.
How exactly would it do that?
After what the Russians endured in WWII, it’s amazing there is a Germany, or Germans, left at all.
They could start paying for their own defence instead of sponging off of America. I think the Japs want in on the exploitation of Siberia and a deal over the Islands will clear the way for the real agreements with the populace of Japan. Its a way in, a loss leader.
arguments in Russian media:
“The ocean around The southern Kuril Islands is fabulously rich in fish and seafood-salmon, Pollock, cod, saury, anchovy, perch, flounder, pelagic squid, octopus, sea urchin, king crab
The shelf adjacent to the island contains huge reserves of oil and gas, the production of which is quite real and profitable even with the current state of technology.
Тhe military aspect of the possible transfer of the Islands is much more important…. between Kunashir and Iturup is the only deep-water ice-free Strait between the Islands of the Kuril ridge. The loss of at least one of these two Islands blocks the Pacific fleet in the bases, that is, Russia will lose free access from the sea of Okhotsk to the Pacific ocean.”
Short of genociding the Germans en masse, the Soviets stripped Germany of as much territory as they reasonably could.
Agreed that Japan should begin paying for its own defense. After all, it’s wealthy enough to do this.
A myth. The border was demarcated along the Amur river (previously the border was not demarcated).
I can add another obvious argument-the Islands in the future will bring money through tourism:
http://magspace.ru/uploads/2018/11/20/auto_22-3331000810707_81fc137618_o.jpg
http://turnakurily.ru/img/iturup_.jpg
https://rthvictoria.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/vulkan-Atsonopuri-ostrov-Iturup-Kurilskie-ostrova-Ohotskoe-more.jpg
http://www.nat-geo.ru/upload/iblock/1a4/1a42cb9070b10990ed924a5894084b59.jpg
https://assets2.netuleny.com/uploads/photo/000/019/613/lg_tourtype_12_Sahalin_Pokorenie_vershin_Sahalina_i_Iturupa_156875.jpg
http://pics2.pokazuha.ru/p217/v/7/8224579j7v.jpg
http://photosflowery.ru/photo/38/38b1995ef363b3c15541a9748040922d.jpg
There is something to what you write, but let’s not pretend that Japan was a very good guy in all that, and also let’s not pretend that it’s some ancient Japanese land. It’s native inhabitants are the Ainu, while the Japanese only took possession of it in the Edo period. They haven’t ruled it for 74 years now. They will survive the loss.
The Kuril Islands are right smack dab in the path of the ever-increasing circum-Pacific Fukushima Effluent Stream. Making their many fishes and other sea=life less than appetizing. If I had a vote, I’d say, dump ’em.
So, did the US give up any piece of its territory? I don’t think so. It didn’t even allow secession of its own member states.
That precedent has already been set a few million years ago. Chimpanzee bands lose territory all the time after losing wars to another chimp band. Japan lost the Kurils (with a few inconsequential villages) in 1945. The same time Germany lost huge provinces with huge cities and important industries built over centuries, which had belonged to Germany for much longer.
More recently, Syria lost the Golan in 1967, and while it’s not recognized internationally, no one gives a rat’s ass.
For 300 years. Hungary has much better 1000 year old claims, some of which still have an ethnic Hungarian majority. So?
TBH, it might not be a bad idea for Hungary to reacquire some Hungarian-majority border areas if it can do so peacefully–which I certainly doubt.
I’d oppose Southern secession in 1861 as well due to the slavery issue.
Silesia was the only industrialized territory that Germany lost in 1945, correct? The rest were primarily agricultural, correct?
As for the Golan Heights, Israel needs them for its living space.
Well, I don’t see people in the West using that same argument for Tibet.
Much of Tibet is Han Chinese. Yet white people in the west are always bitching about Tibetan rights and would like nothing more than to purify Tibet of Hans.
Tibet is something like 90+% Tibetan, no?
It’s impossible, even in principle, so why should it be possible for Japan? I don’t even understand under what principle they should have a right to it.
By achieving a diplomatic victory. There is a lot of symbolic prestige sunk into it. Even if it seems odd recall that Argentina and Britain were willing to fight over the insignificant Falklands.
Although the growing population may make it appealing for Israelis to settle it en masse in the future, I believe its current importance lies in its military value, overlooking both Northern Israel and Southern Syria.
No. If we ignore the Ainu, the islands were first discovered and settled by Russians, sailing south from Kamchatka.
