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Imperial Japan's battle flag
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Japan’s Golden Week Diplomacy toward the Indo-Pacific

By Takuya Nishimura, Senior Fellow, Asia Policy Point
Former editorial writer for the Hokkaido Shimbun
You can find his blog, J Update here.
May 18, 2026
 
While the Diet took a short recess during late April’s Golden Week, Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi and other ministers visited countries in Southeast Asia and Africa. They sought deals with those countries over resources, including rare earth minerals, that are critical to Japan from both economic and national security perspectives. Diplomacy under the Takaichi administration relies heavily on Shinzo Abe’s legacy of using economic incentives to leverage security policy.
 
Takaichi met with Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese in Canberra on May 4, and they signed a Joint Declaration on Economic Security Cooperation. Japan depends on Australia for 40 percent of its LNG imports and 65 percent of its coal imports. The declaration affirms that both countries will deepen their partnership on energy security and supply chain resilience. The two leaders also signed a joint statement on critical minerals, which will support projects by Japan’s private sector to develop gallium, magnesium, fluorite, and nickel in Australia.
 
The joint declaration rejects “all forms of economic coercion,” including export restrictions on critical minerals, a statement presumably directed at China. The declaration explains that export restrictions significantly interfere with global supply chains. Last January, China imposed strict controls on exports of dual-use products to Japan. Observers widely interpreted the controls as a sanction for Takaichi’s comment on the Taiwan contingency in November 2025 and her later refusal to apologize for it. It was not out of the ordinary then for Takaichi to strike an alternative deal with Australia to secure minerals and other raw materials.
 
Takaichi and Albanese also signed a Leaders Statement on Enhanced Defense and Security Cooperation, which called bilateral relations between their countries a “special strategic partnership.” They agreed to maintain assets, including upgraded Mogami frigates, and to cooperate on supply chain issues. Takaichi called Australia a “quasi-ally” in her meeting with Albanese.
 
Takaichi’s visit to Vietnam, which occurred before her meetings in Australia, showed a similar tendency to emphasize economic incentives. In her meeting with Vietnamese President To Lam on May 2, Takaichi urged cooperation by the two countries to strengthen the supply chain, including the export of rare earth minerals mined in Vietnam. In her policy speech in Hanoi, she emphasized that Free and Open Indo-Pacific (FOIP) is the lynchpin of Japanese foreign policy. FOIP is a diplomatic concept originated in 2016 by former prime minister Shinzo Abe. It is regarded as one of his major foreign policy achievements.
 
Takaichi’s cabinet ministers took the same tack on their trips abroad. Minister of Defense Shinjiro Koizumi visited Indonesia and the Philippines to reinforce their security ties with Japan. In Indonesia, he signed of a Defense Cooperation Arrangement expanding security ties in people-to-people exchanges, education and joint training, as well as defense equipment and technology cooperation.
 
At his meeting with Philippine Defense Minister Gilberto Teodoro in Manila, the two officials issued a Joint Press Statement (Japanese text) under which Japan would transfer retired Abukuma-class destroyer escorts to the Philippines.
 
Located on the first island chain, the Philippines has been suffering from Chinese maritime advances around its territory, including the Spratly Islands. Japan is now trying to support Manila’s counter-efforts. Takaichi administration has removed well-established restrictions on Japan’s exports of defense equipment in April, which had previously been limited to five categories – rescue, transport, warning, surveillance, and minesweeping. The export of Abukuma-class destroyers is expected to mark the first example of Japan’s new policy on defense sales.
 
In his visit to Zambia, Angola, Kenya and South Africa from April 30 to May 5, Foreign Minister Toshimitsu Motegi underscored the importance of securing the supply chain for critical minerals and of implementing FOIP. In his policy speech in Nairobi, Motegi said that the core principles of FOIP –freedom, openness, diversity, inclusiveness, and the rule of law – would remain unchanged.
 
The Takaichi administration’s Golden Week diplomacy made clear its emphasis on economic leverage in foreign policy. Takaichi sought the support of Australia, as a quasi-ally, through economic security cooperation. Koizumi used the export of destroyers to the Philippines to enhance security capabilities against China. Motegi explored opportunities for critical minerals in Africa under the name of FOIP.
 
Diplomatic breakthroughs in the form of economic incentives that were good for Japanese businesses were a hallmark of the former Abe administration. He and his advisers believed that the promise of a robust economy would trump issues of pride and history. His negotiations with Russia in the decades-long dispute over the Northern Islands of Japan exemplified this strategy.
 
In 2016, Abe proposed eight points (English) of economic cooperation with Russia, including joint development of natural resources in Sakhalin and financial support for Russian businesses, as leverage to take back the Northern Territories. However, two years later, Abe compromised with Russian President Vladimir Putin to reduce Japan’s demand from four islands to just two.
 
Abe’s commercial approach was a total failure. Putin held to his absolutist interpretation of the 1951 San Francisco Peace Treaty. Russia’s administration of all four islands meant ownership and that they would not be returned. Negotiations have not continued as they were interrupted by Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine. Abe’s inability to reach a deal with Putin completely undercut his idea that economic cooperation will reinforce Japan’s security. The Abe administration failed to account for Russian sentiment that territory obtained in the World War II at great sacrifice could not be the subject of a mere economic transaction.
 
Takaichi’s diplomacy has the same structure and rationale as Abe’s. She believes that an offer of economic support from Japan is so attractive that Japan can gain national security advantages. A factor feeding into this view may be that the offices of the Abe Administration were and of the Takaichi Administration are dominated by personnel seconded from the Ministry of Economy, Trade, and Industry (METI). By replicating Abe’s unsuccessful strategy, Takaichi is now facing pressure from China and, unavoidably, greater involvement in the current turbulent, war-based international order.
 
