On October 10, 2007, the Institute of Oriental Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences hosted the All-Russian scientific conference "Russia and Japan at the Beginning of the XXI Century", organized by the Department of Complex Problems of International Relations of the Institute.

The conference was attended by researchers, diplomats, government and public figures, teachers of higher educational institutions in Moscow and other cities of the Russian Federation. About 20 people made presentations. A wide range of issues related to relations between Russia and Japan in the past, present and future were discussed.

Opening the conference, Head of the Department of Complex Problems of International Relations of the Institute of International Relations of the Russian Academy of Sciences A. M. Khazanov said that the department annually holds conferences on problems of Russian-Japanese relations, and they have already become traditional. But the current conference is not quite ordinary - it is dedicated to the bright memory of the outstanding Russian Japanese scholar Igor Alexandrovich Latyshev, who passed away exactly one year ago.

For almost 50 years, Latyshev has been studying the history, politics, and social problems of Japan. He was a great scientist and a brilliant journalist. From the pen of I. A. Latyshev came such fundamental monographs as "The internal policy of Japanese imperialism on the eve of the war in the Pacific", "The state system of Japan", "The Ruling Liberal Democratic Party", "The Attempt on the Kuril Islands", " Russia and Japan. In the impasse of the territorial dispute 2000-2004", " Russian Kuriles. History and Modernity", "How Japan stole Russian gold", " Putin and Japan. Will there be any concessions?" Being an active member of the public "Committee for the Protection of the Kuriles", I. A. Latyshev purposefully and consistently defended the integrity of the Russian Federation on its Far Eastern borders.

Participants of the conference paid tribute to the memory of I. A. Latyshev by standing up.

V. I. Saplin (Deputy Director of the First Asia Department of the Russian Foreign Ministry) in the report " Russian-Japanese Relations. Historical background and current trends" analyzed the development of Russian-Japanese relations in recent years. According to him, relations between Russia and Japan are characterized by positive dynamics in terms of both quantitative indicators and increasing the intensity of contacts. The" Russian-Japanese Action Plan "adopted by the leaders of the two countries in January 2003, covering all areas of cooperation, became the" road map " for expanding ties. The implementation of the plan is progressing consistently, although not in all directions at the same speed. In 2007, the Russian President and the Japanese Prime Minister met twice: during the Group of Eight summit in Germany (June) and the APEC summit in Australia (September).

The speaker stressed that both sides feel an objective need to build qualitatively new relations. Let's take such an area as energy supply. In its long-term energy program, Japan aims to ensure the diversification of energy sources. Geographically, its closest neighbor, Russia, has decided to switch a significant part of its energy exports to Asia. This creates an objective interest in this problem on both sides. Russian oil companies would welcome Japanese partners to join the development of East Siberian energy deposits, which would ensure Japan's right to receive them for many years to come. However, there are no real steps yet. Concerns related to-

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due to the risks of the Russian market, the lack of transparency of tax and customs practices, the long-standing habit of avoiding steps that could lead to dependence on Russia.

In conclusion, V. I. Saplin stressed that "the long-standing Japanese position of demanding the 'return' of the four southern Kuril Islands is unacceptable for the Russian side, which opposes the logic of the decision, which means in any form a revision of the results of World War II."

S. A. Ponomarev (deputy of the Sakhalin Regional Duma, coordinator of the deputy non-factional association " For the Russian Kuril Islands!") in his report "Information and psychological war of Japan against Russia on the" territorial issue" subjected to a comprehensive analysis of the forms and methods of information policy of Japan on the Kuril problem, tasks and ways to counter it. The speaker reported on the cartographic aggression of Japan: since 1969, the area of the four southern Kuril Islands has been included in the territory of Japan when calculating the total area of the country by the National Cartographic Administration. According to S. A. Ponomarev, the main way to counteract Japanese claims to the Kuril Islands is to improve them, accelerate their socio-economic development. The speaker suggested that the Russian Security Council adopt a plan of counteraction measures. According to him, "it is necessary to make public the fact of the economic and humanitarian blockade of the Kuril Islands by Japan (a ban on business activities and travel to the Kuril Islands for doing business to Japanese entrepreneurs; a ban on Kuril residents to enter Japan on visas). As reported by S. A. Ponomarev, in recent years, the Sakhalin Regional Duma has unsuccessfully sought the adoption of a decree of the Government of the Russian Federation on the recognition of September 3, 1945. The day of the end of the Second World War. According to him, it should be fixed in the Federal Law " On the Days of Military Glory (victory days)". Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR of September 2, 1945 and declare the day of September 3 an annual holiday.