Northern Kuriles – Yes.
But apparently the Japanese explored southern Kurils before the Russians.
‘Yes, colonialists should all go home.’
Ah. Well, in that case, it’s relevant that what we consider to be the ‘native’ Hawaiians were actually the second group to arrive in the islands. Settlers from The Marquesas had arrived there a century or two earlier.
Our Hawaiians exterminated them. So they have to leave as well.
The islands are to be left entirely unpopulated. All better now?
‘How about anyone who is capable of doing the hula dance gets to stay in Hawaii?’
That strikes me as distinctly ageist and probably a violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act to boot.
I don’t think that Japan must have a right to these islands. Still, it might be in bad taste for Russia to refuse to return the two smaller islands given that Putin has apparently previously (in 2006) said that this offer is still on the table.
Old people can’t do the hula dance?
So, basically, in the long(er)-run, Hawaii is an unpopulated territory which China can settle?
OK.
Also, the Argentines were morons to invade the Falklands. That ensured that Britain won’t give them up for at least the next 100 years.
If you’d turn on your brain for a change, you’d understand this isn’t about “East European butthurt”.
What I’m trying to say is that this sort of “might makes right, watcha gonna do about it” can just as easily be deployed against you.
Have you forgotten the post-Soviet decade ?
Do you think Russia won’t ever have moments of weakness in the future ?
This sort of antagonistic posture seems to me rather pointless.
Also, annexing Moldova would be a VERY bad move. And eurogibs, in the long run, do more harm than good.
For some reason, I doubt that any country that somehow manages to figure out how to neutralize Russia’s nuclear deterrent and pursues designs on its territory will be swayed one way or the other by the details of Russia’s Kurils policy.
Japanese promises mean nothing. They are a US puppet, they will do whatever the US tells them to do and America never keeps its promises.
That’s a rather narrow reading of what I’m trying to say.
Also, if one were to take your logic to its ultimate conclusion, you seem to be saying “With Russia, it’s all stick – no carrot.”.
Doesn’t seem wise to me.
Yes, but the more ideal scenario would be if the USA broke up into many more tiny parts.
The U.S. really did behave noxiously in regards to this back then.
Misfortunes of geo-politics, with Nazi Germany defeated we immediately pivoted and faced the “real” enemy.
did the US give up any piece of its territory?
It is a bit semantic. The fact is that we voluntarily withdrew and no other country was in a position to force us to do so.
The more interesting thing is how the original Treaty of San Francisco was pretty ambiguous about the South Kuril Islands (and the Senkaku Islands, too), and that its text (“Japan renounces all right, title and claim to the Kurile Islands, and to that portion of Sakhalin and the islands adjacent to it over which Japan acquired sovereignty as a consequence of the Treaty of Portsmouth of 5 September 1905.”) in the most literal sense probably gives the area to the USSR. However, later on the Americans clarified that “the Habomai Islands and Shikotan … are properly part of Hokkaido and that Japan is entitled to sovereignty over them”. Also “Britain and the United States agreed that territorial rights would not be granted to nations that did not sign the Treaty of San Francisco, and therefore the islands were not formally recognized as Soviet territory.”
If you ask me, the Treaty of San Francisco was pretty badly worded, and in the form it was made it amounts to a separate peace treaty anyway (though it probably doesn’t matter, since the peace treaties with Germany were concluded separately, too).
FWIW, if the islands have the security value that comment #60 claims, I wouldn’t give them up, just like I wouldn’t have given up Sevastopol to be turned into a NATO harbor.
The USSR also voluntarily withdrew from places like Hungary or Estonia, and no other country was in a position to force them to do so. They did it for economic and political considerations, basically because they’d have had to transform their military into a security occupation force, while since the early 50s they have always had a military designed to fight the Third World War and very poorly equipped to fight COIN type wars. So at least in some sense they withdrew voluntarily, in other words, they had a choice.
A better example might be their withdrawal from China (including Port Arthur) and North Korea in the 1950s, where also no one was in a position to oust them.
Just like the US withdrawal from places like Japan (not a full withdrawal, for what it’s worth) and the Philippines, these were mostly driven by political considerations.
But the Kurils are a place with an ethnically Russian (settler) population, I don’t think the US ever withdrew from such a place.
I don’t think the US ever withdrew from such a place.