Takaichi, however, is not leaving Japan’s security to mercantilism alone. She is expanding the country’s hard power. During Golden Week, the Japanese Self-Defense Forces for the first time participated in an annual joint military exercise with the United States and the Philippines, Balikatan 26. In response, a spokesperson for the Chinese Ministry of National Defense commented “We urge the relevant countries to stop forming blocs and stoking camp confrontation and do more that truly contributes to regional peace and stability.” Neither Japan’s soft nor hard power expansion is bound to impress a restless China.

Abe and Putin May Finally End World War II Next Week

Abe and Putin May Finally End World War II Next Week

A hot springs summit might solve the 70-year dispute over an isolated string of islands that Russian and Japanese nationalists both claim as their own.

BY DANIEL SNEIDER (APP member), NOAH SNEIDER
Foreign Policy, December 8, 2016

If all goes according to plan, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe will slip into a steaming bath next week with Russian President Vladimir Putin at a hot spring in Abe’s hometown of Nagato, which faces Russia across the Sea of Japan. Abe’s goal in hosting Putin at a traditional onsen, as such hot spring baths are known, is nothing less than making history — to persuade the Russian leader to finally sign a peace treaty that would formally settle World War II. This deal has eluded Russian and Japanese leaders many times since their first failed attempt in 1956, always foundering on a dispute over a string of islands that run within miles of Japan’s northern island of Hokkaido and were seized by the Red Army in the last days of that war.

For Abe, this onsen summit is both personal and strategic. He has invested an unprecedented amount of political capital and personal time building a rapport with Putin, holding more than a dozen meetings with the Russian leader since Abe took office some four years ago. His foreign and economic ministers have been shuttling back and forth to Russia to lay the groundwork for the summit, making a final visit this past weekend.

Reportedly, Abe yearns to fulfill the dream of his father, Shintaro Abe, also a leading conservative politician for more than three decades going back to the late 1950s. In the 1980s, when he was foreign minister, the elder Abe spent years forging ties with then-Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev in hopes that a peace deal would make him prime minister. His son also wants to drive a geopolitical wedge between Russia and China and assert Japan’s ability to forge its own foreign policy beyond the boundaries of the alliance with the United States.

Putin also has much at stake at the hot springs. He hopes to get Japan to break ranks with the West’s post-Crimea sanctions regime, attract a flow of Japanese investment, especially into the dilapidated Russian Far East, and, not incidentally, send a small message to Beijing that Russia has other benefactors in Asia.

Not in the bath, but bubbling beneath the surface, is a third actor in this drama: the newly elected U.S. president, Donald Trump. His seemingly benign view of Putin gives Abe much greater leeway to forge a settlement that Washington has actively blocked in the past, going back to the abortive talks in 1956. But Trump’s deal-making attitude may have a double-edged effect. If Putin has reason to believe that Western unity on Russian sanctions will soon crack on its own, he has less incentive to be conciliatory with Abe in the form of territorial concessions.

It could come down to that hot spring bath — and whether Putin and Abe enter it truly intending to strike a deal.

To understand this moment, you must first put yourself on the fog-shrouded island of Kunashir. Along with the islands of Iturup, Shikotan, and the Habomai group, this is territory claimed by both countries. For Russia, these are the “Southern Kurils,” a part of the Kuril island chain once taken by imperial Japan and “liberated” during World War II. Japan gained control of the islands in an 1855 treaty and expanded its hold in the region to include the southern half of Sakhalin as a result of the Russo-Japanese War of 1905. When World War II started, some 17,000 Japanese lived on the islands.

A red stone monument on Kunahsir pays tribute to the Red Army soldiers who fell in those final days of the war. Today, Russian border troops are stationed on the islands, which form a picket fence along one side of the Sea of Okhotsk, a bastion for Russian ballistic missile submarines. Hokkaido is visible across a narrow channel.

But for many Japanese, that channel doesn’t mark the boundary of their territory. The Russian-controlled islands, for them, are the “Northern Territories,” Japanese lands that the Soviets illegally seized. The failure to resolve this dispute has left the two countries, more than 70 years later, without a peace treaty to formally end their war.

If the islands are of great strategic significance, it was hardly evident during a visit to Kunashir in 1991 just before the collapse of the Soviet Union. The dreary port town of Yuzhno-Kurilsk was then home to just 7,000 fishermen and their families, bringing crab, salmon, and other seafood from the rich waters around the islands to a run-down canning factory. Aircraft landed on a strip surfaced in corrugated metal sheets, an airport originally built under Japanese rule, and visitors traveled on packed earth roads. Visitors to this remote corner of the Russian Empire were — and remain — rare, and the islanders privately complained about Moscow’s neglect.

In those days, the islanders were mainly interested in attracting Japanese tourists and investors and spent their evenings peering eagerly into the strange world of late-night Japanese television shows with scantily clad women — then an exciting novelty amid the tedium of Soviet programming. In recent years, the Russian government has made a show of interest in the islands, sending senior leaders and announcing new investment in housing and defense facilities. But the total population has not changed much — there are reportedly some 19,000 people on all four islands, including Kunashir — and the region remains underdeveloped.

As during the perestroika era, Russians have dangled a bargain on the territorial issue in exchange for an influx of Japanese investment. The reference point for a deal is a 1956 agreement in which the Japanese government accepted the position that the return of the two smaller islands — Shikotan and the uninhabited Habomai islets — would be sufficient to conclude a peace treaty.

