Satoshi's Blog: 2010.11.5 Japan's dispute with Russia over Northern Territories

A friend of mine here told me that he read a newspaper article titled 'Japan is angry'
It was about the story on Japan's territorial dispute with Russia over territorial islands in northern sea.
Yes, we are angry and there is a good reason for us to be.
The dispute is already 65 years old. It has started when the World War II ended in 1945.

On August 9, 1945, then Soviet Union violated the Japan-Soviet Neutrality Pact and entered the war against Japan. Until then, Japan and Soviet were not at war. Soviet stepped in only five days before Japan accepted Potsdam Declaration (Aug. 14) and surrendered to the Allied Forces. In short, Soviet jumped on the bandwagon and looted at a fire.

On Aug. 18, Soviet came down to occupy Kurile Islands that Russian Empire had ceded to Japan in 1875 in trade-off with entire Sakhalin island. (Later, after the Russian Empire lost Russo-Japan war, South of Sakhalin island, too, was ceded to Japan.) In a sense, you can imagine that a thief who broke into a burning house, knowing there is his old property he had lost 70 years before and as he saw the master of the house was so weak, unable to resist, then maybe it was a good idea to take the chance and take them all back on hand without due process.

However, the hungry bear was never satisfied with this. On August 28, Russians stretched their arms to the Japan's traditional territorial islands; Habomai, Shikotan, Etorofu and Kunashiri. In the previous history, those four islands had never been under control of Russians. They had been always Japanese territories and at the time of the Soviet invasion, some 17,000 Japanese actually lived there. Japanese army could no longer resist (in chaos and aftermath of the Pacific War that devastated the entire country), the islanders evacuated and the invasion completed bloodless by Sep. 4.

In 1956, the Soviet Premier Bulganin agreed, in the Japan-Soviet Declaration, the Soviet would hand over Habomai and Shikotan only but even this promise was never kept.

【Historical maps】