I think that the Canal Zone might qualify, but I think that you are correct about military, political and economic considerations driving these decisions. I can’t see us withdrawing from Guam anytime soon.
It should be an independent Hawaiian republic. Native Hawaiians can learn their own language, plus Mandarin. All others who came during the occupation must learn the Hawaiian language to hold jobs or run for office, and be issued a grey passport.
I would have just started and ended with this point, maybe a bit about investments and the (correct) assumption about the Japonophilia/South Koreanophilia of parts of the young generation
the main issue here is not the transfer of the 2 islands, but the ever increasing joint activity of Russian & Japanese civilians and businesses onto the islands…..i.e what happens here is going to directly influence and maybe dictate the agreement Ukraine eventually makes with Russia or the west does on Crimea
So the Kurils are about Crimea, and a bit about investment
A nonsense premise and a nonsense end argument.
If Russians or anyone around the world are asked questions similiar to ” if NDS should increase from 18%-20%”.. then of course the large majority are going to say no, just as with this issue on the Kurils they aren’t going to say “yes” – which doesn’t mean anything at all……..neither of which means that they don’t understand the governments moves or even that they give a flying f**k about the issue if there is some sensible agreement , non-expulsions, guaranteed military development guarantees ( unlikely)
What an absurd suggestion that Putin would be somehow be straightjacketed no this entirely false premise because of the pension reform non-issue….one that is a typical liberast assertion without facts
If Japan helped finance or build a bridge from the mainland to Sakhalin, then I would ( with military/non-expulsion guarantees) take the offer of returning 2 islands in about 2 seconds.
This is not like when millions of patriots proved they were perfectly fine to jettison holidays to Turkey and holiday in Crimea, Sochi and other Russian places, whilst Turkey did not apologise/compensate for shooting down and killing Russian pilots and the government had frozen relations with Turkey and flights.
They did not belong to Russia, but they do now.
Yes, but they also included old port cities like Stettin, Danzig and Königsberg.
The loss of Stettin is particullary bad because the North of modern East Germany lacks huge cities.
Rostock, the biggest one has only 208k residents, much less than German Stettin had in the late 1930s.
Tokyo wants more EEZ.
https://www.asiabiomass.jp/english/topics/images/1009_2_1.jpg
By the way, that is Okinotori.
https://cdn.turkaramamotoru.com/en/okinotorishima-9723.jpg
But, Russia just lost a bunch of its territory with Ukraine leaving and there was nothing Russia could do about it.
There was no war and Russias nukes were a non factor.
The Anglo way is divide and conquer. So it is more likely that if Russia loses territory in the future it will be through an economic war not military. And it will be the West manipulating groups in Russia to turn against each other.
No, the Kurils were a place with ethnic Japanese and Russia expelled them.
Has Russia ever c ok compensated Japan for these islands? Have they compensated the people who lost their homes?
Maybe it is Russia who should give Japan $100 Billion.
Be careful. Ukraine once belonged to Russia and now it doesn’t. If Japan wanted to, they could easily support Ukraine economically and other parts of Russia that want to break off.
Right now Russia has strong leadership, but who’s to say in the future Russia won’t be weakened and be forced to give it back?
They are already doing that.: https://www.ua.emb-japan.go.jp/jpn/bi_ua/oda/160318_assistance_en.pdf
Does it really? They are no longer as weak as they used to be, but they are still not as strong as they could be.
Forced by that? Situation in 1990s and early 2000s was worse yet it did not happen.
And give back to whom?
https://i.imgur.com/OEPR9lx.jpg
Germany needs more big coastal cities, if only for the reason that “Fischkopf” is such a fun insult to throw around.
Filipinos will soon be the largest single group in Hawaii, as they are becoming on Guam.
Good example.
As an aside, the people of the Falklands might decide nowadays that they want out of Islamic formerly-great formerly-Britain. Argentina might seem like the better option in twenty years.
It would be interesting to see the small Hawaiian MINORITY force the whites and the Filipinos to learn Hawaiian, when the Filipinos alone greatly outnumber the Hawaiians. Both the Filipino and the white share of the state’s population are growing, while the Hawaiian share is not. It would be likelier that nonFilipinos on Hawaii would eventually find it useful to learn some Tagalog or visayan.
Makes more sense for the next generation of people there to learn English and as you said, Mandarin — or Spanish, sadly, if they want the option of moving to the mainland US.
‘Well, I don’t see people in the West using that same argument for Tibet.