The last serious negotiation effort took place in 2000-2001, early in Putin’s rule. According to Kazuhiko Togo, who headed the Japanese Foreign Ministry’s negotiating team in 2000, the Japanese side pushed the idea of delayed sovereignty — suggesting that the Japanese would regain control of the two larger islands at an undetermined future point. The Russians rejected that idea, but they did put back on the table the possibility of returning to the 1956 offer of the two smaller islands. Since then, Japanese and Russians have talked about a “two plus alpha” deal, with “alpha” meaning something beyond the 1956 terms but not necessarily the entire territory. The quid pro quo always has involved Japanese investment in Russia. When Putin, a judo aficionado, returned to the presidency in 2012, after serving one term as prime minister, he famously declared that he was prepared to accept a hikiwake, a judo term for a draw — and a seeming reference to the territorial offer from the previous decade.

Abe also returned to power as prime minister in 2012, after a brief, failed stint in 2006-2007. He has a well-deserved reputation as the standard-bearer of conservative nationalists, for whom returning the islands is a potent symbol of the restoration of pride and dignity lost at the end of the war.

Abe immediately embarked on a concerted campaign to woo Putin, responding to his talk of a “draw.” In April 2013, Abe brought a large economic delegation to Moscow, and in February 2014, he was pointedly among the few world leaders to attend the Sochi Olympics and sit by Putin’s side. The efforts foundered after Russia’s seizure of Crimea and the outbreak of war in eastern Ukraine — Japan formally joined ranks with the West in imposing sanctions on Russia (though the Japanese measures were much softer than others). But Abe returned to the suitor’s role this year, heading to Sochi in May for a visit that included a closed-door meeting without aides.

For Japan, Russia in itself is no longer a direct security threat, observes Tokyo-based professor James Brown, who has closely studied the Russo-Japanese relationship. “However, a quasi-alliance between Russia and China is a strategic concern for Japan, especially if it is accompanied by a reduced U.S. commitment to East Asia,” says Brown. The goal is not to form close ties with Moscow but rather to prevent it from being drawn totally into Beijing’s aims in the region. Japanese officials have continued to insist that they will accept nothing less than the return of all the islands. But, says Togo, the former Japanese diplomat, “now there is a new strategic logic for Japan — a response to the rise of China. Abe understands this logic.” A territorial deal “will force China to take Japan more seriously,” adds Togo, who is among the most prominent advocates of a compromise.

The U.S. election opened more space for a possible deal. Abe believed that he could use the possibility of Japan making a de facto break from the Western sanctions regime as leverage for a better deal, Japanese analysts say. The election of Trump would seem to offer an even greater opportunity, with a distracting transition and an administration friendly to Putin.

But in recent weeks, at least on an official level, there has been an effort to dampen expectations. “It is widely believed in Japan that Putin simply wants to wait and see how Trump approaches Moscow after coming to office, and that’s why he lost his appetite to craft a deal with Tokyo for the time being,” says Junji Tachino, a veteran foreign-policy writer at the leading Japanese daily Asahi Shimbun. “If Trump moves to fix the relationship with Moscow, then Putin’s motivation to use Japan as a potential crack in the sanctions regime will diminish.”

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov sounded a pessimistic note after the final pre-summit talks with his Japanese counterpart, Fumio Kishida, in Moscow on Saturday. “It’s not easy to bridge the gap in the principal positions of both sides,” Lavrov said. By the time Kishida had returned home, even Abe’s optimism seemed deflated. “This is not an issue that can be resolved in just one meeting,” Abe told Japanese officials on Monday.

In the run-up to the summit, Russia made its inflexible stance on the territorial issue clear. At the Eastern Economic Forum in Vladivostok, Putin told Bloomberg that Russia does not “trade territories.” In late November, Russian armed forces moved anti-ship missiles onto the Kurils, a demonstrative step that drew rebukes from Tokyo. In Moscow, the scales are weighted heavily against compromise: For the Russian elite, “there’s not a clear answer to why Russia needs Japan,” says Alexander Panov, a former Russian ambassador to Japan, who notes that Putin is personally more inclined toward a deal than his advisors.

Russian analysts say the only possible formula lies in the 1956 agreements. But even if Abe were to concede to accepting the two smaller islands (a step few Russians expect), Russia still may not budge. “The biggest intrigue is what Russia would do if Japan agrees to the ’56 conditions,” says Dmitry Streltsov of the Moscow State Institute of International Relations. “It would be a moment of truth.”

Even if a deal can be struck, it may be hard to sell to the Russian public.Even if a deal can be struck, it may be hard to sell to the Russian public. The islands have symbolic weight as part of the country’s victory in the “Great Patriotic War” (as Russia calls World War II), a sacred pillar of national identity that is central to Putin’s ideology. Hard-liners argue that the islands’ rich fishing grounds are too economically valuable to give up and that handing over any of the territory would threaten the Sea of Okhotsk’s use as a staging ground for Russian nuclear submarines. Plus, argues Anatoly Koshkin of Moscow’s Oriental University, a hawkish opponent of compromise: “No one can promise that American military infrastructure won’t appear on the islands.”

The optics also present a significant obstacle for Putin. Despite viewing Japan positively, an overwhelming 78 percent of Russians are against giving the islands to Japan, while only 7 percent favor doing so, according to a May survey by the Levada Center, an independent pollster. Seventy-one percent was also against a compromise deal involving the transfer of the two smaller islands. A concentrated propaganda campaign on state television could help shift views, notes Streltsov. But even then, it would be a tough sell for a leader who has staked his authority on being the protector of the Russian people. “Especially after Crimea, Putin has an image as the collector of Russian lands,” says Koshkin.