Mikhail Krupyanko (IB RAS), in his report "The concerned reaction of the Japanese authorities to some of Russia's foreign Policy initiatives in the Far East", tried to refute the widespread opinion that the main stumbling block in Japanese-Russian relations is still the territorial dispute over the South Kuril Islands and the inability to conclude a peace treaty for this reason. At the same time, something else is also obvious today, the speaker noted: the ruling circles are more concerned about new pain points in relations with Russia than the unresolved territorial problem. Today, official Tokyo is concerned about three problems in the Russian direction: 1) Russia's rapid military rapprochement with China, which, according to the Japanese, seriously disrupts the strategic balance of forces in the Far East in the zone of its vital interests; 2) Japan's fear of increasing energy dependence on the supply of Russian resources to its market, the fear of being "in the hands of the Russians", which at any moment can block 3) Russia's unwinding of the spiral of an arms race in the Far East. Japan's military spending, amounting to about $ 40 billion. This is 5 times less than the total military budget of the Russian Federation and the PRC.

Tokyo was particularly concerned about the historic summit of the CSTO countries in Dushanbe (October 2007), which essentially announced the creation of the CSTO-SCO military-political bloc, a kind of Russian-Chinese NATO that could really challenge the United States and its allies in the Eurasian space.

The second group of problems that Japan is concerned about is the active use of raw materials diplomacy by the Russian side as a lever of political pressure. Russia, as you know, has announced two main routes for the construction of an oil pipeline from Eastern Siberia: one - in the direction of Daqing in the territory of the People's Republic of China and the other-from the Perevoznaya station near Vladivostok to the port of Nakhodka in the direction of Japan. The latter relies primarily on fast energy supplies from the continental shelf of Sakhalin, which is located in close proximity to its coast. However, the implementation of the Sakhalin project is also delayed. Of course, the speaker concluded, we would not like Japan to use the unresolved territorial dispute in our bilateral relations, as well as a certain fear of strengthening the Russian military potential in the Far East, as a far-fetched excuse for moving to a tough and unfriendly policy.

The Japanese authorities are taking urgent measures to prevent changes in the strategic field around Japan in the Far East, in the zone of its vital interests. First of all, this is

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It concerns Tokyo's efforts to seize Russia's initiative in rapprochement with China, including in the military sphere. In this regard, the speaker recalled the unscheduled visit of the Japanese Defense Minister to China in August 2007. This was the first such meeting in the last 10 years. According to Mikhail Krupyanko, the new Prime Minister Fukuda is expected to bring Japan closer to China, deliberately calling him a representative of the "left wing" in the LDP leadership in order to play along with the Chinese. It is also noteworthy that Abe, after taking office as Prime Minister in September 2006, paid a visit to Beijing, where he promised not to visit the Yasukuni Shinto Shrine, a symbol of Japanese militarism and nationalism, in the future. Fukuda has also already announced that he will refrain from visiting the Yasukuni Shrine. These statements were directly addressed to the Chinese leadership, which Japan does not want to annoy once again in the new conditions.