Much of Tibet is Han Chinese. Yet white people in the west are always bitching about Tibetan rights and would like nothing more than to purify Tibet of Hans.’
You have a point, but there are a couple of distinctions.
The resettlement of Hawaii just…happened. By 1880 or so, the islands had ceased to be predominantly Polynesian. If anyone was to blame, it would be the Hawaiian royalty themselves — but it wasn’t a conscious or concerted policy of population replacement. That can’t be said of Han settlement in Tibet.
Then too, it’s all in the past. People woke up around 1920, and passed such measures as the Hawaiian Homelands Bill, setting aside land for people of at least partially Hawaiian descent.
But by then of course, it was too late — assuming one sees it all as somehow regrettable. Traditional Hawaiian culture has been bowdlerized into some kind of idyllic mix of surfboards and hula dancing, but it was fantastically stratified between the nobility and the commoners, and human sacrifice was practiced on what appears to have been a massive scale. Would we tolerate it if it had survived?
In any case, what should have been done when? One can’t say the same thing about the Chinese resettlement of Tibet, which was decried even as it was taking place, and which the Chinese continued with, fully aware of what they were doing, why, and the ethical objections to it.
It’s kind of like choosing between the wife who finds it gratifying that her husband enjoys her cooking and so keeps feeding him until he keels over with a heart attack at three hundred pounds and the one who hates him and so doses his food with arsenic. Yeah, they both killed him — but there is a moral distinction.
The Kuril islands dispute is a huge lesson in the power of propaganda.
Here are a set of islands, populated almost exclusively by Russians and the native Ainu, which were, before the Russian colonization, not much more than a bunch of loosely staffed military outposts used by the Japanese to occasionally attack the Ainu if they got too rowdy. The Japanese did not even consider Hokkaido to be a part of their homeland until they conquered it from refugee Samurai during the Boshin war, nevermind the Kurils, which were just the “land of the foreigner” to the Japanese.
The Russians, meanwhile, acquired the Kurils in a perfectly legitimate way, by joining the winning side in a defensive war against Japan. It was a defensive war, not an offensive one, because the Russians were joining the defenders, namely, China and the western allies. Territory seized in a defensive war can be legitimately annexed according to international law, and given the extremely sparse population of the Kurils, their annexation was perfectly sensible, especially compared to what was done to Germany.
The people of the Kurils want to stay part of Russia, the Japanese have no meaningful claim to the islands, and there is no practical reason to give them away, aside from massaging the bruised egos of the Japanese. Yet, thanks to copious, propagandist coverage of the dispute, there are many people, including the relatively well informed people on this very forum, who discuss the matter as though Russia is committing a great aggression by not “returning” the islands to their “rightful” owners.
Compare this attitude to the prevailing attitude towards the postwar territorial changes in Eastern Europe , which were accompanied by a veritable genocide of Poles and Germans at the hands of the Soviets, and you get a stunning view of just how powerful propaganda can be in motivating people to take specific political positions, against all reason.
@AK: decade ago you wrote how the wise government decided to build an expensive bridge to nowhere in Vladivostok, to impress visiting Chinese dignitaries.
How did it turn out after the years? Is it useless white elephant, or pricey but handy part of local infrastructure?
Of course, the Japanese happily took certain German islands, without handing them back.
Yep. And that was viewed as perfectly ok by the western allies after WW1, despite the nearly identical circumstances.
Mexican says
https://www.tripadvisor.de/ShowUserReviews-g298496-d3438580-r604355750-Bridge_to_Russky_Island-Vladivostok_Primorsky_Krai_Far_Eastern_District.html
Brit says
https://www.tripadvisor.de/ShowUserReviews-g298496-d3438580-r576053733-Bridge_to_Russky_Island-Vladivostok_Primorsky_Krai_Far_Eastern_District.html
Its also impress residents of the city :
“This bridge that connected the island with the mainland was a real breakthrough in the future. … it stands for 7 years and pleases us all with the opportunity to easily get to the clean bays and steep cliffs of Russky island.”
The bridge cost about a billion dollars. In my opinion, this is quite justified spending (bridge gives access to the beach what is important for the development of the city)
If Kuriles belong to Japan, they should be given back because it’s the right thing to do.
It’s like it was good for Crimea to be returned to Russia.
Lol. The resettlement of Hawaii with non natives was not just circumstance. It was a deliberate act.