Putin may have been more willing to take that risk when he met Abe in Sochi in May and faced a stagnating economy, a surprisingly resilient sanctions regime, and the prospect of a hostile Hillary Clinton administration. But seven months later, he is looking less like the pariah of world affairs and more like the vanguard of ascendant populist and nationalist movements across the globe.

France’s presidential elections next year will feature a roster of Moscow-friendly candidates open to lifting sanctions. Trump’s praise for Putin, while no guarantee of better relations once he takes office, at the very least offers Moscow a tantalizing opportunity. Now Abe is the one worrying about his relationship with Washington, as evidenced by his recent short-notice visit to the president-elect’s gilded tower in New York.

Abe will face his own nationalist backlash if he concedes too much to Putin. “Accepting a deal that could have been had in 1956 would be tantamount to recognizing that the last 60 years of efforts had been entirely meaningless,” says Brown, the Tokyo-based professor. “A Japanese leader adopting this brave stance would be ravaged by the right-wing and much of the press.”

Even without an immediate breakthrough on the island dispute, both sides will be keen to demonstrate progress. Turning the tide on trade — down 30 percent in dollar terms in 2015 after the oil price collapse and another 28 percent through September of this year — is the obvious place to start. Panov, the former ambassador, expects some 10 deals to be signed at the summit. Japan has already made a string of early overtures, with the state-run Japan Bank for International Cooperation announcing a planned $211 million loan to a major liquefied natural gas project in the northern Yamal region led by Russia’s Novatek. Two major Japanese banks are also reportedly discussing an $845 million loan package with Russian state-owned gas giant Gazprom, and the prospect of a pipeline project from Russia’s Sakhalin to Tokyo has resurfaced. “Both sides used to talk about [the islands] because there was no other agenda,” says Igor Dyachenko, the executive director of the Russian-Japanese Business Council. “Now business is forming a positive agenda.”

With both Putin and Abe eyeing terms that could extend well past 2020, there is plenty of time for a slow courtship. Abe hopes his gestures, and his yen, will eventually earn Putin’s trust. He has taken care to craft his economic proposals to address Russian needs beyond traditional energy interests, including health care, urban development, industrial production, and technology. Dyachenko touts a pilot project for improving city planning and housing will launch next year in Voronezh, some 290 miles south of Moscow. Putin will certainly not turn away the investment or the geopolitical returns. “Putin is in no rush,” says Alexander Gabuev, the chair of the Carnegie Moscow Center’s Russia in the Asia-Pacific program. “He thinks he can use the Japanese fear of China.” The onsen may prove to be merely a prelude. Perhaps next year Putin will summon Abe for a summit in the banya.

Whither Russo-Japanese Relations?

By: Stephen Blank, Senior Fellow and resident Russia expert at the American Foreign Policy Council

First published in the Eurasia Daily Monitor, Jamestown Foundation, Volume: 12 Issue: 212, November 20, 2015

Although Russian President Vladimir Putin will not be visiting Japan this year or anytime soon (see EDM, October 9) and currently no agenda even exists for any such visit, Tokyo appears so desperate for reconciliation with Moscow that it has agreed to continue discussing the status of the disputed Kurile Islands and overall normalization of relations with Russia. Indeed, Putin invited Japanese Prime Minister Shinzō Abe to Moscow instead, and Abe is apparently considering accepting. But if Japan follows this path, it will be venturing into dangerous diplomatic territory. As noted at a conference hosted by the Carnegie Endowment, on November 15, several Japanese analysts and policymakers harbor the belief that Russia may be prepared to return at least two of the Kurile Islands. Moreover, they contend that if Japan and Russia are able to come to some kind of agreement on the disputed territories, this could open the way for an overall, if gradual, rapprochement between Russia and the West, which would redound to Japan’s credit (Kyodo News Service, November 15, 16; Japan Times, November 17).

However, Tokyo’s persistent chasing after Moscow probably has not strengthened its cause or reputation. For one thing, it has likely reinforced Russia’s preconceptions that Japan needs Russia more than Russia needs Japan, even though the truth is arguably the exact opposite. But additionally, it has bolstered Russia’s seeming belief that it can bully Japan, insult it with impunity, and still gain its objectives (see EDM, July 31). Illustratively, in mid-September 2015, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told his Japanese counterpart, Fumio Kishida, that normalization was only possible if Japan first recognized the “historical realities” regarding the Kurile Islands (Japan Times, September 22).

Moscow has clearly demonstrated it would not negotiate on the island issue for as long as sanctions on Russia, which were passed by Tokyo and its Western partners in response to Putin’s aggression in Ukraine, remain in place. In other words, for Japan to receive any of its islands back, let alone regain sovereignty over them, the price it will probably have to pay would be breaking the West’s united front on sanctions. Deputy Foreign Minister Igor Morgulov, who oversees Russia’s Asian policies, said as much several months ago (Interfax, September 2). But that action, if taken, would place a landmine under Japan’s relations with its most important ally—the United States—and the West in general.

Putin has reportedly warned Abe that if he comes to Japan, the Russian leader must have concrete economic results to show for it (Nikkei Asian Review, September 15). And at the Putin-Abe meetings in September 2015, Putin pointedly referred to declining Russo-Japanese trade (Ajw.asahi.com, September 29). However, he also expressed his confidence that both states have a high potential for economic cooperation on a large number of joint projects (Kyodo, September 29). Similarly Sergei Naryshkin, the speaker of the State Duma (lower house of parliament) and a close aide to Putin, has stated that “Japan’s imposition of sanctions on Russia has become an obstacle to bilateral relations” (Kyodo, September 11).