V. P. Zimonin (MGLU) in his report "Russia and Japan in the vicissitudes of the turbulent XX century" put forward a new original concept concerning the plans for unleashing the Second World War. Contrary to the well-established opinion that these plans were first born in Hitler's Germany, V. I. Zimonin argued that Germany was led to the deployment of world aggression by the policy of expansion to the continent carried out by Japan for many decades, which more than once contradicted the interests of Russia and other states. As the speaker noted, Hitler was still striving for power, and ambitious Japanese generals already had grandiose plans for world domination, according to which the Soviet Union was one of the objects of aggression. In conclusion, V. P. Zimonin noted that the Soviet Union was not to blame for the deplorable results of the war for Japan, including the loss of territories that modern Japanese leaders call "northern territories". "If the military-political leadership of militaristic Japan had accepted the terms of the Potsdam Declaration of the Allied Powers of June 26, 1945, which demanded its unconditional surrender, there would have been no war with the USSR, nor would Japan have lost Sakhalin and the Kuril Islands. Whether or not there was a Soviet-Japanese war depended entirely on Japan."

O. G. Paramonov (MGIMO University) In his report "Japanese-American cooperation in the military-political sphere in the context of Russia's interests (1991-2000)", the Russian Foreign Ministrystressed that the Japanese-American security alliance of the Cold War period was one of the links in the system of alliances created for the geopolitical environment of the USSR. According to him, in the first half of the 1990s. Tokyo saw the Russian military potential as a source of threat to regional stability, considering such negative scenarios as the loss of control of the federal center over nuclear potential or the loss of Russia's territorial integrity. After 1996, Japan had another source of concern related to the beginning of rapprochement between Russia and China in the political and military spheres. As the speaker noted, by the end of the 20th century, the Japanese-American alliance ranked second after NATO in the rating of its impact on regional stability. Unlike the latter, this alliance remained closed to other countries, and the level of transparency of the Japanese-American dialogue on military issues remained extremely low. This is due to a complex of reasons, for example, the fact that the main means of ensuring American security guarantees for Japan is the US nuclear potential.
O. A. Bazin (Moscow, Russia) in his report "The development of economic relations between Japan and Germany in the second half of the XX century", he noted that during this period, economic relations between Japan and Germany developed unstable, periods of convergence of interests of the business circles of the two countries were replaced by periods of increased competition between them. By the end of the 1960s, Germany had become Japan's most important economic partner in Western Europe and the main importer of Japanese products in the region. In the 1980s and 1990s, networks of Japanese industrial enterprises were built in Germany, but most of the Japanese investments were directed to the trade sphere of Germany. At the same time, the traditional problems of economic cooperation between Japan and Germany (unbalanced trade, closed Japanese market) remain unresolved at this stage.

V. O. Kistanov (Moscow) in his report "Some problems and trends in trade and economic relations between Russia and Japan" examined the dynamics and current state of Russian-Japanese relations. The most interesting part of the report was the analysis of serious problems and obstacles hindering the development of these relations. The structure of trade between the two countries has remained virtually unchanged for many years. Japan buys mainly non-ferrous metals, energy resources, seafood, timber from Russia, while Russia buys mainly non-ferrous metals from China.

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Japan-cars. Another problem is our crab export. As the speaker noted, the lion's share of our crabs is smuggled to Japan.

A serious problem is the reluctance of Japanese businesses to make large investments in the Russian economy, primarily in the manufacturing industry, and not in energy projects. In terms of total investment in the Russian economy, Japan ranked 10th among foreign investor countries in 2006. Nevertheless, despite the existing serious problems and obstacles, Russian-Japanese trade and economic relations in the 21st century have great potential and good prospects. But their implementation requires time and focused work. To do this, it is necessary to make sure that Russia becomes a truly attractive partner of Japan in various fields as soon as possible. And we must start by putting our Far East in order.

Summing up the meeting, A. M. Khazanov noted that the conference was very useful. It helped to highlight a number of important problems of Russian-Japanese relations in the past, present and future. The exchange of ideas that took place during the conference, he said, was very productive and will undoubtedly not only help practical organizations, but will also be an incentive for conducting new research on Russian-Japanese relations.

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