There is plausible deniability because you can say that there are a lot of white people who moved there because of military bases, not to purposely settle the place. But you can say the same thing about Tibet too. There are a lot of Han who moved there to man bases to secure the border with India. But China denies it is a deliberate act just like we do with Hawaii.
The measures taken to placate the native Hawaiians are not impressive at all. Are we supposed to be impressed when China reserves a few Casinos for native Tibetans after they steal their land?
And are you really saying that China knows it is colonizing Tibet, but America had no idea it was colonizing Hawaii? That is a total joke.
If those big nationalist are dealing , why not to try to end the occupation of the Okinava first..??
Then may be even those the Russian would be softer…
It just the lack courage or plenty the cowardness ?
How disconnected do you have to be to really believe this?
The bridge was built to enable real estate developments. Vladivostok is currently a dump, but that could change pretty quickly. When it does, that island will be prime real estate.
The Japs got off easy in WW2. Germany and her diaspora got rekt, permanently really. The Japs should feel lucky Sapporo wasn’t added to the Soviet Union.
If Germany pestered Poland for land back people would flip. The Japs lost the land and should just deal with it. They need Russia long term on their side to fend off China.
I mentioned the Vladivostok bridge precisely three times in my 1,500 posts over the past 11 years:
1) In which I Criticize Vladimir Putin (2010): https://akarlin.com/2010/04/in-which-i-criticize-putin/ – negative (in which I explicitly called it a white elephant)
2) Open Thread 28 (2017): http://www.unz.com/akarlin/open-thread-28/ – negative
3) The State of Russian Sinology (2017): http://www.unz.com/akarlin/russian-sinology/ – negative
You look at the Ukraine/Russia relationship rather simplistically. Ukraine had a state during the pre-modern period that included military, judicial, tax collecting functions and included an autonomous church as well. Add to this its own language, folk customs and songs and one can easily see why Ukraine was one of the first independent states to emerge when the Soviet Union dissolved in 1991.
And ironically, now Hawaii is being colonized by Filipinos. Until China takes the place, that is.
And the Russian Empire pushed aside the Chinese to seize the territory in the first place; complete with ethnic cleansing. Xi has said he wants his country back (to Merkel).
The one channel deep enough to slip a submarine into the Pacific without the US satellites spotting it. Stupid militarism strikes again.
this brainless garbage keeps being said by provocateurs. No nation has been anywhere close to Russia for benevolence to defeated nations /ethnicities….and it is a very long and victorious military history that Russia has. Extremely high numbers of different ethnicities from defeated areas have been absorbed right into the top of Russian military, academia, culture, society, intermarried and so on. This “ethnic cleansing” is total BS.
The British, French, Spanish, German, Dutch, Portuguese, Italians and Belgians have been nowhere near as benevolent over the last 400 years
The Chinese never settled Outer Manchuria, let alone the Kurils. There were tribes that the Qing government claimed sovereignty over, unconvincingly.
Xi professing irredentism aimed at Siberia sounds like a remarkable claim, if true. Is there a credible source for it?
No Hungarian-majority border areas, unless you would annex a few sq km at a time for a Hungarian majority village. Just three counties in the center of Romania are heavily Hungarian (out of 41+the capital), two of them at around 90%, the other 56%, so not contiguous land with Hungary today. It would have a better chance with bits and bobs of Serbia, Ukraine and Slovakia.
We’re still wondering what happened to the Romanians surrounding Romania, minus the Republic of Moldova. Guess it’s easier to pay lip service to minority rights when you took the opportunity to assimilate them en masse, leaving token numbers.
The real question is what happens to Gagauzia, which is an autonomous part of Moldova with a constitutional right to independence if it unites with Romania. The Gagauz minority are very pro-Russian and have been economically dependent on exporting agricultural products there. Neither are they in a contiguous territory, but rather in a weird patchwork, which would make establishing proper EU/Schengen borders a nightmare.
As for Transnistria, whatever, so long as they lose the territory on the right bank of the Dniester, so a proper border can be established on the river. It will depend, basically, on what Russia agrees to do with regards to the “peacekeepers” there. Maybe Ukraine can have it, I don’t know. Or it can continue with its niche as a gateway for organized crime in the region. If a lot of people find it useful, then some reason for the status quo to continue will be found.
I was talking about the Far East in general not the Kurils as the topic was wandering. Agree. The Kurils were not on the Chinese list. Mongolia though was.