Logically one should have concluded that no realistic prospect for normalizing Russo-Japanese relations exists. The evidence has been wide and varied, including Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev’s recent visit to the Kurile Islands; the new Russian plans for a military buildup there (see EDM, October 28); fresh insults directed against Tokyo in the wake of Japanese protests about those actions; the August 2015 Russo-Chinese naval maneuvers, which featured simulated amphibious landings (RT, August 16); as well as President Putin’s prominent presence in Beijing, in September, at the 70th anniversary celebration of the end of World War II, which was marked by a high level of anti-Japanese rhetoric (Xinhua, September 3). Moreover, during August–September 2015, almost every day featured a Japanese or Russian denunciation of the other government’s actions or speeches in regard to the Kurile Islands. Indeed, Russia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs infuriated Tokyo by saying at one point that the Kurile Islands problem does not exist—i.e., that for Russia, there is no problem (Sputnik News, September 4). Neither was this the first time the Russian foreign ministry or other officials have simply denied the existence of the problem. Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin, a known provocateur, exemplified such inflammatory rhetoric when, in August, he suggested that the Japanese government would be better off committing collective ritual suicide (hari-kiri) rather than continue to complain about Medvedev’s recent visit to the Kurile islands (Kyodo, August 25).

Even if Japan renounces the sanctions it imposed on Russia, it might still not receive the disputed islands back; and if Tokyo does eventually regain the Kuriles, it could well be in the form of a “gift” from Moscow that does not entail the full transfer of sovereignty to Japan. Such an outcome would thus be a poisoned chalice for the East Asian island country. Accordingly, if Japan were to indeed break the sanctions regime on Russia, it is difficult to see how such a step would translate into Tokyo becoming a broker for an East-West rapprochement. Nor would Japan dropping its sanctions be likely to contribute to geopolitically detaching Russia from China. Importantly, Japan would probably not receive anything other than a symbolic acknowledgement of territories whose symbolic value far outweighs their strategic utility for Tokyo. Rather, Tokyo would have isolated itself from its allies and shown Beijing that it can be pushed around simply for the sake of its “status.” 

Put another way, by agreeing to abandon sanctions in exchange for Moscow’s partial or conditional acceptance of Tokyo’s claim to the Kuriles, Japan would inadvertently be signaling to other governments in the region that it does not hold fast to the principle of the territorial inviolability of states. That would be an ominous precedent with regard to its claims to the Senkaku Islands, which are under a Chinese challenge. Ultimately then, the belief that Japan can break its alliance ties in order to gain some symbolic victories or economic opportunities represents not realism but wishful thinking. And in regard to Russia, wishful thinking is never enough.

Prime Minister of Japan’s Schedule February 2-8, 2015

Monday, February 2, 2015

AM
12:00 At official residence (no visitors)
07:50 Depart from official residence
07:51 Arrive at office
08:04 Ruling Party Liaison Conference
08:13 Conference ends
08:14 Meet with Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretary Seko Hiroshige
08:44 End meeting with Mr. Seko
08:53 Depart from office
08:55 Arrive at Diet
08:57 Enter Upper House Committee Room No. 1
09:02 Upper House Budget Committee opens
11:54 Upper House Budget Committee recess
11:55 Leave room
11:57 Depart from Diet
11:59 Arrive at office

PM
12:54 Depart from office
12:56 Arrive at Diet

12:58 Enter Upper House Committee Room No. 1
01:00 Upper House Budget Committee reopens
05:01 Upper House Budget Committee adjourns
05:02 Leave room
05:05 Enter LDP Secretary-General’s Conference Room. Endorse Shimane Prefecture gubernatorial candidate. Commemorative photo session
05:07 Leave room
05:08 Enter LDP President’s Office
05:11 LDP Officers Meeting
05:33 Meeting ends
05:34 Speak with LDP Vice-President Komura Masahiko, LDP Secretary-General Tanigaki Sadakazu, Chairman of LDP General Council Nikai Toshihiro, Chairperson of LDP Policy Research Council Inada Tomomi, and colleagues
05:40 Finish speaking with Mr. Komura, Mr. Tanigaki, Mr. Nikai, Ms. Inada, and colleagues
05:42 Leave room
05:44 Depart from Diet
05:45 Arrive at office
06:02 Meet with Vice-Minister for Foreign Affairs Saiki Akitaka
06:29 End meeting with Mr. Saiki
06:30 Speak with Cabinet Advisor Furusawa Mitsuhiro
06:34 Finish speaking with Mr. Furusawa
07:07 Depart from office
07:08 Arrive at official residence

Tuesday, February 3, 2015
AM
12:00 At official residence (no visitors)
07:16 Depart from official residence
07:17 Arrive at office
07:18 Meet with Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretary Seko Hiroshige
08:26 End meeting with Mr. Seko
08:28 Cabinet Meeting begins
08:36 Cabinet Meeting ends
08:53 Depart from office
08:55 Arrive at Diet
08:56 Enter Upper House Committee Room No. 1
09:00 Upper House Budget Committee opens
11:52 Upper House Budget Committee recess, leave room
11:54 Depart from Diet

11:56 Arrive at office

PM
12:54 Depart from office
12:55 Arrive at Diet
12:57 Enter Upper House Committee Room No. 1
01:00 Upper House Budget Committee reopens
04:05 Upper House Budget Committee adjourns, leave room
04:08 Depart from Diet
04:10 Arrive at office
04:36 Director of National Security Council (NSC) Yachi Shotaro, Director of Cabinet Intelligence Kitamura Shigeru, and Director of Cabinet Satellite Intelligence Center Shimohira Koji enter
04:46 Mr. Yachi and Mr. Shimohira leave
05:03 Mr. Kitamura leaves
05:04 Receive courtesy call from Myanmar’s opposition party leader and others
05:30 Courtesy call ends
05:32 Depart from office

05:41 Arrive at Federation of Economic Organizations [Keidanren] Assembly Hall in Otemachi, Tokyo. Attend 100th Anniversary Party for Establishment of Iron and Steel Institute of Japan, deliver address 
05:51 Depart from Keidanren Assembly Hall
06:01 Arrive at office
06:15 Phone Conference with President of Turkey Recep Tayyip Erdoğan
06:30 Phone Conference ends
06:48 Depart from office
06:49 Arrive at Diet
06:51 Enter Upper House President’s Reception Room
06:52 Leave room, enter Upper House Chamber
06:56 Upper House Plenary Session opens
07:41 Leave seat during proceedings, enter Upper House President’s Reception Room
07:45 Leave room
07:46 Make rounds to President of Upper House Yamazaki Masaki, Vice-President of Upper House Koshiichi Azuma, Chairman of Upper House Committee on Rules and Administration Nakagawa Masaharu, and majority and minority political parties
07:56 Finish making rounds
07:58 Depart from Diet
08:06 Arrive at Tokyo Prince Hotel in Shiba Park, Tokyo. Attend New Year’s Party of LDP policy group Kisaragi-kai [きさらぎ会] in banquet hall Sun Flower Hall, deliver address
08:28 Depart from hotel
08:48 Arrive at private residence in Tomigaya, Tokyo

The Shape of Japan to Come

by Alexis Dudden, a professor of history at the University of Connecticut and APP member

First published in The New York Times

January 16, 2015

TOKYO- Bolstered by his party's victory in Diet elections last month, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has renewed his vow to free Japan from the fetters of the past, especially its defeat in World War II. Mr. Abe and his supporters view the prevailing accounts of that era as "masochistic" and a hindrance to taking pride in what he calls the "new Japan." They propose to modify the article in Japan's Constitution that sates the Japanese people "forever renounce war as a sovereign right of the nation."

These aspirations have been laid out in a map of Japan that the Japanese Foreign Ministry published on its website last April, with translations in 12 languages. The map extends beyond Japan's internationally recognized boundaries, incorporating in the name of ryodo - or the "inherent territory" of Japan - many islands claimed by neighboring countries. Those lands, the argument goes, are integral to Japan's very being.

In fact, the Abe government's expansionist view undermines Japan's interests, both economic and strategic.

Ryodo promotes a notion of Japan's territory that circumvents history, particularly the history of how Japan laid claim to these islands in the first place - through imperial wars with China and Russia, through wars of conquest against Koreans, through the extermination or assimilation of indigenous peoples.

Partly as a result, Japan is embroiled in many territorial disputes. China and Taiwan contest the Senkaku Islands, which Beijing calls the Diaoyu and Taipei and Diaoyutai. South Korea claims Takeshima (calling it Dokdo) where it has stationed military police since 1954. Russia claims sovereignty over what Japanese know as the Northern Territories, four islands in the Kuril chain northeast of Hokkaido where Russians have lived since 1945, numbering about 20,000 today.

Under the terms of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), Japan already has access to vast fisheries and rides up to $3.6 trillion in seabed materials. The disputed islands would add much more.

'Inherent' Japan
Tokyo is more aggressively claiming island groups that have long been in territorial dispute. The government highlighted these 3 areas on a new map.

Sources: ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan: maritimeregions.org

According to some estimates, including by the U.S. Energy Information Administration, the East China Sea holds 200 million barrels in proved and probable oil reserves (the world consumes around 90 million barrels of liquid fuels each day) and between 1 and 2 trillion cubic feet of natural gas (the United States consumed about 26 trillion cubic feet in 2013). Japan and China contest nearly 17 percent of the sea.

A volcano on one of the southern Kurils has rhenium, a rare-earth metal with a melting point that makes jet-engine designers dream. There are also vast quantities of untapped methane hydrate in the seabed between Japan and the Korean Peninsula. After gas was extracted from similar deposits elsewhere for the first time in 2013, a spokesman for the Japan Oil, Gas and Metals National Corporation said, "Japan could finally have an energy source to call its own."

The lure of such riches might seem like reason enough for resource-poor Japan to claim these territories. The government spent $250 billion on imported fuel in 2012. And the cost of decommissioning the nuclear reactors at Fukushima after the meltdown following the March 2011 tsunami is expected to reach at least $90 billion. 

Yet Japan risks losing access to many of these resources because of its brinksmanship. UNCLOS does not determine sovereignty over land, and it allows for joint development agreements in waters around contested territory. When disputes heat up, however, they naturally tend to scuttle any joint schemes.

In 2008 China and Japan agreed to explore together four gas fields in the East China Sea. But the project was scuttled the following year, after China went at it alone. Mr. Abe's maximalist policy only undermines the prospects that his development project could be revived, or that new ones involving Japan might be struck.

The costs of Mr. Abe's territorial revisionism are also strategic. Ryodo implicitly dismisses as partial the terms of the 1951 San Francisco Peace Treaty, which formally ended World War II between Japan and the Allies. The agreement redrew Japan from the massive empire it had become during the war - stretching from northern China to Guadalcanal - more or less into the country familiar today. (Some islands, notably Okinawa, reverted to Japan in the intervening years.) Many Japanese at the time, including Mr. Abe's grandfather, Nobusuke Kishi - who was accused of being a Class A war criminal -  were infuriated, claiming in particular that the Kurils were "essential" to the Japanese.

In a separate agreement that went into force at the same time, the U.S.-Japan Security Treaty of 1951, the United States would "maintain armed forces of its own in and about Japan" in order "to deter armed attack upon Japan." By the time the treaty was revised in 1960, Japan had acquired limited self-defense forces, and the two countries undertook various commitments in case of "an armed attack against either Party in the territories under the administration of Japan." These still stand today, hence the critical importance also for the U.S. government of properly defining what Japan is.