Xi’s speech to his first party Congress was long on everything including references to unequal treaties. All the remaining unequal treaties had their origins in Russian Imperial expansion, Hong Kong and Macao having been handed back. The borders with India and Pakistan are not Unequal Treaty affairs. He went back to it when Merkel visited. They discussed a map showing areas, including the Russian Far East considered by China to have been taken by such treaties. It’s somewhere on the net. Years back.
Russia-China friendship is transactional.
Seriously?
Russia after WW2 participated in one of the most barbaric periods in human history against German civilians. Mainly women and children.
Russia raped and pillaged on a horrific scale.
I’m not saying that Russians are bad people, but this benevolence myth is total bullshit.
I vaguely remembered something about Merkel and a map of China as well, and I think I’ve found what it was about:
https://foreignpolicy.com/2014/04/01/a-merkel-a-map-a-message-to-china/
Basically Merkel presented an 18th century map to the Chinese which didn’t include Xinjiang, Tibet and some other areas as part of China…which pissed off nationalistic Chinese, so internet users (and apparently some Chinese media as well) referred to another map from the mid-19th century, which apparently did show even some Siberian regions as parts of China.
That’s very different from any official or semi-official claim by Xi though.
EDIT: This seems to be the 1844 map by John Dower:
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c4/China_and_Japan%2C_John_Nicaragua_Dower_%281844%29.jpg
Just a lie.
In the 17th century for the Amur river valley (inhabited by local tribes, the Chinese population was absent ) there was a war between the Manchus and Russian pirates. As a result (under the Treaty of Nerchinsk in 1689), the Amur river valley remained under the control of the Manchus (but not the Chinese), but the border was not clearly defined. The Manchus forbade the Chinese to settle on these lands (the Manchus also resettled most of the local tribes to the South). In the 19th century, taking advantage of the opium wars and the Taiping uprising, the Governor of Siberia achieved (in negotiations with the Manchus) the establishment of a modern border. The Chinese and Korean population on the lands passed under the control of Russia was absent (although the Chinese and Koreans began to move to these lands later).
I remembered the first post, and got curious how it eventually turned out. I have no intention to troll, this type of information is hard to find when one doesn’t know the language.
There were quite a few ambitious large-scale projects before the financial crisis – bridge/dam around Petersburg, plan to dominate in nanotechnologies, Skolkovo high-tech center, etc. It would be very interesting to know their fate decade later.
These are different projects. Dam still Soviet project,
http://eyorkie.ucoz.ru/_fr/32/2630532.jpg
bridges at the confluence of the Neva river in the sea-a modern project https://electroprof.com/templates/yootheme/cache/zsd_main-1b45837e.jpeg
Both facilities are working successfully. As an example of a large construction in St. Petersburg, you can add a half-kilometer skyscraper in Lakhta
https://cs9.pikabu.ru/post_img/big/2018/01/16/9/1516114967140563174.jpg
How about the British? – they already have the Union Jack on the state flag.
This 1844 map shows both Korea and Sakhalin as being part of China.
On the “rapes”……this is simply a garbage mathematical formula, used to somehow extrapolate that a million german women were raped , all for the propaganda purpose of discrediting the victorious Soviets,with much the same propaganda the germans were using before and during the world ( you know ,this cross of slav and mongol rapist BS cartoons)
There were something like 105 women in Germany in the year after May 1945 who listed the father of their child as Russian, it is literally from this that the braindead “million+ rapes” garbage is constructed…not evidence …just a few lying clowns
Millions of soviets killed by the Nazi’s, by 1945 a much higher proportion of central asians and other ethnicities in the Red Army…….but absolutely no child born in Germany during that time with facial features that might implicate the Red Army. If so called mass-rape took place, then there won’t be any sufficient amount of murder of the women during the rape, abortion, miscarriage, abandoned newborns to cover for the lack of any children looking like that.
Unlike many of the Poles for whoever they were fighting, the Russian Army in WW1 were immaculate in behaviour in every place they entered (different point, but I thought I should make it, anyway)
The BS mathematical formula assumes that any female from the age of 8 to 80 was a target, and unlike the Holocaust which has records of people interned at various camps, masses of surviving family members, friends, not to mention personal belongings, skeletons, orders etc that can support the fact it happened…..the “mass rape” has nothing going for it…just a ridiculous attempt to slander some of the greatest men who ever walked the earth