Officials in Washington and Tokyo are currently reviewing each side's responsibilities in the event of the threat of the peace and security of Japan. One fraught issue is the United States' dual obligation, under separate security arrangements, to defend both Japan and South Korea because one could attack the other over territory they both claim. In other words, the very notion of ryodo challenges the United States' postwar security commitments even as it risks triggering them.

Mr. Abe's revanchist view of the past is central to his vision of a future in which Japan "once again shines on the world's center stage." But it distorts history in a way that undermines the country's major interests and, arguably, its identity. The constitutional changes advocated by Mr. Abe's party include an "obligation" for citizens of Japan to "defend the nation's inherent territory, inherent seas and inherent skies," disputed islands and all. The proposed draft adds that, "All citizens must honor the Constitution," suggesting that failure to do so could endanger their rights, maybe their citizenship. In his bid to claim more for Japan, Mr. Abe may reap less.

Prime Minister of Japan's Schedule February 3-9 2014

Monday, February 3, 2014

AM
07:00 Departure from private residence in Tomigaya, Tokyo
07:12 Arrive at office
07:13 Meet with Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretary Kato Katsunobu
08:50 End meeting with Mr. Kato
08:54 Depart from office
08:55 Arrive at Diet
08:57 Arrive at Lower House 1st Committee Members’ Room
09:00 Lower House Budget Committee commences

PM
12:01 Budget Committee recess
12:02 Depart from Lower House 1st Committee Members’ Room
12:04 Depart from Diet
12:05 Return to office
12:20 Ruling Party [LDP] Liaison Conference
12:36 Conference end
12:54 Depart from office
12:56 Return to Diet
12:58 Return to Lower House 1st Committee Members’ Room
01:00 Budget Committee reconvenes
05:01 Budget Committee adjourns
05:02 Depart from Lower House 1st Committee Members’ Room
05:04 Arrive at LDP President’s Room
05:05 LDP Officers Meeting
05:17 Meeting end
05:28 Depart from President’s Room
05:30 Departure from Diet
05:31 Return to office
05:48 Meet Minister of Defense Onodera Itsunori
06:10 Meeting ends
06:12 Meet with Admiral Samuel Locklear, Commander, US Pacific Command
06:32 Meeting end
06:40 Meet with Spanish Speaker of the Congress of Deputies Jesús Posada Moreno
06:51 Meeting ends
07:00 Departure from office
07:05 Arrive at Japanese restaurant in Hirakawa, Tokyo 「下関春帆楼　東京店」 [Shunpanro], dinner meeting with Mainichi Shimbun President Asahina Yutaka
09:59 Departure from Shunparo
10:03 Arrive at Prime Minister’s private residence

Tuesday, February 4, 2014

AM
07:15 Departure from Prime Minister’s official residence
07:17 Arrive at office
07:18 Meet with Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretary Kato Katsunobu
08:21 Meeting end
08:23 Cabinet meeting
08:30 Meeting end
08:54 Depart from office
08:55 Arrive at Diet
08:57 Enter Lower House 1st Committee Members’ Room
08:58 Meet with Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance Aso Taro and Minister of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology Shimomura Hakubun
08:59 Meeting end
09:00 Lower House Budget Committee commences

PM
12:03 Budget Committee adjourns
12:04 Leave room
12:05 Meet with LDP member of the Lower House Nakayama Yasuhide
12:06 Depart from Diet
12:07 Return to office
12:54 Depart from office
12:56 Return to Diet
12:57 Enter Lower House 1st Committee Members’ Room
01:00 Lower House Budget Committee recommences
03:34 Budget Committee adjourns
03:35 Leave room
03:36 Depart from Diet
03:39 Return to office
04:07 Vice-Minister for Foreign Affairs Saiki Akitaka enters office
04:37 Foreign Minister Kishida Fumio, Deputy Minister Sugiyama Shinsuke, and European Affairs Bureau Director-General Kozuki Toyohisa also enter office
05:05 All visitors leave
05:06 NSC Director Yachi Shotaro, Cabinet Intelligence Director Kitamura Shigeru, and Cabinet Satellite Intelligence Center Director Shimohira Koji enter office
05:16 Mr. Yachi and Mr. Shimohira leave
05:29 Mr. Kitamura leaves
05:51 Depart from office
05:53 Return to Diet
05:54 Enter Lower House 1st Committee Members’ Room
06:00 Leave room and enter Lower House Plenary Meeting Hall
06:02 Lower House Plenary Session commences
06:56 Plenary Session adjourns
06:57 Leave hall and enter Lower House 1st Committee Members’ Room
06:58 Greet Lower House Chairman Ibuki Bunmei
06:59 Leave room
07:03 Return to office
07:09 Group on Restructuring Legal Basis of Security meeting
07:13 Meeting end
07:15 Departure from office
07:27 Dinner with Lower House lawmakers at French restaurant À Nu, Retrouvez-vous in Hiroo, Tokyo, President and CEO of ItoEn, ltd. Honjo Hachiro, Mr. Honjo’s wife, LDP Lower House member Yamamoto Yuji, and Abe Akie attended
09:11 Departure from À Nu, Retrouvez-vous
09:20 Arrive at Prime Minister’s official residence

Wednesday February 5, 2014

AM
12:00 At Prime Minister’s official residence (no visitors)
07:18 Departure from official residence
07:19 Arrive at office
07:20 Meet with Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretary Seko Hiroshige
08:28 Meeting end
08:43 Meet with Cabinet Intelligence Director Kitamura Shigeru
08:49 Meeting end
08:53 Depart from office
08:54 Arrive at Diet
08:56 Enter Lower House 1st Committee Members’ Room
08:57 Meet with Minister of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism Ohta Akihiro
08:58 Meeting ends
08:59 Meet with Minister of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology Shimomura Hakubun
09:00 Meeting end
09:01 Upper House Budget Committee commences
11:54 Budget Committee recess, leave room
11:57 Depart from Diet
11:59 Return to office

PM
12:53 Departs from office
12:55 Return to Diet
12:57 Enter Lower House 1st Committee Members’ Room
01:00 Upper House Budget Committee recommences
05:55 Upper House Budget Committee adjourns
05:57 Leave room
05:58 Depart from Diet
06:05 Attend Sochi Winter Paralympics Send-off Event for Japanese representative teams, greet them, in Fuyo Banquet Hall, Hotel New Otani, Kioi, Tokyo
06:13 Departure from hotel
06:18 Return to office
06:56 Summit Conference with Swiss Confederation President Didier Burkhalter
07:31 Conference end
07:33 Signing Ceremony and Joint Press Announcement
07:46 Announcement end
07:47 Departure from office
07:48 Arrive at Prime Minister’s official residence, dinner meeting hosted by PM Abe and his wife Akie
08:52 Bid farewell to President Burkhalter

Thursday February 6, 2014

AM
12:00 At official residence (no visitors)
07:16 Departure from official residence
07:17 Arrive at office
07:18 Meet with Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretary Seko Hiroshige
07:20 Meeting end
08:54 Depart from office
08:56 Arrive at Diet
08:58 Enter Lower House 1st Committee Members’ Room
09:00 Upper House Budget Committee commences
11:51 Budget Committee recess
11:52 Leave room
11:54 Depart from Diet
11:56 Return to office
11:57 Meet with Fukuoka Prefecture’s Dazaifu Tenmangu Shrine’s 3-person “Plum Mission,” Nishitakatsuji Nobuyoshi, and shrine maidens Ms. Fukuda and Ms. Imamura. LDP Lower House member Harada Yoshiaki sat with them

PM
12:03 Meeting ends
12:52 Depart from office
12:54 Arrive at Diet
12:55 Enter Lower House 1st Committee Members’ Room
01:00 Upper House Budget Committee recommences
05:05 Budget Committee adjourns, leave room
05:07 Depart from Diet
05:09 Return to office
05:52 Depart from office
05:54 Return to Diet
05:55 Enter Upper House Chairman’s Reception Room
05:57 Leave room and enter Upper House Plenary Meeting Hall
06:01 Upper House Plenary Session commences
06:47 Plenary Session adjourns
06:48 Leave room
06:49 Meet with Upper House President Yamazaki Masaaki, Vice-President Koshiishi Azuma, House Standing Committee on Rules and Administration Chairman Iwaki Mitsuhide, between political parties exchanged greetings. Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance Aso Taro, Chief Cabinet Secretary Suga Yoshihide and Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretary Seko Hiroshige accompanied
06:57 Meeting end
06:59 Departure from Diet
07:00 Return to office
07:01 Press conference open to all media: When asked about the “adoption of revised supplementary budget being stopped,” Abe answered, “If the supplementary budget is adopted quickly, it will be good. I want to give my thanks to everyone who cooperated with us.”
07:02 Interview end
08:42 Departure from office
08:58 Return to private residence in Tomigaya, Tokyo

Friday February 7, 2014

AM
12:00 At private residence in Tomigaya, Tokyo (no visitors)
07:31 Departure from private residence
07:40 Arrive at office
07:41 Meet with Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretary Seko Hiroshige
08:14 Meeting end
08:17 Cabinet meeting
08:37 Meeting end
08:38 Meet with Mr. Seko
08:48 Meeting end
08:54 Depart from office
08:55 Arrive at Diet
08:57 Enter Upper House 1st Committee Members’ Room
09:00 Upper House Budget Committee commences
11:49 Budget Committee recess
11:50 Leave room
11:51 Departure from Diet
11:52 Arrive at office
11:57 Departure from office
11:59 Arrive at Tokyo Metropolitan Hibiya Public Hall, attend National Convention requesting the return of the Northern Territories and greet assembly

PM
12:15 Departure from public hall
12:35 Arrive at Haneda Airport
12:40 Press conference open to all media: When asked: “You will attend the Sochi Olympics Opening Ceremony, but what kind of efforts do you expect of the Japanese competitors?” Abe answered: “As much as you can think, we want to display our strength, and to have the chance to be recognized for our dreams, aspirations, and courage.”
01:14 Departure from airport by private government aircraft to Russia for the Opening Ceremony of the Sochi Winter Olympics
(evening, unspecified hour) Arrive at Sochi International Airport Russia
(evening, unspecified hour) Attend Opening Ceremony of Sochi Winter Olympics at Sochi’s Olympic Stadium, stay night at Dagomys Hotel

Saturday February 8, 2014

AM
Encourage Japanese teams at Olympic Village

PM
Summit meeting with President Vladimir Putin at President’s official residence (Grand Kremlin Palace), attend lunch meeting hosted by the President
Domestic and foreign press conference at Dagomys Hotel
Watch women’s short program team competition at Sochi, Russia’s figure skating rink. Departure from Sochi International Airport by private government aircraft. Stop to refuel at Ataturk International Airport in Istanbul, Turkey

Sunday February 9, 2014

AM
Departure from Ataturk International Airport

PM
06:42 Having completed attendance of Sochi Olympics Opening Ceremony, arrive from Russia at Haneda Airport
06:52 Departure from airport
07:19 Arrive at private residence in Tomigaya, Tokyo